This game is unlike any other game I've ever played. For perspective, I enjoy the loneliness of games like Fallout. I even enjoy the slower pace of those games, but this takes slower pace to a new level. Most of that is due to the long cut scenes, which you can skip, but I feel like you're missing out on the artistry of the game if you do that. At one point I'd been sitting still for so long that my wife said, "Are you watching a movie? I thought you were playing a game." The gameplay itself is great! I'm playing with a controller on my iPad and Mac. The graphic details are amazing, and the sound effects and music are spot-on. This I've had some crashing issues on my 11" M1 iPad Pro. My M1 Mac Mini does fine. I've tried propping up my iPad so it has good airflow around the back with no case, and that seems to be better. When the iPad is in the Magic Keyboard, it seems to crash more frequently. More T&E needed to solve that unless they release an update that addresses that.

Death Stranding is so much fun! Just before I finish the game (the power went out outside, otherwise I would have finished it already), I want to praise this game and my MacBook Pro (2021, 16-inch). This is the first time in two and a half years since I bought it that I have felt that this is a device that can get hot, has a fan, and uses a battery (it offers the same experience as the daily use Intel MacBook Pro without gaming, haha.). The gaming experience it brings is perfect: the mini-LED backlight allows for a large amount of sky and light sources to be presented in HDR in the game; although it is only equipped with the M1 Pro 16GB of unified memory, its graphics processing power can maintain almost 120Hz stably ((it seems to me is.) , at 2560*1440 with "very high" quality), w/ or w/o power connected. This also means that I can play a 3A wherever and whenever I want (on the other hand, game saves can also be continued on iPhone, which is really great). Next, I will continue playing Death Stranding without plugging in, hoping to completely drain my battery until it's below 80% health (currently at 87%) before the AC three-year warranty expires. This MBP has been the most powerful and favorite among all the Macs and PCs I have used so far. I don't know if I should thank Tim Cook or thank Hideo Kojima, but playing Death Stranding on my MBP has been the first happy event of my 2024.

This game is a 5 star that’s a 3 for reasons which should easily be fixed. I’m anticipating these being addressed but it’d be nice to have some communication from the devs. I’m shocked this is on an iPhone. Some people have reviewed this and said it doesn’t look good. That’s untrue. Generally it runs and looks great! Here’s what it needs: 1. Crashing must be addressed. I have to save the game every 2-3 minutes because the game goes through areas where it crashes a lot, then moments where it’s fine. Auto save every few minutes would help. The game needs graphics settings. I prefer lower graphics without metal fx because I don’t like upscaling blur. Please provide us these options similar to how resident evil did. TLDR: looks great plays great, those clowning on it are wrong. -Crashing is an issue, goes through waves of crashing, then none, then crash again putting you way back to a previous save/location. -need auto save -need graphics options, not all like metal fx upscaling. Opinion: If those needs are met this is 5 star. If not, and crashing doesn’t get fixed, it’s a cool demo of a17, and fundamentally unplayable in the long term, all while being disappointing to us who want mobile AAA to take off NOW :) Please devs, fulfill its potential.

If you would have told me 5 years ago that and iPhone and/or iPad would be able to run AAA games like this, I would have laughed and walked away. Here we are in 2024 with one of the best titles available for exactly those devices. I’m blown away at how smooth my M2 iPad pro 12.9 inch runs this game. I hear many complaints about the clarity of the game on both iPhone and iPad but lets get really people, this game is running on devices with nothing but passive cooling to keep your devices from vaporizing. Sacrifices must be made to achieve this goal and I must say Kojima Productions have done a beautiful job. I really hope this game starts the trend for more AAA releases on IOS and Mac OS. The one complaint I do have is with the virtual controller, I find it very hard to use so I use a PS4 controller instead, which I prefer anyway. That said, I’m really not sure how you can do the virtual controller better without making it harder to select the correct action you want. Keep up the great work and I look forward to future titles landing on IOS and Mac OS.