This game pulls the aesthetics of Australia but doesn't engage with it culturally or historically at all. It's a disappointment in an otherwise incredible game.
Terra Nullius. Land Belonging To No One. The British colonial legal term for justifying the violent, genocidal act of colonising the lands of so-called Australia.
A very loaded term and one that kept echoing in my ears throughout my time with Kojima Productions’ big blockbuster sci-fi epic, Death Stranding 2.
Set years after the events of the first game, DS2 ships you off to the far distant continent of Australia, in a quest to bring connection to a group of disparate post-apocalyptic survivors and newly arrived explorers, pioneers and scientists through a mystical after-life powered NBN.
DS2’s Australia is a strange beast, an evocation of the cinematic flare of Australian 1970s new-wave cinema. It’s the haunted forestscapes of Picnic At Hanging Rock, the never-ending desertscapes of Walkabout and the sand dunes of Mad Max.
There’s such attention to detail and care taken when bringing the landscape to life. When bushfires whip through the forests of DS2’s Australia, eucalypts explode from the intense heat, the oil in their bark causing bursts of flame like nature itself decided to flick a grenade in your face.
Rock formations create maze-like environs to crawl through during tense encounters with otherworldly BTs, brown dirt and rust-coloured rocks rising up around Sam as he holds his breath and waits for shadowy creatures to pass by.
It’s also very empty, a land belonging to no one. Terra Nullius.
Whoever walked these plains and cared for this country is long-gone, wiped out by BTs and void-outs. For a land with a real, historical 65,000+ history of culture, art and storytelling, it feels like whiplash to imagine a futuristic sci-fi world where Arnhem Land didn’t survive the end-days, that not a single First Nations actor, character or npc is represented anywhere in the game’s 50+ hour run-time.
There’s room for a wackadoo pizza delivery man and his dedication to karate, a data scientist who communicates via a cutesy anime-avatar, a tar whisperer and even scottish band CHRVCHES are here running the animal sanctuary. However, the basic work to platform Australian actors, bring in local musicians for the game’s score and to do some basic cultural work to represent the First Nations mob was out of reach for Kojima productions.
So let’s talk about what’s here instead.
Death Stranding 2 is a dad game. A game about grief and loss, and a loose exploration of ideas around isolation and separation (clearly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns).
Sam Bridges (Norman Reedus), returns as the everyman hero, the delivery man of the apocalypse who brings connection, anime DVDs and pizzas to a world trapped in bunkers and basements. Reedus’ layered performance & the game’s exceptional performance capture technology infuses Sam with true depth, a character of few words and many gruff grunts who radiates a tender softness at the most surprising of moments.
This time, the quest to connect the continent is anchored by a ship, the DHV Magellan, serving as a base of operations and a place for the game’s motley crew of companions to gather. Mechanically, the Magellan provides fast travel access, but narratively it serves as the home-base hub for Sam Bridges’ found family of DOOMs sufferers and sci-fi friends.
The Magellan is captained by returning character Fragile (Léa Seydoux), who has been stripped of her ability to ‘beach jump’, and now acts as the anchor for the squad when she’s not choofing ciggies with her neck-gloves.
Also along for the ride is Rainy, who has mysterious powers connected to the world’s time-altering rainstorms, Tarman (represented by the scanned appearance of director George Miller) who pilots the vessel, the mysterious DOOMs sufferer Tomorrow (Elle Fanning), and a few other familiar faces.
Their enemy? A mysterious army of strange robotic mechs, cultish robed followers and the return of Higgs, a truly hammy, camp villain who steals every scene he appears in thanks to an effortless performance from Troy Baker.
If I’m being vague, it’s to avoid spoilers, seeing how DS2’s odd narrative wraps up is one of the highlights of the journey here, regardless of whether said conclusion feels satisfying or not.
The dialogue here is still rather clunky. Characters pop up and drop spiels of proper-noun lore dumps, there’s a lot of telling-not-showing on display during key story moments. Yet, the stylish flare of the cinematic direction, the truly ‘what the fuck could happen next here?’ energy and the acting chops on display elevate what would be highschooler slop into the stratosphere.
Somehow, DS2 pulls off the impossible, it’s a true contradiction of art. A setting that sees its world as only cool set dressing, sick rocks, awesome mountains and not much more. A story that feels both earnest and deeply profound while simultaneously lazy and poorly plotted.
I want to dislike Death Stranding 2, but I just can’t. It’s too good at what it achieves, despite all its flaws.
A copy of DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH on PlayStation 5 was provided to SIFTER for the purpose of this review.
