Game of the Month (June 2025) - Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
June 2025 starts the summer season off strong: The Switch 2 finally releases, along with quite a few Switch 2 specific releases. While I’m excited to see how the new Mario Kart and Donkey Kong game is going to be, I’m going to target a wider audience for Mega Dad’s Game of the Month. Mostly because I’m bitter at not being a pre-order VIP for the Switch 2, but also because there are other exciting releases that I’m hyping over. For this month, our highlighted game releasing this month is Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a game developed and published by Kojima Productions. It’s hard to classify the genre for the first game, but if it’s anything like that one, DS2 is a walking simulator, stealth, horror, adventure and film all combined into one massive package. In DS2, Sam is back delivering salvation and packages with some colleagues in tow, set to connect the world together like he connected the UCA in the first game. There will be more revelations, more slippery slopes to traverse both figuratively and literally, with the ultimate goal of saving humanity from extinction by connecting us all together.
If you’ve been in the gamer space a while, you know who Hideo Kojima is. He created/directed many games in the Metal Gear Solid series, and most recently came out with a game (series, now) called Death Stranding. When the original game dropped, I was curious as to what it was about and played it early on, but found it not to my liking and dropped it early into the game. Lots of talking and strange characters and plot, and a seemingly big and empty world to walk through delivering packages. The main goal was essentially a giant fetch quest, but luckily RPGs are my bread and butter. Still it wasn’t until the holidays in 2024 that I started replaying it, and it hit a sweet spot. Sure, it’s a lot of running back and forth delivering things, and not a TON of combat, but I’ve found that once you find the B.T.’s (ghosts) and Mules (humans who want to violently steal your stuff) you can pretty much find a little bit of everything in that game. Find a Mule camp for some combat and extra supplies, if you’re in the mood. Hit a BT area for some creepy stealth action and even more supplies. Or just move through the main missions to travel cross-country to your ultimate goal. The further you get in the game, the more things are unlocked for you and it makes the traversal across the land less mundane.
So why am I talking about Death Stranding instead of the new one releasing this month? Death Stranding 2 looks to be a bigger sandbox with improved gadgets and weirder cast members. A returning villain played by the great Troy Baker seems to be mixing the Joker with Cyberpunk 2077 in a pretty rad trailer released months ago. It was said that this game will improve on the first game in gameplay and get into much weirder content story-wise in true Kojima fashion, and I’m all for it. This game may not be for everyone, just like the first one isn’t, but if world exploration, crazy conspiracies and haunting enemies hit your sweet spot, It will rock your world like the first one ended up eventually rocking mine. If you go into a Kojima game suspending your disbelief and ready for another cinematic and mind-bending narrative, Death Stranding 2 may end up being one of the runners for Game of the Year. Mark my words.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach releases on June 26, 2025 on PS5.
