Death Stranding 2 Review: Kojima Walks Australia, Then Asks You To Connect It

Sam Porter Bridges is back, and this time the continent on the loading screen is ours. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is still a game about putting one boot in front of the other until a society remembers how to exist. It is also a Hollywood toybox that cannot stop adding a gadget, a guest star, and a cutscene that lasts longer than your last delivery.

I played on PS5 in Melbourne, then again on PC when the Steam build arrived. The joke of reviewing a game set in Australia from Australia never got old. The cargo physics still did, occasionally, on purpose.

The loop, refined

If you hated the first game's walking, this will not convert you with a cutscene. It will convert you with better toys: vehicles that feel like they were designed by someone who has actually been stuck in mud, combat that is no longer a polite suggestion, and a social strand that makes other players' ladders feel like infrastructure instead of Easter eggs.

The first hours are a reunion. The middle is a logistics puzzle that finally trusts you. The late game is Kojima being Kojima — I will not pretend the plot tightens like a le Carré novel. It tightens like a concert: loud, sincere, slightly too long, then a song that explains why you stayed.

Australia, chiral

This is the unique part for us. The map is not a Google Earth skin. It is a ghost of the place: red interiors, impossible coasts, weather that feels like a Bureau of Meteorology fever dream. Recognising a rhyme — a city name, a biome, a joke about distance — is a pleasure I did not have in the first game's America.

We unpacked that in Death Stranding 2's Australia map. The short version: Kojima is riffing, not documenting, and the riff is better when you live here.

When the stranding creaks

Cutscenes still kidnap the remote. A few deliveries exist to show a new toy once. Online structures can make a region too solved if you arrive late to a well-loved server, which is the series' eternal politics: do you want help, or do you want to be the help?

Combat is improved and still not the reason to buy the game. Stealth and stranding remain the text. Shooting is the footnote that finally has punctuation.

The Death Stranding 2 hub collects this review and the map feature. For the broader 2026 living-room slate, see Best PS5 games 2026.

Consensus, credited

According to WellPlayed's Adam Ryan, On the Beach is a 10/10. That is a full-heart Australian rave from a desk that has lived with Kojima longer than most. I am cooler on the late-game bloat and the still-divisive walk, so I land at 8.8. If you already speak stranding, Ryan's 10 will make more emotional sense than my decimal.

Australia: should you buy it?

On PS5, this is a first-party-priced showcase. Wait for a Plus Extra/Premium window only if you bounced off the first game and want a cheap test. If you finished Death Stranding and still rebuild roads in your head at 1am, pay full price and put the DualSense speaker somewhere your housemates can hear the cargo creak.

Newcomers: you can start here. You will understand more if you do not.

Score: 8.8 / 10.