@shindig: You can look at a top down map of course.

If you hold the big rectangular middle button while tilting the controller, you can tilt the view of that map and see that the map does show the terrain in three dimensions. It's a bit awkward and I don't know why they didn't just let you use the right stick to adjust the map angle.

When you are out in the world and bring up the first-person/compass view (L1) and hover over a waypoint in the distance, a little box will show up and draw the elevation change between you and that waypoint like a little line graph. That being said, there is some excitement in not knowing exactly what you're up against on your first run.

Though, after you've gone that route between Point A and Point B once, then you know where to go or how you wanna do it.

And finally, once you get that section of the map onto the chiral network, the map view will actually show you what paths you and other players are using. This will also affect the terrain itself, where the more people walk/drive over the terrain, it'll usually be cleared of rocks. So your first run is almost always rough and rugged, then it'll be more streamlined after multiple trips.

Maybe there are other features or gadgets related to mapping that I haven't seen yet.

@ntm: It took me just over 40 hours, I mostly mainlined it. The episodes get much shorter later in the game as it becomes more story heavy.

I just dinged the platinum, it took about 90 hours and naturally I finished it off by pissing off a mountain while wearing a santa hat.

My feelings about the game remain pretty much the same. I started to enjoy the game more between hours 30-80, when I sidelined the story and did nothing but side missions. I built all the roads and established ziplines to remote locations and then watched twitch streams while driving or zipping back and forth absentmindedly. The game was at it's best when it got the hell out of my way and just let me do my thing (which was hold R2 or rapidly tap X). I've also sunk hundreds of hours into Elite: Dangerous, doing nothing but space trucking and this was exactly that.

The story didn't grab me in any way. It's convoluted with poorly written dialogue, plotholes and exposition dumps left and right, so the usual Kojima fare.
Really the only grab this game did have for me was the visual design and the "podcast game" aspects.

7/10, expectations met.

@briarpack: This is a dumb question but i've connected all the facilities to the UCA (39?) and I didnt get the trophy "In Sam we trust" am I missing something?

On the subject of the story I was intrigued by the world but then they try to over-explain whats going on and I cease to care. It doesnt help that the only character I cared about was Cliff.

@shindig: You can do that. That said, it's kind of pointless most of the time. To be honest, I did almost no planning by setting multiple marks on the map, I simply looked at the mark of where I had to go in the first-person and set off straight to it, finding my way to the destination. More often than not, there's not a whole lot of thinking to be had when trying to get to your destination. The only times I've done it was when I noticed MULEs in the way; I'd walk just a bit around them, or in one case used the cargo holders to slide down a hill past them. I tell you, the challenge of traversal and how to get from point A to B is not that worrisome. And yeah, as mentioned, once you're done getting to the place you're going, coming back out there'll be stuff in the environment to help you back down if you hadn't already set up stuff that helped you get there.

@boozak: Are they at level 3? Check your records in the Bridge Links menu and make sure you have 36 UCA members recruited.

I'm around 45 hours, right at or just under I think. I do think the gameplay is too repetitive. One thing that keeps me going is just seeing how the story ends, and, as I've said before, the game is always nice to look at and interesting to hear. I know people don't like number scores here, but gameplay I'd give a 7. I say I'm interested to see the story, but it's not that great or fascinating to me. I like some of the character stuff, but otherwise, it's just kind of 'meh' or stupid. A lot of explanation is relegated to what you read than what you see, and I've almost got to the point of wanting to skip those. What I do like, and what makes me simply not drop the game though is just seeing what's around the next corner in the environment.

As I said, it's a beautiful game. And contrary to what seems to be the popular opinion, I enjoy the combat sections when it comes to shooting. I sound down on the game, but I am 'enjoying' it. At this point in the game, I'd just like to finish it, but I'm still invested and not necessarily sighing/moaning thinking 'JUST BE DONE!' It will have its hooks in me until I finish it, it's just that I'd also like to play some other games now too, but I don't want to until I'm done with this. I'll finish it tonight or tomorrow I believe.

@briarpack: I dont, apparently i've recruited 28 and only 13 of them are rank 3 or higher. I was a bit confused, I thought I only needed them on the network but clearly not. I dont think i'm going to bother getting the trophy, thanks for letting me know though.

Okay, I'm almost finished. I'm at the part where I have to bring Fragile some cryptobuggers. The game is okay. I think as I've said already, it's a beautiful game, and that's what sticks out most. I like some story bits, like the baby and father/mother relationships throughout, but many of the other aspects of the story are pretty 'meh' to me. I can't say that the whole BT story is all that interesting. Guess I'll see once I'm done, but really, I'm actually happy to be almost done with it so I can move on. One of the best looking games this generation, but not one of the best by any stretch, this year or this generation. Another thing, I did the last Unger fight and I decided to just turn the difficulty down to very easy so I can move through it quicker.

Right now, I'm not really thinking I'll jump back in after the credits roll, but I can imagine, without lugging anything around so I'm not worrying about falling or weight, the game could be a nice, calming experience to just adventure out and take in the atmosphere. Lastly... I really didn't care for the online portion of stuff. It was useful at times, but for the most part, I hardly thought about it. There were times when I thought 'well if this is useful for me, I'm sure it'll probably useful to someone else' as I set some ladders and what have you up. I didn't do a lot of contributing to building bridges or roadways and I didn't find it to be necessary.

Just beat it. I liked the ending. That said, I only liked about 20 percent of the story while 80 percent of it I just didn't care a whole lot about, or thought it was somewhat bad. Anything pertaining to parental love I liked. I felt for those parts; otherwise, I wasn't as into it. Maybe this'll be a game that's better to play after everything is said and done because going through it, the task of bringing everything online was just too repetitive, and wanting to get through it asap doesn't really help. It has a few nice story moments, the visuals were fantastic both technical and artistic that help the atmosphere, and I think the sound design is great. I only did one standard mission. It took me 51.5 hours.

Now, back to Borderlands 3 or buy Star Wars or The Surge 2? Hmmm.

Just got the game last night; so far really digging it. Super relaxing to play and its awesome navigating an open world that actually feels like an open world, atleast so far. I'm not sure where this is supposed to be set in the US but it totally feels like the barren lands on Baffin Island.

I love this game. It, or Sekiro, will be my GOTY. Death Stranding has some major flaws. I think a 5 to a 7 out of 10 is a fair score. What makes it so compelling to me is that I can feel Kojima’s singular vision. I’m not a fan of Kojima personally. Actually, I think I dislike the guy whenever I hear about things he says, but the fact that this game takes risks that come with a singular vision make me love it.

It’s a game that I think about a lot. It’s not like God of War, Spider-Man, Horizon, Assassin’s Creed, where they take the best practices and implement them very well. The problem with these games for me is the same issue I have with big budget movies that play it safe. The experiences are often very similar to each other. Id much rather play a game with major flaws that I cherish the experience rather than an expertly crafted game that ultimately is like a lot of others. Hopefully we can get a big budget game that takes risk that is not such a bumpy ride, but I’m not sure if that’s possible.

Sure are a lot of early game impressions about platinum trophies in this thread.

About six hours into it so far. Man this game is relaxing.

I'm an avid backpacker/hiker in real life and while I don't typically stack giant towers of gear into and onto my pack... I find this game to be entirely relatable and calming. There is a satisfaction of the low-key interaction between other players I've encountered so far. As someone who isn't really into multiplayer games, yet wishes for more interaction in my single player games I find this is a nice balance. I'm able to interact with it on my own terms which is exactly what I want.

I can see in the future the gameplay loop getting stale eventually... BUT that can be said of all games so we'll see how far I get. I was tired of the gameplay loop in Outer Worlds almost immediately yet never really encountered that as a criticism for that game (Or many games).

Story stuff seems cool so far. Some of the dialog is weird in that Kojima way where every character belabours their point to you in the most clear and concise (and unnatural) way possible where you know EXACTLY what they mean... but you would have anyway if they just spoke like a human. It kind of talks down to the audience, but not in an offensive or probably intentional way. I can see a lot of that due to language barriers as I notice it more in Japanese games.

THAT BEING SAID: I'm actually really liking the story stuff, more of a testament to the direction and audio and acting then actual content but I'm probably one of the few that wishes more games had hours upon hours of cutscene story content. Maybe its just because I'm getting older and my kids kick the crap out of me so being able to veg out for an hour at night and not even have to PLAY the game is a treat.

Sidenote: I usually hate item degradation with an absolute passion but for whatever reason I find it ~enjoyable~ in this game. That's right, enjoyable. It happens slowly and is avoidable, but also keeps you focused on looking after your equipment so I find it actually works.

I am here now, on the other side of Death Stranding and about 70 hours. Courier grade 267. 901 pieces of cargo delivered. 478 km walked and only 5 tumbles. 97,781 Likes from other players.

Can't really sum up a game like this but I enjoyed my time with it because of the gameplay. I am glad I can say I finished it; I saw it through myself, I can form an opinion of my own, and as the next decade of games comes along and Death Stranding is brought up, for better or worse, I know first-hand what it was.

It's going on my Top 10 of the year somewhere. The Mads Mikkelsen character/story was great. Some of the coolest and heart warming scenes in any game. Outside of that, the story was kinda incomprehensible to me. The gameplay and systems, Kojima's wonderful mix of mechanics, is the draw of Death Stranding and what I hope other devs try and learn from. And Kojima should not make a sequel to this.

I'm 35 hours in on episode 5, I love this game. I did not expect the online to be as crucial as it is to the experience, but its responsible for a huge chunk of my enjoyment of this game. The sense of community is awesome, and all the little details like road building and path treading being done by unseeable friends is incredible. Really makes it seem like we're all in this together, which is exactly the vision Kojima had I imagine, so in that sense I guess he really nailed it. Unexpected.

I'm not even close to being done with the game, but I find myself in disagreement with the crews opinions on this game. Building roads with other people and getting constant feedback that what I'm doing is being used by other folks is such a great feeling. The game just feels very positive and optimistic, despite the bleak setting. As a result, I honestly feel that this game is half a game without the online features. I cannot possibly recommend this game to anyone without an internet connection.

It sounds like most of the great narrative parts are in the last third of the game, so I can't speak to that, but I'm having a great time playing this game with unseeable strangers.

So here is a question for those that finished it:

I’m in Chapter 3, I think order 35 or so. I’ve just “reconciled” the junker situation and brought him into the UCA fold. I’ve enjoyed doing side orders in order to level up the special gadgets you get from the individual preppers - BUT - I’ve heard this game is like 10 chapters long and I’m still in ch.3 after several hours. I’m a little worried if burning out and started doing a lot of the primary story progressing orders. I’ve heard there is a tipping point where the game just starts to GO and you work through chapters at a faster clip so my actual question: how close am I to this point and should I savor the open country elements now? How long is the game once you clear chapter 3 and is it super linear or can you still go back and do stuff? Like I just got my first BT gun and I guess I would want a lv.2 version of it but that would mean hanging around this zone and not progressing the story.

@humanity: There are 15 episodes. The 15th doesn't really count because it's the you-beat-the-game-now-go-do-whatever. I, like you, spent about the first 50-60 hours just cruising around, unlocking gear, exploring, and setting up my personal transport infrastructure. After all that time though I started to feel like I was reaching my tipping point so I just blasted the story which took another 5-8 ish hours.

Episode 8 is where you'll want to stop if you just want to do whatever in the world. You'll deliver to a chiral relay. That is not a spoiler. From there, the episodes become all story focused.

@seikenfreak: thanks that’s more or less what I wanted to know. Also would you say it’s worth it to upgrade the speed skeleton or is the power one a better choice? Seems like ultimately being able to carry more is a better option than a limited sprint especially when the carrier slows you down.

I'm about 12 hours in.

Still enjoying my time with it, and I've formed a rather controversial opinion on it.

It's hard to explain, but this game sort of gives me a similar feeling to a Dark Souls. Learning the mechanics, mastering them, learning how to approach obstacles, the connections with other players etc.

Like I said, it's a weird not exactly 1:1 comparison, but it's the best one I currently have and my reasoning as to why it's so devisive

@humanity: I used the power skeleton lvl 3 from pretty much the moment I got it to til the end. I never tried the speed skeleton, and there is one more you get that I tried for one run and I didn't really see the need for it.

I'm not sure if the power skeleton actually affects your ability to balance/stay on your feet, but that's what it felt like and it was the most well rounded thing I think. I could pretty much sprint over rough terrain, turn, go barrelling down steep slopes etc without falling over. Never left home without it.

You'll also get the floating carrier which is great if you wanna do some hella-bulk shipping. But the truck is a major step, then if you get some roads setup, and then there is one other structure you get later that makes a huge difference and is fun to use and setup.

@seikenfreak: Yah I dunno how openly to talk about this since a lot of these things are spoilers but I just got the truck and back pouches and MAN oh MAN these pouches are a game changer! No more carrying around giant crates on my back for 3 measly grenades. I also got the Chirral(?) ladder as a reward and they say you can't print it so does that mean it's basically a one time use ladder?

I love the way the game keeps introducing new things.

@humanity: The chiral versions of items are given from specific preppers it seemed. I think the only way you can get more is by doing more deliveries to that person? Not sure if they are rewarded randomly or what.

The backpack customization was great but under utilized IMO. Don't get your hopes up: You'll get a bigger grenade pack option, and the utility pouch, but the one or two other things you get aren't worth it? There might be a number of things I didn't unlock as I didn't 5 star a bunch of the preppers and there are I think three preppers I never found.

Kinda not sure if I'll go back into the game to find more stuff. I meant to go look at the quantity and types of trophies I didn't get, maybe a platinum is feasible. I don't know.. Finishing the story kinda took the wind outta me lol I stopped playing Divinity Original Sin 2 to play Death Stranding and I should really get back to it. Trying to finish up my annual, excessive game of the year writing exercise.