Death Stranding (first title from Kojima Productions)

At least IMO, the plot would have made a lot more sense if they hadn't made literally everything in the world an abbreviation. It still has the Kojima wonkiness with people's names, but the plot isn't that weird when you learn what all of the random letters people say mean. It's weird, but it isn't exactly David Lynch or anything.
I still feel like the game resembled a huge tech demo. Everything related to the presentation is a 10/10. Yet the game was hollow. It was like they were showcasing things the engine could do and how you could traverse the world and how combat could work...but that was the real game.
 
I'm still waiting for the Director's Cut to to be released on PC before starting this as it makes some substantial quality of life changes which makes it less grindy
 
Conman said:
That seems like a massive price cut for a relatively new game. So either (a) it's selling poorly or (b) that directors cut isn't going to be free.
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It's over a year old for PC, and was out on console even before that.
 
Armenius said:
The Director's Cut will be one of the first games to get support for Xᵉ Super Sampling, or XᵉSS. Hopefully the shipping version won't make particle effects disappear like earlier demonstrations showed.

https://twitter.com/Okami13_/status/1478121299427926016
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While its good to see confirmation of its PC arrival (hopefully soon - its really far, far overdue by this point. It was bad enough that it took a year after consoles to show up on PC, but I don't want to see exclusivity for expansion packs, updates, and definitive editions as well), I'm skeptical about Intel's new XESS , especially if it isn't open spec / source and if it requires their particular cards. AMD FSR / Super Resolution had the good sense to be the open alternative to the platform specific Nvidia interpretations - lets hope that Intel isn't following Nvidia trying to get their proprietary of way of doing things into the market
 
RanceJustice said:
While its good to see confirmation of its PC arrival (hopefully soon - its really far, far overdue by this point. It was bad enough that it took a year after consoles to show up on PC, but I don't want to see exclusivity for expansion packs, updates, and definitive editions as well), I'm skeptical about Intel's new XESS , especially if it isn't open spec / source and if it requires their particular cards. AMD FSR / Super Resolution had the good sense to be the open alternative to the platform specific Nvidia interpretations - lets hope that Intel isn't following Nvidia trying to get their proprietary of way of doing things into the market
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XᵉSS is an open standard and will work on any card. This was all announced when it was revealed during the summer of last year.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...al-technology/arc-discrete-graphics/xess.html

Regardless, early video demonstrations showed that DLSS is still the superior technology, and as mentioned above NVIDIA holds close to 80% of the dGPU market.
 
What would be cool is if the XE iGPU built into Rocket Lake and Alder Lake could be used for XESS, along with a dedicated GPU. So for example, a 6700XT or 1080 Ti renders the internal frame, and then its passed to the XE iGPU to be AI upscaled, before final output to your monitor.
 
chameleoneel said:
What would be cool is if the XE iGPU built into Rocket Lake and Alder Lake could be used for XESS, along with a dedicated GPU. So for example, a 6700XT or 1080 Ti renders the internal frame, and then its passed to the XE iGPU to be AI upscaled, before final output to your monitor.
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That would be extremely slow. Why do that when XᵉSS can be done on the 6700 XT or 1080 Ti?
 
Armenius said:
That would be extremely slow. Why do that when XᵉSS can be done on the 6700 XT or 1080 Ti?
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I actually didn't realize XeSS can be hardware agnostic.

However, Intel says that XE has special hardware which makes XeSS even better. But we don't really know what that means, yet. However, the marketing of that, is why I thought this was Intel proprietary. But, you can already pass a dedicated GPU's signal to a XE iGPU, to get the HDMI 2.1 output. So I thought maybe XeSS could be applied along the way.
 
If you bought the original when that came out you basically paid $60 for early access it seems. The irony is that the most loyal and avid supporters get the short stick.
 
Armenius said:
XᵉSS is an open standard and will work on any card. This was all announced when it was revealed during the summer of last year.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...al-technology/arc-discrete-graphics/xess.html

Regardless, early video demonstrations showed that DLSS is still the superior technology, and as mentioned above NVIDIA holds close to 80% of the dGPU market.
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While its good to see that they still intend to keep it open, I am curious if it is designed in such a way as to be useless without an Intel card (or a card that has specific hardware support and drivers that license access to certain algorithms/the AI element etc) . I'd love to have 2 cross platform, hardware agnostic, and open upscaling tech that are viable to compete with Nvidia's DLSS but I suppose we'll have to see exactly how committed to openness Intel will be in this regard. Nvidia having a large percentage of the dGPU market relies on a number of factors not the least of which is their suitability for mining this generation , marketing, and a lot of other things rather than simply desktop performance / value. This is the first generation in a long time that in all the "regular" rasterized gameplay features AMD had competition even at the high end, which meant that turning on the "RTX! Raytracing! DLSS! " marketing machine as the only features that matter now became part of Nvidia's response. Nvidia's prominence has long been exploited by relying on proprietary features, locking things down, and more - going back to things like PhysX , and GSync (hell, for years they didn't let NV cards use adaptive sync on FreeSync monitors even though it was an open standard and their cards were capable - it was simply a push to keep players on their more expensive GSync ecosystem), and as we've seen with things like FreeSync, Vulkan and a number of other technologies its good to support a platform independent, open standard whenever possible. Intel seems to sit somewhere between Nvidia and AMD, they've long rested on their laurels and pushed their own features/platforms for segmentation, though in some circumstances they've made sure there's open source driver support and the like for some of their tech (ie wireless cards are noteworthy here). . I can only hope that this XESS will be truly usable on all platforms, giving developers another AI upscaling tech so we can get away from proprietary features and the like towards open alternatives ; this is even more important if a hardware manufacturer has an outsize piece of the market.

Armenius said:
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And a whole separate entry is potentially concerning. It all depends what they're going to do, but even after this final announcement that it is actually coming to PC, we still lack so much info. An exact release date ("Spring" can mean well into May, which is far later than the hypothesized Late Feb/Early March launch date from other leaks) among the exact parameters of launch. Will it be a separate game entirely? If so, will its online mode share with those on the "base" Death Stranding? Will there be a discount for existing owners and if so, how much? Not releasing it as an expansion/DLC for the presumed $10 that the PS5 got will only irritate PC players far more. Then again, will it be both - newcomers can buy the stand alone title, but existing owners can just pick up a DLC upgrade for the other Death Stranding? It wouldn't at all surprise me if this was totally and completely out of the thoughts of the publisher, 505. I admit I have a well hewn grudge against 505 as they've been known for pretty much making horrible publishing decisions for often promising Japanese games, when it comes to the PC. 505 is responsible for the clusterfuck that was Bloodstained Ritual of the Night's development (the game itself is fantastic,), including dumping the BASELINE GOAL DURING CROWDFUNDING Linux version 2 years into development. 505 Games has a litany of massive screwups, delays, poor communication and other elements as a publisher which is frustrating when it takes really promising projects (especially those from Japanese developers who are trusting them to guide global and multi-platform PC releases ) and makes poor decisions that worsen things. I'm still glad Director's Cut is coming at all, but once again this is already much later than it should have been and we lack a ton of information - all factors which will lead to less people on PC buying the existing version of Death Stranding in the interim (just as what happened with Dragon Quest XI and Catherine Classic, just to name a few) and then the developers (at times figuring, at times being told) "Oh well, see PC players really won't buy/don't care about your games" which is outright untrue - its a matter of the bad decisions of publishing!

Anyway, guess we can only see how things come together but even if everything goes perfectly now, we should still not fail to criticize the huge delays and lack of information given to PC players since the announcement of Director's Cut.
 
Death Stranding Director’s Cut Gets a PC Release Date, Existing Owners Can Upgrade for $10

Launches on PC (via both Steam and the Epic Games Store) on March 30th

In addition to all the new content included in the PS5 version of Death Stranding Director’s Cut, PC players will also get a variety of other exclusive features, including support for Intel’s XeSS AI-powered upscaling tech...

https://deathstrandingpc.505games.com/death-stranding-directors-cut-pc-community-update/
 
polonyc2 said:
Death Stranding Director’s Cut Gets a PC Release Date, Existing Owners Can Upgrade for $10

Launches on PC (via both Steam and the Epic Games Store) on March 30th

In addition to all the new content included in the PS5 version of Death Stranding Director’s Cut, PC players will also get a variety of other exclusive features, including support for Intel’s XeSS AI-powered upscaling tech...

https://deathstrandingpc.505games.com/death-stranding-directors-cut-pc-community-update/
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Hm, maybe I should have bought it cheap on the epic holiday sale. Hopefully there's another before this hits!
 
Well, I've got to at least hand it to them for maintaining the $10 upgrade ; I was worried there for a bit with the completely separate entry. Props to them for the save data import - I am curious how much will be significantly different along the way but at least its an option for those who wish it. I am a little annoyed at the release date - March 30th? Its been more than long enough - that's almost 8 months or so since original release of Director's Cut after all. I had hoped that it would be February or March 1 at the latest, but at least its on the way.

For those who may want to pick up the base game during the sale, I would as always suggest to buy on Steam over EGS for a number of technical, fiscal, and ethical reasons. I'd easily pay a little bit more if need be to support a platform that I feel is beneficial to gaming as opposed to one that in my view makes PC gaming worse. Oh by the way, besides Steam direct keep an eye on discounts and lunar sales on "legit 3rd party keysellers" like Humble Store, GMG and the like - you may be able to get a big discount elsewhere as well.

braamer said:
If I was looking for a good walking sim, I would jump on this deal.
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I'd venture that this is the only "walking simulator" in existence that actually makes walking itself a core, engaging, and fun game mechanic!
 
Seems like it will be a paid upgrade? If so, I'm not really interested. Hopefully they upgrade everyone who already owns it to the Director's Cut.

I'll play the few story missions they may have added but only with my old game save. Not interested in paying a lot for what is minor DLC, and not interested in replaying the entire game.
 
Flogger23m said:
Seems like it will be a paid upgrade? If so, I'm not really interested. Hopefully they upgrade everyone who already owns it to the Director's Cut
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it'll be priced at $39.99 standalone, or available as an upgrade to owners of the original for $9.99
 
polonyc2 said:
it'll be priced at $39.99 standalone, or available as an upgrade to owners of the original for $9.99
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I consider this perfectly reasonable for the amount of new content and the porting that was done; its the same price as the PS5 DC update as I recall. Also they claim that you will be able to import your old game save so those who don't want to replay everything, enjoy!

One thing to remember is that if you want to get the discounted update price you have to have Death Stranding on PC (via Steam) on your account already purchased AND INSTALLED. "To receive the upgrade for DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT you must be logged in with the same account you purchased DEATH STRANDING with and already have it installed on your PC. When you go through to purchase the game from the PC storefront, you will be presented with the upgrade price. If you do not have DEATH STRANDING installed then you will be presented with the full price."

They put out a FAQ in preparation for launch yesterday - https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1850570/view/3122688999870764623 - so more questions may be answered there. Also, its annoying that it isn't officially Mac or Linux supported but at very least we expect that the DC will work fine on Proton as the original did! Also they ARE adding the new haptics for users of DualSense gamepads, among other updates and upgrades!
 
I bought the original DS on PC for like ~$15 or whatever it was on sale, so I can get the Director's Cut for $10.

Ready to replay this with the Director's Cut stuff, on PC. Original playthrough was the original game on PS4.
 
Armenius said:
I don't understand the need to have the game installed to get the discount. Steam has no issue applying the discount with the game just being in your account. Why add extra hoops?
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yup this a silly requirement...I think they want people to play the Director's Cut right away as just having it in your Library (without having it installed) would most likely lead to people putting it in their backlog...by having it installed they figure it'll get more people to play it
 
The original game always had just a tiny bit of jitter when panning around even with the controller. Panning around in this game with the controller is absolutely butter smooth.
 
So the Director's Cut a separate entry in steam/seperate game/separate build and not just a separate paid DLC upgrade? That's like, even dumber lol.

This should have just been a free update for existing users of the game like with almost every other game update of this sort nowadays, so stupid.

I'm gonna assume Kojima is hungry for money ATM being relatively new or something and he has champagne taste/visions for his stuff.
 
staknhalo said:
So the Director's Cut a separate entry in steam/seperate game/separate build and not just a separate paid DLC upgrade? That's like, even dumber lol.

This should have just been a free update for existing users of the game like with almost every other game update of this sort nowadays, so stupid.

I'm gonna assume Kojima is hungry for money ATM being relatively new or something and he has champagne taste/visions for his stuff.
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Oh good grief. It's just 10 bucks for the upgrade and of course you can wait till that's on sale for much cheaper. There were a lot of things added to the game including some missions and a new area and also the graphics were improved a little bit. You don't have to play this new version if you don't feel like it's worth it.
 
jobert said:
Oh good grief. It's just 10 bucks for the upgrade and of course you can wait till that's on sale for much cheaper. There were a lot of things added to the game including some missions and a new area and also the graphics were improved a little bit. You don't have to play this new version if you don't want to.
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And yet as pointed out, a good majority of games that have released 'upgrades' like this, do so for free to the existing title and users 🤔

Good grief, indeed.

If 'its only $10' send your 'only $10' to my paypal, or gift it to me on Steam - put your money where your mouth is? Let's see....
 
staknhalo said:
And yet as pointed out, a good majority of games that have released 'upgrades' like this, do so for free to the existing title and users 🤔

Good grief, indeed.

If 'its only $10' send your 'only $10' to my paypal, or gift it to me on Steam - put your money where your mouth is? Let's see....
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And there's been even worse deals from some developers so again it's hardly that much to complain about. And I put my money where my mouth is when it comes to my purchases not someone else's. It's your decision to decide if it's worth it so make that choice on your own but to me I don't see how anyone can make any drama out of this.
 
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