We Played Death Stranding 2 For 30 Hours - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: We Played Death Stranding 2 For 30 Hours – Detailed Summary

Release Date: May 8, 2025

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Introduction

In the episode titled "We Played Death Stranding 2 For 30 Hours," the Kinda Funny Gamescast hosts—Andy Cortez, Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., and Andy Cortez—delve deep into their extensive playthrough of Death Stranding 2. This summary encapsulates their comprehensive discussions, insights, and evaluations of the game based on their 30-hour gameplay experience.

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Overview of the Gameplay Experience

Blessing Adeoye Jr. shares his firsthand experience of playing Death Stranding 2 during a week-long event at Kojima Productions in Tokyo. "We were allowed to play up to 30 hours of the game," Blessing recounts (05:12). This intensive session provided the hosts with a substantial foundation to explore and analyze the game's mechanics, story, and improvements over its predecessor.

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Gameplay Improvements and Systems

The hosts highlight significant enhancements in Death Stranding 2, emphasizing the evolution of combat systems and environmental interactions:

• Combat Evolution: Unlike the first installment, where combat often led to punitive voidouts when players killed enemies, the sequel introduces "rubber bullets" that non-lethally incapacitate foes. Blessing notes, "Every bullet is a rubber bullet. You are just knocking people out for the most part" (10:05). This change transforms enemy encounters from dreaded obstacles to engaging strategic encounters reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid V.

• Dynamic Weather and Environmental Effects: The game boasts an advanced weather system, including day-night cycles, sandstorms, and rising tides. An impactful moment described by Blessing involves a "gatequake"—a seismic event that alters the game's terrain in real-time (13:03), enhancing immersion and challenge.

• Upgrade Systems and Tools: Death Stranding 2 offers a robust upgrade mechanism for both the player and vehicles. Blessing compares the backpack upgrade system to Skyrim, where repeated actions lead to skill enhancements. "There's a skill leveling system that reminds me of Skyrim in the way that the more you do something, the more that shit gets leveled up" (36:57).

• Glossary Integration: To aid newcomers and returning players, the game incorporates a glossary system similar to Final Fantasy 16's Active Time Lore, providing real-time definitions of game-specific terminology like "Dooms" and "Chiral Network" (18:05).

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Story and Characters

The narrative of Death Stranding 2 builds upon the original, offering a more streamlined and engaging story:

• Sequel Dynamics: Unlike Metal Gear Solid titles, which often reboot with new settings and characters, Death Stranding 2 maintains continuity by expanding the existing world. Blessing remarks, "This is really the first time, at least on this scale, that Kojima's made a direct sequel that is very much like" (73:01), allowing for iterative improvements.

• Character Development: The sequel introduces a richer and more interconnected cast. Key characters discussed include:

  • Doll Man: A puppet-like companion who provides both utility and personality, akin to Mimir from God of War. Blessing describes him as "fucking awesome" and highlights his interactive moments, such as drowning when entering water during a mission (27:18).
  • Rainy and Tomorrow: New characters portrayed by talented actors like Shioli Kutsuna and Elle Fanning, who bring depth and unique abilities to the narrative.
  • Neil: A character reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid boss fights, featuring "fireworks and crazy lighting effects" that culminate in an intense combat scenario (30:08).

• Story Progression: The game begins in Mexico, serving as a robust prologue, and transitions to Australia, where the majority of the gameplay unfolds. This geographical shift introduces diverse environments and story arcs, enhancing the global connectivity theme of the series.

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Comparisons to Other Games

The hosts draw parallels between Death Stranding 2 and other acclaimed titles to contextualize its innovations:

• Metal Gear Solid V & Phantom Pain: The non-lethal combat and strategic enemy engagements are likened to the tactical freedom in MGS V. Skill Up states, "It's definitely not like Metal Gear," clarifying that while inspirations exist, Death Stranding 2 maintains its unique identity (52:15).

• Skyrim: The skill and upgrade systems in Death Stranding 2 are compared to those in Skyrim, where player actions directly influence character development and gameplay style (36:57).

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Environmental and Technical Excellence

Kojima Productions has evidently pushed the boundaries in environmental design and technical execution:

• Visual Fidelity: The game leverages the Decima engine to deliver stunning visuals, even on base PlayStation 5 consoles. Blessing marvels, "The game is more beautiful. From a visuals perspective, it is absolutely insane" (20:03).

• Real-Time Environmental Changes: Events like gatequakes dynamically alter the landscape, requiring players to adapt their strategies on the fly (70:25). This level of environmental interaction enhances the game's realism and challenge.

• Attention to Detail: From realistic weather patterns to intricate character animations, the game's meticulous design is repeatedly praised. Snowbike Mike notes, "There's no other team doing things to that level" (75:05).

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Player Engagement and Community Interaction

The episode underscores the importance of player feedback and community engagement in shaping the game's development:

• Iterative Design: Death Stranding 2 reflects direct responses to player feedback from the first game, addressing criticisms and enhancing beloved features. Blessing emphasizes, "They definitely responded to that part of it in that this feels much more grab I would say" (47:16).

• Emergent Gameplay: The sandbox nature of the sequel allows for diverse playstyles and strategies, fostering a vibrant and dynamic gaming experience. Skill Up highlights the game's ability to accommodate both stealth-oriented and action-driven approaches (52:15).

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Concluding Insights

The Kinda Funny hosts collectively express high enthusiasm for Death Stranding 2, citing it as a potential Game of the Year contender:

• Transformative Experience: Blessing describes the game as "therapeutic" and "transformative," likening its serene exploration to classics like Fallout and Skyrim (35:13).

• Future Prospects: With endless hours left in their playthrough, the hosts anticipate further discoveries and enhancements, suggesting that the game's depth and breadth will continue to impress.

• Overall Praise: The episode concludes with unanimous praise for the game's advancements, storytelling, and technical prowess, positioning Death Stranding 2 as a significant evolution in the franchise and the gaming landscape.

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Notable Quotes

• Blessing Adeoye Jr.: "This game has it all. One of the things you're going to hear the most in the preview cycle for this game, which is the words Metal Gear Solid five" (09:28).

• Skill Up (Ralph): "Death Stranding two is very much Death Stranding. It's not a different game. It's you are delivering, you are doing all of those systems, but it's filtered through the quality, the depth, the fun of Metal Gear Solid five" (10:08).

• Snowbike Mike: "The combat's really good in a Phantom Pain kind of way. And like, the feedback, I'm like, yeah, it's like headshot in the slow mo stuff" (49:21).

• Blessing Adeoye Jr.: "Death Stranding one felt like you're just walking to Diamond City or trying to get over a mountain in Skyrim. This game is built around that experience" (35:13).

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Conclusion

"We Played Death Stranding 2 For 30 Hours" offers an in-depth exploration of the sequel's enhancements, storytelling, and gameplay mechanics. The Kinda Funny hosts provide a balanced perspective, highlighting both the innovative strides and the nostalgic elements that make Death Stranding 2 a compelling addition to the franchise. For fans and newcomers alike, this episode serves as a comprehensive guide to what makes the game a standout title in the gaming community.

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Timestamps

• [05:12] – Blessing discusses the 30-hour playthrough at Kojima Productions.
• [09:28] – Comparison to Metal Gear Solid V.
• [10:05] – Introduction of rubber bullets combat system.
• [13:03] – Dynamic environmental events (gatequake).
• [18:05] – Integration of a glossary system for terminology.
• [20:03] – Praise for the Decima engine and visual fidelity.
• [35:13] – Discussion on the therapeutic nature of the game.
• [36:57] – Comparison of upgrade systems to Skyrim.
• [47:16] – Improvement in game pacing and onboarding.
• [49:21] – Combat feedback resembling Phantom Pain.
• [52:15] – Avoiding direct comparisons to Metal Gear Solid.
• [73:01] – Maintaining continuity as a direct sequel.
• [75:05] – Technical and environmental excellence.
• [77:53] – Hosts express desire to continue playing despite not retaining saves.

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This summary has been crafted to provide a comprehensive overview of the podcast episode for those who have not listened, ensuring key points and discussions are clearly conveyed.

Transcript

[Greg Miller]

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[Snowbike Mike]

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[Andy Cortez]

Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Thursday, May 8, 2025. I am Andy Cortez and I'm joined by the Koji Pro Blessing Adioye junior Good day Andy. Good day. Blessing. Feels like yesterday.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

It feels like yesterday indeed. Because we're recording this yesterday.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, absolutely. This is the kind of Funny Games cast. Each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest previews, reviews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts to get all of our shows ad free. Watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show. For a chance to be a part of the show, submit your thoughts and opinions of Super Chats as we go. I mean you could still do that here, but this one has a big pre recorded element to it so we won't be able to read them live. I'm sorry apologies there, but you can also be maybe send in super chats for the following day. I'll let them know if you know.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Well here's the deal.

[Andy Cortez]

Give us a real obscure message and hope that they can guess. The following day I believe is also pre work.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Damn. But here's the thing. On Monday the plan is to do a death straining to all of your questions answered.

[Andy Cortez]

Wow.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Podcast preview podcast. So like if you have any big questions coming out of this preview, write them in on write them in on Monday and we'll be we'll talk all.

[Andy Cortez]

About them Massive housekeeping. Remember, Greg is rocking Pax East Thursday and you need to be a part of that today.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

That's today.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, that is today. At 11:00am Eastern Time, Greg's the keynote speaker kicking off PAX east and we'll be doing a fireside chat with final fantasy and Expedition 33's Benjamin Starr. At 2pm Eastern time he is hosting the Mafia the Old country panel with the devs.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

And both of those things, by the.

[Andy Cortez]

Time this comes out, have already happened.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

There you go. You can go back and watch the VODs.

[Andy Cortez]

Go back and watch them everybody. You're about to witness history this Friday. Tomorrow, Snowbike Mike, the most athletic man in his own mind, is embarking on the most daring quest yet, going step for step with Stam Porter Bridges in a literal marathon stream on a treadmill. Join Roger and Mike this Friday as they attempt to do a full playthrough of Death Stranding 1 through the weekend. But they can only do it with your support. Will Mike and Roger break this treadmill and have to drive to andy's home at 1am to borrow his find Off Friday on Twitch, I also got a random text from Roger saying hey, that four or five year old box of beanless chili, can you bring it to the studio? I might bring a couple of cans or so, but I'm not going to blow my beanless chili load on a stream. Like I'm sorry, these things are. They're artifacts at this point. Blessing.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Well, they've just been sitting there the whole time, right?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, but I mean like they're collecting.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Legacy, they're collecting legacy.

[Andy Cortez]

They're collecting dust and legacy. You know, we Remember we're in 11 person business all about live talk shows. Today you already got games daily and that was about something cool. I don't know what it was but maybe they delayed GTA 6 again.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Oh no.

[Andy Cortez]

After Gamescast is a sponsored stream where I'm going to be sitting here and we're playing that old Imperial game. I'm be playing with a Snowbike Mike and Nick Scarpino. We're going to be playing through that for quite a while. So that'll be a nice little sponsored stream. Hope you all tune in for that. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney Twining. Today we're brought to you by Imperial and Aura Frames and better help. But we'll tell you about that later. For now let's start with what is the topic of the show? Bless your gallivanting out there in Japan you got to visit Kojima Productions and got to play a decent chunk of Death Stranding 2.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I got to play up to 40% of Death too. So I was in Tokyo for a week at Kojima productions for about four days, essentially full time playing Death Stranding 2. They allowed us to play up to 30 hours of the game. I actually don't know where my final hour count is. I think technically on my demo station it must have hit at least 30 hours. But like we were getting lunches, right?

[Andy Cortez]

Go Pete.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

No, sit there and you play the game. No, but like, obviously, like, you know, there is times where I'm taking breaks. There's times or like at a certain point, me, Dane Racker and Skill up went off to record a little preview conversation that you're gonna hear later in the show. Because that is the second half to this episode, right? So this is gonna be chopped up into two chunks. This first chunk is gonna be me setting the stage for my own personal preview of Death Straining two and giving context for what you're going to get later, which is, yeah, me, Skill up and Dan Reichert talking all about our experiences with the game. Because for this kind of preview, which is unlike any other preview that I've experienced and unlike most other previews that I've ever heard of, right, like playing up to 30 hours of a video game this early in a preview fashion is bizarre. And I figured it'd be really cool to have a conversation with other people who got that experience as well so that like we can break down, we can get into the meat of it. Because between the three of us, that's about 70 to 90 hours of gameplay, depending on where we land, as far as how far we made it into the game.

[Andy Cortez]

And if this is your first time listening to gaming podcasts, or if you're just kind of interested in Kojima video games as a whole, the way previews usually work is you either play something at home locally or you fly out somewhere and you'll play something for anywhere from two to five hours. My Dragon Age Vale Guard preview was, I believe, a five to six hourish preview as well. But what they do is they say, let's shop you in the beginning where you kind of like, you know, getting your, your feet wet and then. Feet wet?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, you're getting your feet wet. Yeah. Oh good. That's correct. Good.

[Andy Cortez]

Get them feet wet.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

You know, I don't know where that comes from.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe the waters test out the waters.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Test out the water. So you're getting your feet wet.

[Andy Cortez]

And then we'll fast forward you to a different section of the game where you're a bit more geared up. And then we'll show you what it feels like to be level 50 in the game with. With all this other gear so you can get a kind of total representation of what your experience could be when the final product comes out. And this time they said, what have you just played? 30 something hours? Which is incredible. And again, I agree with you. Super odd.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Really, really, really odd though. This was one of the coolest slash weirdest preview events I got to take a part of. So like I mentioned up to 30 hours right there. Also, there isn't that many restrictions around what we can talk about. Like we can talk about story stuff. We can talk about like all the items, tools, upgrade systems. Like the. The only restrictions they gave us were like three story moments. We can't talk about licensed music and we can't talk about like the preppers in the game that deliver missions and like who appears and what's. And stuff like that. Outside of that, they're pretty open as far as like, you know, talk about whatever you want. Which there's a deeper conversation there as far as like, huh, you guys are very, very forthcoming with allowing us to talk about the game, which makes me wonder what's in the second half of the game because so much of what we played appeared in the trailers that we've seen for Destroying two as well. Gotcha. So I'm very fascinated about the back half of this game, but obviously this conversation isn't about the back half. We're Talking about that first 40% of the game that I got to play.

[Andy Cortez]

And you know what a lot of the conversation is that you had with Dan Reichardt and Skill up that you'll be seeing after when we get to our ads or whatever. You know what a good chunk of that conversation is because you were there and you're in the video.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

But you mentioned that there's a lot of other stuff that maybe you weren't able to get to in your death Shiny experience that you'd like to kind of, you know, speak about now.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Exactly. So that's what I want to spend this first about 20 minutes talking about. Right. It's the stuff I didn't get to get to in that conversation with me. Skill up in Dan Riker.

[Andy Cortez]

Tell us all about him. Bless.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Well, one more thing I want to mention too is that they didn't allow either. They didn't allow phones or laptops. Or anything electronic at the. At the PlayStations.

[Andy Cortez]

No shoes, only socks.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

No shoes, no socks. And so they handed out physical notebooks. And I have about 22 pages of notes.

[Andy Cortez]

That's awesome.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

That I took handwritten while playing this game. The place I want to start off with is one of the final notes I took during my last day of playing, which reads like this. I think this is going to be really hard to beat for Game of the Year. Everything is on point. The story, performances, depth in gameplay, music, fidelity, detail, fun, combat, spirit. This game has it all. One of the things you're going to hear the most in the preview cycle for this game, which is are the words Metal Gear Solid five.

[Andy Cortez]

No.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Oh God, don't do it to me legitimately. That's one of the things you're going to hear the most. I think a lot of people are going to make those comparisons and I think the important thing is to, I guess angle those comparisons in the correct way. And of course me and Skill up and Dan talk about it as well, where Death Straining two is very much Death Straining. It's not a different game. It's. You are delivering, you are doing all of those systems, but it's filtered through, I think a lot of the quality, a lot of the depth, a lot of the fun of Metal Gear Solid five. And I think one of the bigger changes that you. That you see in this game is the combat where you play. Death Training one.

[Andy Cortez]

Of course, yeah. And that's part of the OG review crew.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

No way.

[Andy Cortez]

We were on. We were on the. In the old studio with Fran Mirabella.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

No way.

[Andy Cortez]

It was a very different time.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Well, in Death Rating one, you remember encountering those enemy camps that are like the human camps, not the BTs and that sucked. Like you were. You would get there. And it is the thing of, okay, I'm running away from these guys.

[Andy Cortez]

All of them.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, you're a bull of them. In Death Rating two, they made a big change where every bullet is a rubber bullet. And so like you are just knocking people out for the most part.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

And they've turned these camps from the frustrating thing of death training, one that nobody really wanted to do, into essentially like Metal Gear Solid five, like you're infiltrating, you're sneaking through, you're taking people out with. With guns. You're basically solid snake in these camps now. And so it went from me kind of being like, ah, kind of dreading it a bit to now I'm excited to encounter a human enemy camp because they've provided you with so many tools. They provided you with different kinds of weapons. One of the first things I do as I'm approaching a camp is I will either create a tower with my pcc which is like the thing you use to build things in death stranding or usually somebody else on the network has already built one for me. And so I'll hop into that and mark every enemy and then I'll go.

[Andy Cortez]

So it's the same device that you use to make a bridge or a whatever. Yeah, anything in the game?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, anything in the game. Any of the big structures in the game you can use to make a watchtower. And then yeah, if you, if you use it, it'll like give you this tower view over an enemy camp. It automatically marks people. You don't even have to mark people yourself if you're using that tower. You can. If you're like on a high ledge or something and you like, you know, you're just scoping in. If you want to like tag people one at a time, you have that option. But what I did was yeah, I went to a watchtower, tagged everybody, went down, snuck in and I would either. Well, I'm mainly sniping them. I'm mainly going in because like at a certain mission I found a sniper that was a non lethal sniper and I'm like, let's fucking go. I can pick people off one by one and then as soon as somebody sees me it is machine gun, machine gun them down with my rubber bullets and then get whatever package or objective that I was trying to do.

[Andy Cortez]

And why can't you kill them?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Because that'll cause a void out. If you Remember Death Stranding 1. Killing people is very dangerous because the whole area will explode.

[Andy Cortez]

It's basically a big ass nuclear bomb that just kind of goes off. Creates a giant ass crater.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Exactly. So the combat feels very improved from Death Stranding 1. But even beyond that, right. And talking about the MGS5 of it, all the. The sandbox gameplay feels expanded. You know, there's more tools, there's more weather systems that are really cool. This game has a day night cycle which I forgot that death training one didn't have. There are sandstorms when it rains. The tide will rise in the rivers or lower rise. One of the first things that happened in my playthrough as I'm like making my way walking toward the first destination is there was a gatequake which are essentially like what they call earthquakes in the game. And the earth shook and then a piece of like the mountain that I was on crumbles down in front of me in real time. And that shit looked fucking cool.

[Snowbike Mike]

Whoa.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, that should look really cool.

[Andy Cortez]

It's similar to seeing how in though that most recent long ass trailer, the Kojima 10 minute one where we saw the. The avalanche and yes. The water breaking through the dam. You know, like it seems like they're going real deep with details like that.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Exactly. And so much of it feels, I think, finely tuned based off of what Death training one is a game, right. One is as a game which is walking around these beautiful environments delivering packages. Right. Like everything about death Raining two feels tuned towards making that experience more engaging and more fun and more interesting. So you have those weather effects real quick.

[Andy Cortez]

Just to get back to the infiltration portion of it. Were you ever at odds with having too much shit on your back and carrying too many things? And did you ever wrestle with man, I want to, I want to like infiltrate to see what's up with this little b enemy encampment. But I have 12 fucking box Amazon boxes on my back. How do I like, were you ever at odds of like, ah, maybe I should go deliver things first before I come back here.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

A lot of the missions that I ended up having, I wouldn't necessarily need to go. I oftentimes, if I'm infiltrating, it's because I need to get something out of there. So it's usually like I'll take people out and then grab what I need and then get out of there. Or yeah, if I, if I have a bunch of shit that I'm carrying, I either go around or like sometimes I'll just drop them off. Like, the vehicles aren't hard to come by once you get. Once you get far enough into the game. And so quite a few times I would just like stack everything in the vehicle and then go take out everybody in the camp and then come back and get my vehicle and then, you know, do my thing. And so there's strategies around it. We got to do like a group interview with Kojima as well. And that was one of the questions that he tackled was around like the camps and stuff. And he mentioned that like you'd watch people play and he would be surprised that more people just don't drop their shit and then do the camps. Like a lot of people apparently while play testing would just take their shit into the camps. And Kuji was like, oh, that's not what I anticipated. But all right, cool. Like play how you want to kind of.

[Andy Cortez]

Were you using a Lot of different vehicles. And what. Because we've seen a lot of different variety with that little paddle boat that he's got. We've seen the motorcycle and little trikes or whatever. What sort of things were you using in the game?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

A lot of trikes, a lot of larger vehicles. The game has a lot more pass through paths through upgrading like yourself and upgrading like vehicles and stuff. So there was one vehicle. You know how when you go into like one of the structures and you can like look at what other people have in the garage and kind of like take their vehicle because everything is is shared socially in the game. I was surprised when I found certain vehicles where I'm driving through and it has like a little auto turret in the thing and then also like a little thing to automatically grab packages. And so I'm driving in in this big truck and I'm seeing packages on the ground which of course you can pick up to then finish whoever's delivery who dropped the package. And I'm just automatically picking that shit up. And it made life really easy for me.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh yeah.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

But keeping it top level because one of the things I want to mention too is the fact that this is one of the rare Kojima direct sequels, if you know what I mean. So like to explain that further, when I talk about Metal Gear Solid, for example, Metal Gear Solid one and Metal Gear Solid two is obviously the same franchise, same series, but very like different. As far as the jump of you are now playing as Raiden, you are, you know, like kind of have a different feel of what A very different story. Familiar solid one. You hop into Metal Gear Solid 3 and it is. You are, you know, playing as Naked Snake. You're playing as Big Boss in a jungle sort of environment. Different feel. Meliosoid 4 feels very different from MGS3. Metal Gear Solid 5 feels way different from all the MGS games. Death training 2 in the first 30 hours or so of playing feels very much like a direct sequel to Death Training one in a way that I think has allowed Kojima Productions to really go very iterative as far as how you're making this game better. And I think it's way to its benefit. Again, that's not to say that something crazy doesn't happen in the second half because I don't know and I'm still kind of expecting that. But all the things that I'm talking about here, as far as what they've added into Destroying two, they feel like direct answers and reactions to what people might have wanted. Post death rating 1 so like I made like a list and I read this list on the conversation with Skill up and Dan. So I'm going to repeat this, right? But like, you know when you're talking about the ways that this game feels reactive to all the criticisms of death rating 1. Right. The combat is fun and engaging this time around. It gets you into the game quicker. Like the. There wasn't like long ass cutscenes to start this thing, right? Like immediately they're like, all right, here's a few shots of the environment to like set the tone. And now like you are walking to your first first mission. There's more dynamic weather and obstacles going on like I talked about. There's more tools and upgrade systems. The story feels easier to follow and more interesting. And I think that's the balance of shit is still weird. They're still working off of all the rules and everything set up in Death's Raining one. However, one of the things they've added here is a glossary system that works kind of like Active Time lore from Final Fantasy 16.

[Andy Cortez]

Awesome.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Where as soon as they mention anything weird, there's a button prompt that's like, do you want to read what are Dooms? Yeah, legitimately. What is Dooms? What is the Chiral Network? You know, like, what are BTs? What are. What's a. What's a BB? Like, a lot of these things are from death rating 1. But in case you've forgotten anything, here is a glossary that is letting you know in real time as they're mentioned in the cut scenes. The game is more beautiful. That was the first thing I noticed as I started the game up is like the. It starts off, like I mentioned, with shots of the environment. And for a split second I thought it was. I thought it was like real.

[Andy Cortez]

Raising your hand, Mr. Kutu. Is this real?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I. I legitimately thought I was like, are these live action? Like, is this footage of actual, like just shots of America? So like the game looks fucking fantastic. And we're playing on base PS PS5s. We're not playing on PlayStation 5 Pros. A couple days ago we did our reaction to the GTA 6 trailer. And one of the things that we talked about was like at the end of the trailer, dimension like Captured on. On PS5 from like base PS5. And I think either Roger or Mike were like, no way this is captured on base PS5. And for me, in my mind I'm like, based on what I saw off of off of Death Stranding 2, I believe it because the game looks Fantastic. The Decima engine is on full display here. The motion capture for the characters looks beautiful. The environments and like seeing the ridges of the mountains from far away and seeing the amount of definition of the amount of crazy lighting that I've seen in cutscenes in this game. This game is one of the most beautiful games I've ever seen in my life. From a visuals perspective. It is absolutely insane. The game is bigger. The soundtrack is better. There's more variety in the bts and ways to deal with them. The this game I feel like is the potential fulfillment of everything they wanted to set up in Death Training one. That's kind of where I. I left that list of things in my notes.

[Andy Cortez]

We saw like the 1.5 version with the Director's Cut.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And I thought was a really awesome move by them to kind of show that. Yeah, we kind of recognize that maybe doing a lot of this stuff isn't as fun as it can be. We'll come out with the Director's cut, introduce a lot new ability or not abilities, but new machines and ways of traversing the world, ways with dealing, ways of dealing with enemies and things like that.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yep.

[Andy Cortez]

And this sounds like the next logical step in Death Stranding.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yes. One of the things that Barrett was just showing was the monorail system where there are now like these like mines that you can open up these mind structures that are similar to like the big structures that you'll happen upon to like deliver packages. And the mine allows you to like mine materials and stuff. So you can. And you can then deliver those materials and yourself and your vehicles or whatever you want to. Using the monorail system to like the different cities and different locations and stuff.

[Andy Cortez]

One thing I want to ask real quick. When I was reviewing this before it came out, obviously a lot of Death Stranding is the strand game, the social game. You're. You're being helped and you're helping a lot of other people and you're seeing. It was all I. I've said a million times. It's always. It was always Danny O'Dwyer's that I was using because I would always see his stuff pop into the game. I don't know if that was just a location server based thing. I have no idea. But I was. That was such a massive part of it. Obviously with this preview, it's you and a bunch of other people in the games industry.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

How did they tackle that? Where you're not having a library full of the Internet putting up all sorts of bullshit to help you out with the game if it's you and just a bunch of other people, journalists.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

They had us playing on PS base PS5s. Like, I. Like I mentioned, we're all in like, a cafeteria. It's 30 different press people that are here for this event. And like, the accounts that we're playing off of are like, these like, accounts made for the preview. Like, they're just a random smattering of letters and numbers or whatever. Sadly, I couldn't play off of my own account. I couldn't keep myself. Which sucks because, like, it felt like the final build. Even though they did say that, like, this isn't the final build. We're going to update more before we ship the game. But if they didn't say that, I would have been like, oh, this is the final game. Like, it felt very finished when I first started playing. It felt like there are like, pre canned, like just random names or random, like, default, I guess, like, like characters or accounts that would fill in those social. Like, here's a bridge, here's a, you know, a. A line to drop down, or here's whatever. As I. As I kept playing, I started seeing those random smattering of numbers and letters that look similar to the account that I was using. So I'm pretty sure those were the other press people.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay, cool.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, so, like, it. It was a slow build at first, but yeah, I think sort of more and more things started populating more and more that I was like, oh, this is clearly other people that were here for this event, which is pretty cool.

[Andy Cortez]

Did they give off anything that, like, revealed in any way? Why we shouldn't have connected was a big theme in the trailer because, like, the connection portion. That may be getting too spoilery, but the connection portion of Death Stranding was we connect. We help each other. This game is very much about, you know, helping out your. Your fellow neighbor or whatever. Yeah, that was. Was there any sort of reveals that showed you, oh, this is what they're taking away from us this time around or something.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

So this is to shift into the story portion of this, which is the thing that I. We didn't really get to set it up well during the conversation that we had later in the episode regarding the should we have connected? Thing. One of the things that Kojima talked about during the. His. The group interview that we did with him was. Was about, like, how much the game sort of changed during the pandemic and like, how some of his ideas even changed during the pandemic as far as, like, connection and how important it is to be in person and have those, like, he called them, like in real life coincidences of when. When you hang out with somebody in person versus online, where even though you have that connection, it still feels segmented. There's something. And this is. He also. He kind of, kind of talked about this being the reason why he wanted to have this like, in person physical event where people fly out for four days is like, you know, he wanted people to be in person with each other. He wanted people to like, hang out and meet each other and have these coincidences and all this stuff. Right. I say all that to say that, like, I could see there being the. I guess either. I guess the leaning in of. Oh, yeah, should we have connected because of that? Right. As far as what it means to be in person with each other, there are things that happen in the game that I could see being that. But I feel like for me, in the time that I had with the story, I didn't really get the. Oh, this is like the exact, like, big mistake or. Yeah, this is a big mistake. I could see us getting there, though. Like, there are things that are built where I'm like, okay, I could see how this could possibly ramp up keeping on the story. So you start off, right. Of course, you're playing a CM Porter Bridges. One of the first missions has you just like going home after a hike, right? And you get home and you meet up with Fragile. You know, Fragile. She's like the. The leader of the Fragile Express.

[Andy Cortez]

But I'm not Fragile.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

We have a conversation with her and in that conversation she says, sam, I want you to go to Mexico.

[Andy Cortez]

Huh?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

And then you go to Mexico. Oh, that's. That's where the game starts. The game starts with sending you down to Mexico. Oh, yeah. And you, you start off the game by reconnecting Mexico to the Chiral Network. Because the. So of course, in the first game, you connect the UCA via the Chiral Network. It was the whole big thing that you did because the Chiral Network is online. There are now these essentially like, AI delivery services. There's a name for it. I wrote it down. You have the APEC, the Automated Public Assistance Company, and they produce the APAS 4000, which is the Automated Porter Assistance System.

[Andy Cortez]

So they're taking our jobs.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

They're taking our jobs. Fragile Express no more. Ah, yeah. Fragile Express went out of business because you have all these automated delivery systems now in the usa. Guess what, though, you don't have that in other countries. And so you go to Mexico, reconnect Mexico things happen. And then I'm. I'm jumping around because I don't want to spoil actually cool shit. Things happen that lead you to Australia.

[Andy Cortez]

Just. Just a quick hop, skip, jump away.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Hop, and skip to Australia. Because there are these things called plate gates that have opened up, which are essentially these ways that you can transport to different continents. The bulk of this game, at least what I played, takes place in Australia. Whoa. Mexico kind of works as the prologue, or like a beefy prologue, really. I was there for about five hours of game time. And then you then get led to Australia. And Australia is where most of this game takes place.

[Andy Cortez]

Wow. I would not have expected that.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah. I don't want to get more into story. I'm sure a lot of other people are going to cover story bits because they do not hold us back in terms of what we can talk about. But, like, story is cool. What I do want to talk about.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm just looking at the characters you're writing down. I'm not going to say them, but this is.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Well, that's the thing, is that now I want to get into characters because I think the characters are more fascinating thing here where you have Doll Man. Doll Man. Of course, you've seen Doll man in the trailers. He's the puppet.

[Andy Cortez]

10 frames per second.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

That goes at 10 frames per second. Domain is fucking awesome. He has a great personality. He functions sort of like Mimir from God of War, where he's just on your waist. He's just hanging out with you the. The whole time. There's a backstory that. That. That explains his existence. That's like two sentences. And when they said it, I was like, oh, that makes sense. That's awesome. As I was like, oh, okay. No, you explained it.

[Andy Cortez]

Say no more.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, say no more. That's all he needs to say. But he's fucking awesome. One of the things that Dan Riker told me during his gameplay, because sometimes, like, he'll talk to you. Doll man will, like, be on your waist and, like, give you suggestions or, like, say little things. Apparently, while Dan Reichert was playing, Dan was, like, about to cross a river, and Dolman was like, are you sure you want to. Then, like, as his waist went into the water, Doll man starts, like, it starts drowning water. And Dan was like, it was really cool.

[Andy Cortez]

That is such a Kojima detail, you know?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, exactly. There's Tar Man. Tarman is the pilot of the DHV Magellan, which is a drawbridge strip, not ship. Drawbridge is essentially the new Fragile Express. Right. It's her. It's Fragile's new company that she started. The draw. The DHDHV Magellan basically looks like a head of a metal gear.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, that's what we saw in the trailer.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, but it's a ship and it's a.

[Andy Cortez]

It looks like.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Exactly. And there's cutscene that happens with Tar Man. That's awesome. I love the character work this time around. It feels like they put in a lot more work into like making these characters one feel a bit more like a family because it. It has more of a. I'm putting together a team vibe in Death Training two and then Death Training one. Destiny one felt like you're kind of like traveling and meeting these people, but then after the chapter's over, you meet the next person Here you're building the team of Drawbridge, essentially. Or you start off meeting them, but then you bring people in as you go.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, I feel like I was already sold, you know.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

You have Rainy, who is played by Shioli Kutsuna. She has one of my favorite performances in the game. I won't say much about her story, but like her backstory is cool as well. You have Tomorrow, who's played by Elle Fanning. She also has one of. One of my favorite missions in the game. And she's cool as. There's Neil, who is the solid snake looking character that we've seen in the trailers. He also had one of the coolest moments in. In the preview. And it's one of the. It was one of the ones that everybody talked about by day three of the preview where everybody's like, yo, you get to the Neil stuff. You get to the Neil stuff. It starts off essentially like you are in. You know how with Mads Mikkelsen in the first game you have those pocket dimensions. Yeah. Things that you go into. You kind of had that with Neil in this game where you enter and there are just fireworks going off and like crazy lighting effects happening everywhere. And then Neil shows up and it does the thing where like his face flashes like. Like skull type shit right here. Showing it here, this happens. And then you get into a boss fight with him. And it's the most MGS for MGS 4 coded boss fight of all time.

[Andy Cortez]

That's awesome.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah. You then have Charlie, who's a mannequin man. And I won't say much about Charlie. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

So I'm in the trailer too. But we're like the way that the character animated the mouth. Like it was drawn on almost.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

Kind of. Yeah, That's Right.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

That's Charlie. Those are some of the major new characters. Thank you very. Won't say much about him because I don't want to. I just don't want to say much about. Of course, you know, But Charlie's fucking cool. Other things. So that's just story and characters there. Other things. Real quick, before I pass off the conversation to me, Skill up and Dan. There's a music player in this game. I love this music player. I can't talk about what the license tracks are, but I will say, overall soundtrack, fucking phenomenal. I love the license songs. There are some songs that I kept playing back. Like, you can make your own playlist within the game. And there are certain songs where I was like, I'm having this on repeat, man.

[Andy Cortez]

I remember calling in Pequod and getting the.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Hell, yeah. It has that feel where it's like, oh, man, they really nailed it with. With the. The soundtrack. And, like, the soundtrack only plays if you're within the Chiral Network, which is some Kojima boy.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah. But I like it, though. There was a mission where I had to deliver a kangaroo to an animal shelter, and fiery comets started raining from the sky. And the fire effects in this game look insane. Again, I can't say, sir, is this real? I can't say enough good about the Decima engine, how well this runs. I think the BTS are creepier this time around. There are big floating ones called Watchers that creep me the out, but you have a lot more tools to deal with them. There's this blood boomerang that I unlocked. Oh, shit. Yeah. Partway through the game where basically, like, you inject this boomerang with your blood and you can throw it and then catch it. And I was like, that became my primary way of dealing with the bts. Oh, speaking of, sir, is this real? There was a random delivery I was making, right, where an airship flies over me that I've never seen before and drops a bunch of, like, men made of tar, essentially. And they attacked me. Like, they, like, ran at me and blew up on me. And I don't know what that was.

[Andy Cortez]

Was it like the hands that grab your feet?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

Was it like those dudes like, that kind of material?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, that kind of material, yeah. But they dropped out of an airship and it happened. It wasn't a mission. It wasn't like. It wasn't a main mission. It was, like random suborder, you're saying, almost like the Ganon Arms and Tears of the Kingdom, where it's kind of like you're just randomly in the world and they just come at. But it only happened once and I didn't. The people who I talked to didn't experience. Like, I asked Dan, I crazy. Literally I looked at this real and I was like. I was like, hey, Dan. There was an airship that just flew over me and it dropped a bunch of like tar men and they attacked me. Did you see this? And Dan's like, no. What the fuck are you talking about? I'm like, all right, cool. All right, cool. There was a mission where I delivered a pizza, but I had to deliver at night. At night to keep. To keep it cool or sorry for Roger. Pizza ingredients, I should say.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, okay.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Because then the next mission, I delivered the pizza.

[Andy Cortez]

Any licensed food, snacks, drinks, monster energy drink.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I don't think I can talk about that.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah. That's all. That's pretty much all the stuff that I wanted to get out before the conversation with me, skill up and Dan.

[Andy Cortez]

This is crazy for you to be like, it's going to be really hard to beat this for Game of the Year if it continues on.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

If it continues on this. I had such a good time. I recorded for Greg Way today an hour long about daily diary that I made, right? So like after every day of playing the game, I'll come back to my hotel and record about 10 to 15 minutes of me just talking about my day in death training too. And I stitched together into a video and that is up right now as a Greg Way. People want to check it out, but one of the things I talked about during that is how therapeutic this game was where, you know, say what you want about like, the action's better, right? It's more. It's more engaging, it's more fun, yada, yada. One of the special things I think this game does and Destiny 2 just enhances on is the therapeutic feeling of just being in a world that is kind of serene and just being about walking from place to place, right? Like, it reminds me of playing Fallout and just like being in those in between points of. I'm just walking to Diamond City or I'm playing Skyrim and I'm just like trying to get over this mountain or whatever. It's a game that is totally built around that experience and legitimately, like, I felt rejuvenated like. Like I'm 25 hours into this game and I'm like, I don't want to stop playing this. I just want to play this game and relax, right? Like, I was kind of dreading this at first because I knew I wasn't going to get to take my save home. And I was like, I don't want to play 30 hours and then have to replay the 30 hours for the review. I am looking forward now to replaying those 30 hours and just living in death training too. Like, I don't know how it kind of like opened up my heart in this way, but it legitimately was a transformative. Highest praise I think you give is that you put 30 hours into a.

[Andy Cortez]

Game and you're like, yeah, I'll do that all over.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I'll do it so easily. Yeah, Like, I can't wait to get back to it.

[Andy Cortez]

And before we get to Skill up and Dan Reichard and you, right after the word from our sponsors, I wanted to ask how many times were there where you were talking to other journalists or other people at this event, other press, and you all had not experienced what the other had experienced?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Oh, that's a really good question. I think quite a bit. I. This open world feels a bit more like, refined and inspired than destroying one's open world, right? Like, it feels like things could happen a bit more in the moment. Like I mentioned the Tarmian Tar Men dropping down from the drop ship thing, right? Like, there are quite a few. It feels a bit more. I don't want to say fuller because it's still an empty big world, right? But, like, it feels like things can happen a bit more in the moment. It feels like gameplay can be a bit more emergent this time around than in previous death strandings. And yeah, I. It's not like there are events happening left and right necessarily, but in talking to Dan and like hearing about how he played versus hearing about how what Skill up did in his time, we all sort of had our different stories about how we tackled certain things and the ways in which we were playing and the tools that we're using. I think that's one of the bigger things is, like, the amount of different tools they give you. I don't even talk about the stat system. They have like a stat leveling, leveling up system that reminds me of Skyrim in the way that the more you do something, the more that shit gets leveled up, right? Like there's. There's like a backpack patch system where, you know, Resident Evil has this inventory system where you have to arrange things based off, like, their shape or whatever. Your backpack. You can now put on like these patches onto your backpack that'll upgrade, like, your actual skill or like, I guess, upgrade backpack shit, right? Like there was one patch I put on there that made my backpack lighter because it was like a weight patch or whatever.

[Andy Cortez]

Talismans or whatever.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, talismans. Yeah. That's a really good way to put it. There's that. There's like a skill tree sort of system here as well. Just a lot of shit in here that will change the way each player tackles the game. And so in transitioning to the second half of this conversation, like I mentioned talk to Dan and Skill up between us, we probably have around 70 to 90 hours of play time in this game. It was a really good conversation. We recorded this conversation early on the final day. So we didn't. We didn't even finish our like with the game yet. It is early on the final day. Shout out to PlayStation for giving us a place to record because we weren't allowed to record anywhere in Kojima Productions. And so in wanting to do this like we asked somebody from PlayStation, they're like, oh yeah, the Sony offices are around the corner so you're going to see like a PlayStation logo on the wall. That's because we're recording in like a meeting room in PlayStation this conversation. And yeah, we like we. I even kicked out the PR person because I was like, hey, we want to make this like a private conversation between the three of us. And yeah, it was a really good conversation that I think you guys are really going to enjoy.

[Andy Cortez]

That's really darn cool. Well, I can't wait to hear all about you, Dan Reichardt and skill ups experience with a whole bunch of hours of Death Stranding 2. And we'll get to that right after a word from our sponsors.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

This episode is brought to you by Imperial. We've told you all how important it is to developers to wishlist games that you're interested in. So if this sounds cool to you, make sure you wish list it. Imperial is a complex feature rich action RPG where you'll be sent to a planet in a far off corner of the galaxy to explore an imposing monolith. As an elite mercenary, you'll join the expedition tasked with unearthing the Secretary secrets of the monolith and face off against the deadly automatons within. In Imperial, you'll explore four vastly different quadrants of the monolith, accessible only by using mysterious artifacts known as cardigrams. Each cardigram affects which enemies, boss fights and loot will appear when you enter the monolith, so no two excursions will be the same. Find even more cardigrams to explore by looting defeated enemies or buy them from other players online at the Trading post. Imperial features 33 Weapon archetypes the fast paced Acrobatic Glaive, the defense focused Mace and Shield, or the Devastating Cannon with a range of customizable skills and abilities that can make short work of the awaiting automatons. Your weapons and abilities can be changed before any excursion into a cartogram, so if a loadout isn't working for you, you can mix things up to create the perfect playstyle, help the members of the expedition in deep branching quests, and aid other players in asynchronous multiplayer. Get ready mercenaries. The Monolith awaits. Imperial is available May 8 on PC Xbox Series X and S and PS5. Wishlist now it helps so much. Wishlist Imperial this episode is brought to.

[Dan Reichert]

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[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Welcome to Tokyo, Japan. I'm one of your hosts Blessing Adioye Jr and I'm joined by the one and only Dane Reichert.

[Snowbike Mike]

Hello.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

How's it going, dude? It's going awesome. We're in Tokyo for a week.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's been a week.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

It's been a week.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yes.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah. We, of course also have Ralph, AKA Skill Up Ralph. How's it going, dude?

[Skill Up]

I wonder if this is actually my first time appearing on Kana.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I know we were talking about that.

[Skill Up]

I remember. Any other times?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Skill Up]

I hope it's not the first time. I feel like I wish it wasn't.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I think it is. Yeah.

[Skill Up]

I think. But I'm glad.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I mean, it's definitely not gonna be the last time, of course. Like, it's been such a fun Tokyo trip. Right. We've been here for a week for probably the most unique preview opportunity that I've gotten to be a part of.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh. In terms of just sheer gameplay quantity, I mean, yeah, they told us we're gonna play, like 30 hours the game, and we are on the last day right now. And, yeah, we're coming on like 24 hours in game timer right now.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yep. Sam.

[Snowbike Mike]

Insane. Yeah.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

So there's so much to talk about, right, to set the stage a little bit. Of course. We are here in Tokyo at Kojima Productions to play death straining 2. We're not recording from Kojima Productions. We're recording from a remote location. But, yeah, we played death straining 2 for up to 30 hours. Is essentially the pitch to it, I think. Yeah, I'm somewhere where Dan's at as far as over 20 hours at this point. Ralph, I don't know how long you. You've been playing or if you want.

[Skill Up]

To say it deliberately. Slowed myself down because I was like. I got to a point where I'm like, this is really good. I love it. I don't want to spoil any more of it for myself because I had to do the whole thing, do the full review and I wanted to keep the rest of the surprises in store for myself, if you know what I mean. So I have stopped at before you guys.

[Snowbike Mike]

Well, I don't think they talked to you then because today I came in, I had the same idea where it's like, okay, today I'm just going to mess around with some systems, I'm going to build, I'm going to fabricate every item, do a bunch of side stuff and see what that unlocks. And I was doing that and somebody from consumer productions came up to me and they're like, oh, you know, this is the last day. So if you just want to focus on the story. And I told him, I was like, well, I was just going to run around, check out some combat stuff and everything. Well, no, there is a specific story beat that we want you to get really over. So it's like, oh, okay. So I just went back and now I'm just going to beelining. We have several hours left to play. So I don't know what that story beat is because we've seen a lot already. There's a lot of story beats that have happened.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

So. So the reason why I wanted to have you guys here to record a conversation about Death Raining two is it's the fact that yeah, this is a unique preview opportunity. We're here in Tokyo. We played up to 30 hours of the game. Right. For us, I think 20 something hours. And then Ralph said a little bit under. And this is one where there's so much to chew on and so much to talk about. And I figure one of the best ways to talk about it would be with other people that have actually played the game because that's going to allow for the deepest dive possible for kind of funny at the very least, right?

[Snowbike Mike]

It's a very fun one to discuss with people as these days have ended and we go back to the hotel and stuff and we're talking about it like. And it keeps surprising me today Blessing. You just kind of like take your headphones off and you're like, hey Dan, have you seen like this spaceship that just flies by and a bunch of like our animals fall out of it from the sky? It's like, what is this a story being like, no, it just happened. It's like, oh, okay, sure.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Exactly. So the plan for KF content is I want to do like a traditional preview with the crew. We're going to do your, your questions answered thing. I also Have a Greg Way project that I hope comes together in the way that I'm editing it. Right. But this is what I want to kind of lead with. Right. Is a conversation with these guys. So getting into it. Death Training too. Let's start. Let's start with Ralph. Ralph, how has your time been with the game so far?

[Skill Up]

I mean, I think for me personally, I come into Death Stranding 2 with a. With a perspective that like death training one was perfect. Right. I fundamentally believe that and I believe that from the very start. And I think there's been a huge kind of revision of that game. The way it's talked about over the years where it got a very mixed reception at launch. And then I think after that people sat with a little bit and I think now everyone realizes that, yeah, actually that was a really fucking good beer.

[Snowbike Mike]

It was a director's cut where it's like myself being included. That's when we kind of came back and reevaluated it, said, okay, like removed from all the hype, removed from all the mystery of like what is this game going to be come back and on its own terms played. And I think a lot of people came around.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, that's all worked for me as well.

[Skill Up]

Right. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah. So coming into Desktrending two with that kind of love for the original, I was very much like, okay, so how are you going to change this up? I hope it doesn't change too much. But then at the same time, obviously there are a bunch of people who do want this to evolve in some way and whatever else. So my kind of like high level takeaway after like 20 plus hours of play is that like, I think desktrending one was always perfect, but it took people a while to realize that. And I think Death Straining two is the same, but it helps people realize why it's going much faster.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, it gets into it because like the first one took. So you have to establish so many things in that first game. Like why are we eating these little bugs? Why are people crying? What is chirillium? And all this stuff. And like the first one established all that.

[Skill Up]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

So when this one starts, it is such a strong opening. I think everyone I've talked to agrees, like you're just, you know, getting into Sam's Shelter where he's living with Lou and it's playing this incredible Wood Kid song and it's just an incredible start to the game. Like there's not like some long, you know, 20 minute build up or anything. Like a lot of junior games do.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

You're just kind of going right away.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

True.

[Snowbike Mike]

And it's less kind of like pain in the ass with the like leaning and falling down and stuff like that.

[Skill Up]

Which is more forgiving on that front for sure.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. It's more immediately accessible than the first one.

[Skill Up]

Definitely.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Great.

[Skill Up]

I think they. I think some people would have not enjoyed the pacing of the. Of the first game, thinking it's too slow or frustrating, whatever else. They definitely responded to that part of it in that this feels much more grab I would say.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Skill Up]

Just a smoother onboarding. And the overall pacing of the game is definitely better for sure. Yes. If you wanted a game that was moving at a steadier clip and giving you better feedback more often, more cutscenes, whatever else, this is definitely delivering on that front. And I think that that's definitely a thing that I've noticed.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah. It's funny because it's almost very non Kojima like in that way of how quickly they get you into the game and how quickly they kind of onboard you. And I think for me, if I'm talking about my top level takeaway of Death Training two, it feels like death straining one except with all the feedback taken into consideration of what people might not have enjoyed as much in Death.

[Snowbike Mike]

Training one I think it's taking that feedback into account and also what people did enjoy about like the Phantom Pain. Yes, there's a lot of Phantom Pain going on.

[Skill Up]

That's an interesting part because I've heard a lot of people say that like that's definitely been a big discussion point and I wonder what has said. How do you come to that conclusion?

[Snowbike Mike]

So the main thing that makes me think that is in the first game I was very much. I tailored my gameplay to avoiding combat encounters or not even combat encounters, just enemy camps and stuff. Because you were so discouraged from like you'd get guns and stuff. But it's like well if you kill that guy, you got to almost take his body to a lake or something like incinerator. There's a void out and it's just like. So I. It very much frustrated me that like okay, there's these enemy camps and stuff. But like I'm not great at stealth and you know, I'm not going to kill these guys. So I guess I'll try to bowl a gun or something. This one. It took a while for me to realize that like kind of all the weapons you get without exception so far that I've seen are non lethal rubber bullets. It's. But I Mean, you're using them like an assault, right? It's called assault rifle. You get a tranq grenade launcher. So you're like shooting grenades that are like. They'll make vehicles explode and everything. But, like, you can play it like an action game. So, like, now if I see a band of camp, I am looking forward to because, like, okay, I'm going to build a watchtower here. I'm going to spot everyone. Or use doll man, which we'll get to that. Doll man's my guy.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Doll man's awesome.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'll tag all these dudes and everything. And I'll try the stealth thing. It's kind of like how I would play lastima. So try stealth. I'd maybe get one or two kills and then things would go to. And then it's like, all right, guns blazing. And you can do that in this one. And I don't feel like you could do that in the first one. And like, the combat's really good in a phantom pain kind of way. And like, all the feedback, I'm like, yeah, headshot in the slow mo stuff.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I think that's the. For me, the easy comparison when you want to talk about how Phantom Pain might influence this game is the combat feels like phantom pain light almost. Right. Like, I don't think it's as to the level of stealth and combat to Phantom Pain, but there is the feel of. All right. There's an enemy encampment, which in this best rating one you would avoid. Right. It was way more about the enemy camps being an obstruction to what you're doing. Right. As opposed to death rating to the enemy camps. It feels like a. All right, cool. We're going to go in and take everybody out. It almost feels like a fart ride. Almost feels like a faint and pain in that way.

[Snowbike Mike]

And actually that leads to. One of the more interesting things I've seen here is that an early on part of the game has a bandit camp that has a missable important cutscene that I think most people saw it and I did not see. And it sounds like you go into this bandit camp and there's a bunch of these red ninja guys, including everyone's describing to me, I haven't even seen this yet. It just sounds like gray fox killing people, basically. Gray fox killing. And I would like that. Like one of my favorite scenes of all time in the first one, when you walk in, you see the bloody hallway and all that stuff. And I missed it because I was so accustomed in the first game, like, oh, it's Vanic Camp. I'm going to like step my markers around this and then go across the river. So I didn't see it. And then I was asking Kojima Productions people and they're like, oh, no. If you got fast and you didn't see it, like, you can't. So this awesome, like ninja guy.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I've never.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm 30 hours in almost. I haven't seen this guy yet, you know.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Ralph, what's your take on the. I mean, I think.

[Skill Up]

Yeah, because I know a lot of people are talking about this and I know a lot of people will talk about this in the coverage and I think that I would. I would hate for anyone to kind of walk away from a preview and be like, oh, so destroyed 2 is basically like Phantom Pain 2. And it's like, it's definitely not like. I think that fundamentally this is still a game about delivering packages, right? It's still a game about you and the open expanse and it's quiet and pensive and that's the vibe of it. But I think in addition to that, there's now this very optional combat layer. Most of the time it's optional and even when you are forced to engage in that combat, it's very surface level combat, you know, like we did this boss encounter at one point, which again, won't spoil. Incredible visuals like, holy fucking shit. It is like basically impossible. This thing runs this well on a PS5. The Decima engine is like straight up black magic.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yes, it should be a little. That's the thing to note is we played this on base PS5s and I've seen some of the best looking I've ever seen.

[Snowbike Mike]

The amount of stuff in this sequence, you're talking about, the amount of stuff going on. And when you play it, folks, you'll know exactly what we're talking about. It's just like, oh, how is this possible?

[Skill Up]

I totally agree, but the point I was making was that like, it looks incredible from a gameplay perspective. Super simple. It's just like, just pop out of color. That's the whole thing, right? And I think that is still the core of this experience where. As in. As in exploring, moving from place to place, delivering parcels still, this is still death stranding, right? But now you just have this other stuff where you can do a little bit of lightweight, very flashy, very like impressive looking combat. Definitely not about that, I think. And I. That's kind of where I'm. That's what I want to.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

That's where you diverge from the Metal Gear Solid Five there.

[Skill Up]

I think those comparisons, I think, are going to lead people astray because they're going to hear so much about Metal Gear and they think, oh, cool, this is Metal Gear.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

It's not.

[Snowbike Mike]

It does give me a bit of the same thing where it's like in Phantom Pain, you would get stuff like, oh, the rocket fist thing. It's like, all right, I'm going to go check. Try this thing out.

[Skill Up]

Yes.

[Snowbike Mike]

And now it's like, oh, Sam, here's the. A blood boomerang. And you put your own blood into a boomerang that can kill bts. And that's the thing with, like, BTS is in the first one, there are so many elements of the first one that were, like, almost intentionally a pain in the ass from, like, BTS and having to, like, you know, hold your breath and the baby and stuff like that. And you can still do that if you want to sneak through, but also you can just go in there, blood boomerang or a blood grenade, and just fuck them up. And, you know, it doesn't. Yeah, you can play like that.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

And I think that's where. Because I understand where both Ralph and Dan and like, everybody comes from as far as where they land on the Phantom Pain thing. I think I swing towards Ralph when you're talking about the level of combat versus how much the game is still about walking and still about delivering. But then I think there is a sandbox nature of Death Training two that is expanded upon that does once again remind me of the sandbox nature of Fan Pain and my hot take coming out of this. And I wrote this right before we left Kojima Productions to come do this is. I think there are parts of this open world that are just way better than Fan of Pain's open world as far as what they're doing as far as, like, the emergent nature of it. Like, I. So again, we're here. We're here for four days of playing this game. Day one and two for me, my gameplay and I think for our gameplay as well, right. I spent so much of that time just doing, like, story stuff and seeing, like, all right, where does. Where's the story going to take me? How far can I get in this thing? All day yesterday, right? All day on day three of playing this. I just spent my time in the sandbox, like, just delivering, doing the suborders, doing, like, side quests, hanging out in the world. And I don't want people to think that I'm saying that this is Breath of the Wild or Elden Ring. But like, to Dane's thing of what you mentioned earlier of I take off my headphones at one point today and I look at you and I'm like, yo, have you seen this?

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

And you're like. And I explained it to you, and you're like, is that tied to a story? Story, mission? I'm like, no, it's just a thing that happened.

[Snowbike Mike]

There's. You killed me. We were in dinner last night and you told me this anecdote that I'm still thinking about. And it's that a good chunk of this game, most of what we play is set in Australia. And so there's.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

There's. So there's so much to set the stage of what's going on. This right too. Which we should do in a second. But, yeah, go for it.

[Snowbike Mike]

So you're in Australia and there's an animal shelter, and there is, like, you know, nice animals around this world and everything that you can, like, Sam can go up to them and, like, button prompt. Put them in a little thing and, like, take them to animal shelter and they can live their lives peacefully. And the way I think most people have been doing it is sneaking up and going, hey, buddy, get in this little box. I'll take you home. You didn't know that was possible.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I didn't know you could do it like that. Because I think I maybe I just. I thought I was close enough and I wasn't close enough to get the button prompt. But I was like, all right, I know I'm supposed to be rescuing these animals. How am I? There's a kangaroo right there.

[Skill Up]

Exactly what they started.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

There's a kangaroo right there. How do I save this kangaroo? And so I bust out my assault rifle and I save an animal. Yeah. And I've got. Here's the thing. Here's the thing, right? It's not cruelty because these aren't real bullets. As a reminder, it's all rubber bullets in this game that knock people out. So in my mind, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna knock out the kangaroo with my rubber bullets and save it. And that's exactly what happened. That kangaroo is saved.

[Skill Up]

I have heard, and I don't know if this is true, but I had. Someone did tell me that the kangaroo can punch you.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, awesome.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Really?

[Skill Up]

Someone else? So I'm not sure if they were having a joke with me, like, ah, let's tell the Australian this thing. But I though they seem serious.

[Snowbike Mike]

They seem serious.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

That's fucking awesome.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's funny. And in telling all These stories, like, I ran into something I don't. I haven't heard anyone else where, like, doll man, you saw him in the trailer. He's. He's a puppet and he's my guy. Every time I go back to my private room, I'm talking to the doll man. There's dance sequences, there's. There's all sorts of stuff going on with them. But at one point, you know, he stays on your belt like Mimir in God of War. And I'm approaching a river and he is like mid sentence explaining to me that, like, oh, hey Sam, when, you know, there rain, sometimes these rivers will flood. But like mid sentence, you know, I'm walking into the river and I'm like, oh, it's not too deep. I can go across here. But he's waist level. And as soon as the water got to that point, Dalman's voice was like, yeah, Sam, if you just. I got out of the river's call. Like, that's the Kojima of magic, right?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yes.

[Snowbike Mike]

Thinking of these very specific things.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

So like, you know, I, in preparing for this conversation, right, Like, I was taking notes about, like, okay, what. How do I ultimately feel about coming out of this game, right? And I think I come Back to the MGS5 thing. A little bit of like, I think this is more death training. Filter through some of that quality depth and fun that you got from fan and pain. But even more so, right? Like, it comes back to directly answering the criticisms and then also the things people love about Death Stranding 1. And so when I go through my notes, right, the combat is fun and engaging. The game gets you into the gameplay quicker. There's more dynamic weather and obstacles, which we got to talk about, right? There's more tools and upgrade systems. The story feels easier to follow and more interesting. In my opinion, the game is more beautiful. It's like a PS5 thing, right? Like the Decima engine is on another level and we got to talk about that as well. The game feels bigger, the soundtrack better. There's more variety in the BTS and the ways to deal with them. There's a glossary system that is akin to Active Time Lore from Final Fantasy 16.

[Snowbike Mike]

Avowed had that recently.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, Avowed had that as well. And for me, this game ultimately feels like the potential fulfillment of the promise of Death Stranding 1.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, it took me a year or so to come around on Death Training one. It this had been what the first game had been like, I would have been like, all in the way. I am like Metal Gear.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yes.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's like this one is just so improved in every way.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Ralph, like, do you feel the same way as somebody who's super into Death stranding?

[Skill Up]

Yeah. I don't know. It's a really interesting point because I think, again, I think that's kind of. I get. Maybe that comes back to what I said at the start. I think I felt like the promise of Death Stranding 1 was achieved in Death Stranding 1. And so I think to sort of frame it as like Odd 2 finally delivers on that. I wouldn't agree with in that, in that way. For me personally, it's just like, I think it enlarges the sandbox. It creates more potential, more opportunities, more choice, for sure. But I still think the core of that promise is the same. Like, I think there's just something quiet and beautiful about this kind of experience that remains unchanged despite how much more stuff sits around it. And I guess that's exactly what I said to start. Like, I think that there was a brilliance to the core formula and this just helps people get to that point where they can connect with it. Yes, you either connected with the first game or you didn't. You connected with fast or slow, whatever. But yeah, I think you're right. Absolutely. Two gives so many more people the chance to sort of just like create a real connection to this type of experience.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

There's a note I took in here and of course I did physical notes because they wouldn't allow us to have phones or laptops on the game station. If we go to the relaxation area, then we can get our phones out. But I have just pages and pages of physical notes. But one of my notes is about the buy in of Death Training one. Like, you can tell in playing this game how much this crew does believe in Death Stranding 1 because everything is based. One of the things, because one of the notes I had here is that the story is easier to get into, right? And I think that's not because this game is less weird, it's because it plays by the rules they set in the first game. And there is such a belief in that world, there's such a belief in the ethos and the timefall, in BTS and the UCA and the Chiral Network and all those principles that are introduced that to us at the time were so bizarre. This game treats it as so normal that I, as a player who's played Death Training one, the way that I jump into this world now and get introduced to these story beats, I'm like, early on, Dan One of the things you keep bringing up is the chiral printer.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, yeah. Like you first get to your little shelter and you meet with Fragile and you know, you got Lou running around and Fragile's like, oh, I brought you the best chiral printed diapers. And like, I feel like in the first one. What, what is this crazy? This one's like, oh, yeah, okay. I know.

[Skill Up]

I think that someone who hasn't played Death Stranding one is going to struggle to get into two, given how much assumed knowledge there is.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's hard because there is a like death training recap on the main menu, but it adds 17 slides of like, it won't be.

[Skill Up]

Yeah, it's not good that I. Because I did. I watched that and I. Because it's. It talks about the plot of Death Stranding rather than talking about the world of Death Stranding. And the plot almost doesn't really matter at Death Stranding as much as all this weird stuff.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

And.

[Skill Up]

Yeah, you can't get that across in a recap video.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, well, you know, I did go back after the first night and I watched like a 20 minute recap video which was like, if, if you want to. If, if the like delivery stuff and the things. The first one that drove some people away bother you, I'd say, you know, try a recap video and jump in. Because like the gameplay itself is just so good here.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Skill Up]

I, I personally do think that people will struggle to really get to slip into this if they haven't played the first one, you know, because I think there is a lot of assumed knowledge and characters and mechanics and just. Yeah, that world, world design stuff, world building, it's just. It really does assume that you know what it is. Like, yeah, Codex, sure. And there is that recap video. But I'm going to guess that people haven't played the first one are going to find this quite.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I think people who haven't played the first one, they're going to feel the way that the people who did play the first one fell upon playing that game. Because I do think that one of the. I think good things about Kojima's writing and the bad things about Kojima's writing is that him and his writing team have this tendency to over explain things and they still do that in this game where it is like any concept you can think of, they're gonna find ways to repeat themselves. And I think for us coming into this world, it's like, cool, we know what this is. I already know what the Carol Network is. Right. Like in Destiny 1, I think we had that anyway. Right. I think we had those feelings of like, what the fuck are you guys talking about? Yeah. With this, with this world, Ralph. We're in Australia in this game. We're, we're, we're connecting.

[Snowbike Mike]

Funny story, though.

[Skill Up]

I was having lunch with, like, the British contingent here. Okay. And one of them is like, oh, you know, it would be really funny if we did. If they had, like, destroyed three Australia edition. You know, like, wouldn't it be?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Because we're like, yeah.

[Skill Up]

The Australian landscape actually would be perfect for a death stranding game. It's big, expansive and whatever. Not much out there in the middle of Australia. And that was just a joke that one of the British guys made. It was Andy from bgc.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Skill Up]

And then literally an hour later, we're sitting there and they're like, oh, yeah, we're headed to Australia. And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me?

[Snowbike Mike]

Right?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yes.

[Skill Up]

But, yeah, it is. The game is set in large part in Australia. We're not sure. So you start in New Mexico.

[Snowbike Mike]

Mexico.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Skill Up]

Excuse me. Start in Mexico. And then we won't spoil how you get to Australia, but you somehow get to Australia. And from what I can tell, it seems like the rest of the game seems to be there. It's unclear if there are other locations after that.

[Snowbike Mike]

So I today went to that Codex thing and there's a guy. The story is so far.

[Skill Up]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

You know, I just, you know, it's our last day here. I just want to make sure I understand all the beats of the story.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

And where I'm at now is like, okay, you're working your way across Australia and once you get to the end, there's another plate gate that will take you to another continent.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Interesting.

[Skill Up]

So I have heard that, but then I wasn't sure if they actually going.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

To, like, is that going to be another big map like Australia or is that just a story thing?

[Skill Up]

Yeah, I don't know. It would be cool to imagine because one of the big themes here, I think, you know, the first game was Connect America.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Skill Up]

This second game is Connect the World. But so far it just seems to be Connect Australia. And I'm not sure if there's a broader goal that this is a trilogy or something. And then, you know, part three takes us to, I don't know, the rest of the world or whatever.

[Snowbike Mike]

I don't know.

[Skill Up]

But right now it does seem like you're going to be spending a good chunk of the game in Australia, because now we're like, what, 23, 20, 25 hours?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Skill Up]

I feel like we've done about a quarter of the Australian map. Maybe a third.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm getting about. About a third. Yeah. Like, the Mexico part is, like. I've heard some people say, like, oh, Mexico is like the tutorial. But, like.

[Skill Up]

Yeah, it didn't.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean, it feels like you are playing the game. It doesn't feel like it's like five, six hours of, like, you know, how to use this or. Yeah, like, I would say five or six hours in Mexico and then a big chunk.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Big chunk of Oscar.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Skill Up]

So, yeah, no, it's. It's a very surprising location. It makes sense from a George Miller perspective.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, yeah.

[Skill Up]

This is a way for Kojima to get closer to George Miller, I guess. Yeah. George Miller obviously stars in this game as a character, but he's not voiced by George Miller. He's voiced by a different voice.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's like the year we're in Del Toro.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Skill Up]

And it's an interesting thing because, you know, they're not trying to deliver a realistic representation of the Australian environment. You know, there are certain parts of the landscape that I look at. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's Australia for sure. Like, the terrain, color of it, the trees. Absolutely. But then there's parts that are not at all. And that's fine, because, again, like, America did not look like Iceland.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Do you know what I mean?

[Skill Up]

Like, they just went for a thing. So it is a common. They actually described it in an interview as they said they were looking to portray primordial Australia. That was, like, their vibe. That was what they were going for. And I think they're trying to distill it down to its essence. And then they're trying to put, like, their own death stranding spin on it because it is Australia in the post apocalypse.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Skill Up]

There is actually a big fucking ice cap mountain in the center of Australia, which is literally the opposite of what's in the south.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah. I was looking at the map. I was like, does Australia really look like this?

[Snowbike Mike]

I've never been there, but I was.

[Skill Up]

Pretty the level designer because we were like. It was all awesome. It was. Myself was there. They knew I was from Australia during the interview. They caused it at one point, and they said, I'm sorry for putting an ice cap in the middle of Australia.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

So funny.

[Skill Up]

And I'm like, apology accepted. It's fine.

[Snowbike Mike]

No ice feeling. It's like the first game.

[Skill Up]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Going through the Midwest, it's like, I grew up in Kansas. It didn't look like this at all.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

But it is interesting.

[Skill Up]

Yeah. And they do have. Oh. So I don't know how much I'm conscious of time, but I do want to say, as I was playing through it, I was listening to the dialogue, and first of all, it is voiced by Australians, and I can.

[Snowbike Mike]

You can tell, right?

[Skill Up]

Secondly, I could tell it was written by an Australian because there were three subtle words that you just don't know exist unless you're Australian. Like, there's one word that's like Buckley's, and you'd say, oh, he's got Buckley's chance of doing that.

[Snowbike Mike]

Now.

[Skill Up]

That's an old phrase that my freaking parents use. Do you know what I mean? But when I heard them use that phrase in this, I'm like, okay, an Australian, 100% wrote this dialogue. Sure enough, we later on met someone, an Australian bloke, and I'm like, oh, yeah, mate. He works at Kojima Production.

[Snowbike Mike]

What do you do here?

[Skill Up]

He's like, oh, I'm the lead localizer for this game. So the lead localizer who was with Kojima in all the recording sessions and helping and, like, basically wrote a lot of the dialogue in terms of, like, making sure it sounds authentic or whatever else. He's an Australian bloke, 34 years old, or whatever else. And he did. He's just done such fantastic work here. It's so authentic and subtle. It doesn't sound like it's playing up to Australian stereotypes. It's not like fucking. What's his name? Junk rat from Overwatch or whatever.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Skill Up]

Authentic kind of voice and. And tone and. Yeah, it's. It's great so far. I really like the work. Yeah.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Let's talk about story. Of course, we don't want to spoil things. We don't want to get too deep into it. But I will say, this time around, and I mean, last time, I liked the characters as well, but this time, there's something about the cast of characters that's really working with me. It reminds me of, like, vintage Kojima almost, where, like, in Metal Gear, oftentimes you had. You had such a strong cast. Everybody had their own. Their own story. Everybody had their own in depth, like, oh, this is this person's thing, and it's really cool. And Death Training one had that, but there's something about how they're tackling it in Death Training two that's working for me.

[Snowbike Mike]

I think a lot of it for me is in the first one, it all kind of felt siloed, like the character interactions where it's like, oh, yeah, I'm talking Fragile. I'll go to Hartman's place. I'm talking to Hartman. And here you're on board this, the dmv. Magellan, yes. It's the thing that looks like you're.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Part of this organization, an organization called Drawbridge, which is Fragile's new organization.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. And you're kind of like, assembling a team. So, like, Tarman's the pilot and Fragile's there, and you meet, you know, other characters and stuff.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's a weird comparison, but it makes me think of, like, remember Arrested Development had that fourth season where they couldn't get anyone in the same room.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yes.

[Snowbike Mike]

Or. And it's just like, okay, well, here's just Joe talking to Michael and here's this. That's what the first one feels like to me.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

This one feels like, oh, when the whole cast was together, you know, and there's actual interactions between them on the bridge and stuff.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Great.

[Skill Up]

Yeah, I do agree with that. I also think that a byproduct of that is that main character Sam Forget. What's his actor's name?

[Snowbike Mike]

Norman Reedus.

[Skill Up]

Norman Reedus, kind of mind blank. He feels much more distant in this game, kind of absent, you know, in a weird way. Like, it really feels like he's not saying a lot. He's like half a step up from a silent protagonist.

[Snowbike Mike]

And I kind of like you for a snake second.

[Skill Up]

Yeah, sure, sure. So I kind of wish he was a little bit more. More present in what was going on, but maybe that's because we're at a phase where they're introducing new characters and they're setting up those characters.

[Snowbike Mike]

There's, like, fun vignettes and stuff. I just saw one today where others. And some these things will song and stuff like that. Like, some of the.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Okay, I didn't see that.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, stuff like that. So. And the new characters are really, like. Said doll man is just.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, doll man is so bizarre. He's almost kind of like a mimir from God of War in the sense that, like, he's kind of hanging out with you the whole time.

[Snowbike Mike]

He's not like, rooting puzzles and stuff like.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

No, yeah, that's. Thing is, he's not as talkative as mirror, which might be a good thing. But, like, you know, he. He. He does talk. If you want him to talk. Right.

[Snowbike Mike]

Like, you go to the private room and you always have the exclamation when, like, oh, he's got something new to say. And every time my favorite Thing with him was he's like, oh, Sam, your problem. Okay, let me back up. There's another character named Rainy, and she is a woman that part of her deal is when she's outside, rain all of a sudden starts falling. And it's time fall rain. So it makes everything aches, but for a 1.5 meter radius around her body, it's makes it cor. Which makes things younger. And so one time, I'm just talking to Dalmain in the private room. He's like, sam, you're probably wondering why I. How I maintain my youthful appearance. Well, sometimes Rainey takes me in the shower with her, and, you know, the core fall makes me think, oh, my God, this puppet's taking showers with this Japanese model. And it keeps me young. It's like, this is a good video game.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

One of the notes. One of the. Like in. During day one of playing this game, right? Like, a lot of my notes were like, oh, man, I feel like, you know, this game is a bit more tame compared to what I feel like I was expecting. And then toward the end of the day, I wrote down Kojima's on his bullshit. Yeah, Like, I reached a point where I was like, oh, Kojima's on his bullshit. Like, there's another point where a character says the sentence, someone doesn't like shoes. And I'm gonna leave it at that. I'm not gonna explain it more. I'm not gonna dive deeper into that. I was, oh, dude. Yeah. Like, it was one of those things where I was like, kojima, you're such a genius, but also, you're such a sickle sometimes.

[Skill Up]

Thank you.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

But, yeah, like, I really like this cast of characters. And yeah, you're right. I think the having them, for the most part, be a part of Drawbridge and be this thing of, like, I'm assembling a team sort of thing, I think really works in its favor to get those dynamics between characters. But then also, like, the characters that you know and love are in their bag. Like, Troy Baker is still killing it as his. His character.

[Snowbike Mike]

Next scene that we all saw, and that was good. And we've seen, like, teases of other characters in the trailer, like, Neil. And I'm very intrigued by whatever's going on with Neil. Like, yes, that's a highlight for me so far.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Oh, my gosh. But, like, I think that's like, the highlight for everybody. Of, like, there's a scene where you. Where they introduce Neil, right?

[Snowbike Mike]

And it's like, kind of sequenced inside of that boss fight. We had.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

And everybody united is like, oh, this is the coolest part of the game.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen in the video game.

[Skill Up]

Yeah, it's up there for real.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Skill Up]

That's pretty impressive.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

And then one more thing I wanted to mention too, is like, the real time weather stuff, I think that stuff is really cool and really impressive and it adds, like, such an interesting layer to the game where as you're going, like, there's these things, there's these earthquakes. They have a special name for them. Gatequakes. Thank you. They're just like these earthquakes that happen all the time. Right. But like that. Well, I was going to say shake things up. Literally shake things up. Yeah. But like, the first time it happened, I think this is just like a set sequence. I don't know if this happens more. Maybe you guys can fill me in. The first time you get a gatequake, the world shook. And then I saw geometry in the world, like fall away on a mountain.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, yeah.

[Skill Up]

So I think we have to also say the opening of this game, maybe one of the best openings I've ever played.

[Snowbike Mike]

It really is really good.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Really, really good.

[Skill Up]

Well, and that's when I saw the gate quake that after that, I didn't see it mess with geometry as much. Just kind of feels like the world shakes a bit and if you've got lots of packages on your back, you're.

[Snowbike Mike]

Probably going to topple over.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, exactly. So, like, there's that. There is, of course, the Timefall makes return with the rain. With the rain and stuff. But with that, there's also rising tides and rivers. And so you have like this real time, like, oh, man, the world is going to kind of form in shape around the weather stuff going on. You have sandstorms that happen and like. Well, that was the. One of the questions I asked the production team was about the real time weather. And they kind of just talked about it as a way to, like, have this additional sort of obstacle as they're delivering packages. Right. But like, one of the. One of the things they mentioned was kind of how these things converge together. When you are delivering a package and you're going up a hill and there's an earthquake. Right. Or you're, you know, trying to plan a route, but then you see a sandstorm looming in the distance and, like, having to plan around that kind of stuff, it's really interesting.

[Snowbike Mike]

Weather forecast. There's a skill tree.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, yeah. A couple of things here. There's a skill tree or you're, you're. And it's very easy to, like, I'm going to turn this off and I'm going to turn on a bunch of combat ones for a combat encounter and like, respec on the fly very easily. But there's also like an Oblivion style, like Sam's skills part on the menu, where it's like, as you do stuff, it's like, oh, your carrying capacity has gone up. You know, your resistance to this has gone up. Your endurance, your mastery of shotguns, like, just as you're doing stuff, we're leveling up.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I mean, this is one of, if not maybe the most, I guess it like, detailed Kojima game, maybe detailed or in depth. Right. Like, there's so much going on in terms of the systems, is what I'm trying to say.

[Snowbike Mike]

There's a part where it's like every time you go back to your private room and you, like, shower and stuff, it gives you little things like, Sam's sunburn has healed.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

And it's like they don't say anything about that outside of that. And you just know they have something, some little new thing where it's like, oh, your stamina recharges 0.05% slower if you're sunburned.

[Skill Up]

You know, you talking to me about the whole this is a sequel thing. Yes.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

That was. Yeah, yeah, that was really cool. I mean, well, yeah, I think, you know, one of the things that for me stands out is the fact that you look at Kojima's gameography and most of his, like, main titles. The Metal Gear games, right, have been big innovations between titles. MGS 1 to MGS 2 is a big jump. You have a new main character. It feels different. Right. MGS 2 to MGS 3, you're in a completely different setting, different character again. Right. To MGS4, different game. MGS5, completely different game. This is really the first time, at least on this scale, that Kojima's made a direct sequel that is very much like. No, it's just a sequel. It is building off of the world and systems of the previous game in a way that's not redefining things. And I think seeing Kojima have the opportunity to do that has allowed for a lot with this game. Right. It goes back to the kind of the points we were making in the beginning as far as this feeling, like this feeling reverent in what Death Stranding 1 did, but also expanding it out. Right. How do we make this deeper? How do we make the world bigger? How do we make the world more interesting to navigate and all that stuff. And it's very fascinating to see him operate in this way because for a while there I was waiting on a big twist. I was waiting on the. All right, where's Ryden? Like, you know, like, when are you going to, you know, kill off Norman Reedus in the first hour or whatever? Yeah, like, oh, we're. Yeah, we're connecting space now. Right. And it's not. It's a sequel.

[Snowbike Mike]

I still open. Like they said. Even if we played the full, like 30 hours, there's beeline story that we see like 30 to 40% of the game.

[Skill Up]

That's what they said.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yes.

[Snowbike Mike]

So I'm holding up because, like, I'm still curious about like this Neil character and stuff. And like, there's a lot of stuff.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I saw that's true.

[Snowbike Mike]

We haven't even touched on some of this stuff yet. And we're deep into.

[Skill Up]

I think it is would be highly unusual for Kojima to not throw us some massive fucking co. Yeah. And I think right now we've got a really brilliant expansion of the original premise that I think is just like, fantastic.

[Snowbike Mike]

But yeah, you're right.

[Skill Up]

There has to be that little thing where Kojima's like, ah, got you.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I don't want to take too much of you guys time because I know there's more to go. There's more to play. We can go back and play more of the game right now. And of course, I. I still have so much. I don't have pages or notes I haven't touched here. And we're. I'm gonna. We're gonna make more content about this training too. But before we get out of here, is there anything else you guys want to mention as like, last words?

[Snowbike Mike]

I was just thinking about how like, you know, we're talking about like, the sunburn, all the little like, systems on systems and stuff. It really reminds me of a thing that blew me away back in the day of metal gear solid 2 is there's just a part where there's a bar on the tanker and like, there's an ice bucket thing. If you shoot the ice bucket, it scatters everywhere and ice falls all over the bar. And I remember reading that and watching this, that the ice that is by itself will melt faster than ice cubes that are closer to each other because of, you know, ice science. But, you know, I feel like this has a million versions of that versus, like, I can't believe they thought of this. I can't Believe they thought of that. Like everything is considered things like, you know, the doll man voice, when it goes underwater, just like it seems there's no other team doing things to that level. That much minute detail. It's a delight.

[Skill Up]

Yeah, I agree. I think you can just tell the amount of work because obviously they had a foundation in one. I think another thing that we kind of forget is they built their studio at the same time as they were building one and they did it in like four years, which is just like unbelievable that they managed to pull that off. Now they have a studio, they got a nice new office, they've got a larger team and they've got a foundation. And so that allows them to just like build on that and the work that they've done here to sort of deepen that. The attention to detail they bring the quality bar. Like it's. Wait till you see how this game looks.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Oh my God. Legitimately like base PS5.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's just that.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, we're playing it on base PS5. There's something about. There's something I don't understand about how good this game works. Where you will see mountains in the background and they look so fucking detailed. Yeah, you can see all the ridges. You can see all like. And that facial capture in this game is insane too. Like, there's still so much to talk about. Of course you guys are going to talk about on your channels. We're going to talk about it here at. Kind of funny. I think for me, like one of the last things I want to mention is I'm with Ralph, right? Of like, I think Death Training one is a phenomenal game. There's something about just the ease of being in the world of Death Straining 2 and I would almost have to go back to Death Straining 1 to compare and contrast. Maybe it's the fact that I'm already used to being in this world. Maybe it's the fact that I already know the rules of it or whatever. But like I like I'm, you know, we're 20 something hours into the preview here at this preview event. I know I'm not going to be able to keep my save. No, I know I'm not going to be able to know. Yeah, I know I'm not going to be able to keep that progress. But I don't want to stop playing.

[Snowbike Mike]

No, I will do this all again.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yes. Like I want to keep being in this world. There's something special about my game time yesterday where I said fuck it on doing any more story stuff stuff. And I Just existed in the world and delivered packages and it's such an easy world to be in.

[Skill Up]

I spent eight hours building roads. Yeah, man, that was incredible. I loved it.

[Snowbike Mike]

Combat stuff. And even then I was finding stuff that it doesn't teach you where it's like. I don't know if it's like you get a skeleton thing, you know, that helps you carry stuff. I think it's tied to this. But like I jumped and I noticed a quick prompt. It's like X to double jump. Like what? I can just double jump in this.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I didn't even know.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, I did one where I jumped and I left the. So now I can do a straight up drop kick. But before I can do two different wrestling moves. I can do a cross body block or a Kenny Omega V trigger. So I'm just running. You're gonna start be triggering kangaroos, I'm sure.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Oh yeah. Oh man. I gotta save them though. I gotta do what I gotta do to save these kangaroos. Guys, thank you so much for joining me and talking about death training too. It's been such a wonderful conversation talking to, talking to you guys who've played the preview alongside me. I'm. I know what I'm explaining it to Andy and Greg and everybody at kf. It's gonna be. I'm gonna look like a madman.

[Skill Up]

Absolutely.

[Snowbike Mike]

We've been in the trenches together with this.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

We've been through something straight again, such a bizarre preview event, but also very cool. Like one of the coolest opportunities to play up to 30 hours at Kojima Productions. But we're gonna head back, we're gonna play more and also we're gonna interview Kojima himself and so look forward to more content from Skill up on the SkillUp YouTube channel on Dan Dan. Where can people find you? Where can people follow you?

[Snowbike Mike]

Fire escape cast, you know, Twitch, Blue sky, all the usuals.

[Skill Up]

Wrestling events.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah, you'll find. Yeah, you'll find me there.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yep, yep, exactly. Of course you can keep it locked right here to kind of funny for more content about this training too and all your video games. I don't know where we're putting this. It might be half a games cast, it might be a full gamescast. Either way. Patreon.com kindafunny to keep supporting the brand and until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.