Analytic Dreamz: Notorious Mass Effect - "DEATH STRANDING 2: THE MOST UNUSUAL BLOCKBUSTER IN GAMING IS BACK"

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/Analytic⁠Become A Patron Of The Notorious Mass Effect Podcast For Additional Bonus Audio And Visual Content For All Things Nme! Join Our Patreon Here: ⁠https://ow.ly/oPsc50VBOuH⁠ Join Analytic Dreamz in this Notorious Mass Effect segment diving into Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, releasing June 26, 2025, on PS5. Explore Sam Porter Bridges’ journey through post-apocalyptic Australia and Mexico, navigating timefall rain, chiral creatures, and dynamic disasters. With Kojima’s cinematic direction, a star-studded cast, and the Social Strand System, this action-adventure sequel blends traversal, stealth, and asynchronous multiplayer. Analytic Dreamz breaks down gameplay, controversies, and critical acclaim, offering insights into its 35-80 hour story and unique features like animal rescues and photo mode. Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Now, here I am thinking I just signed up for UPS and FedEx only to figure out that we're talking about death stranding. Shepard, just look at the state of gaming. Like, what is going on? Now, all jokes aside, the only thing you're going to be doing is just delivering cargo, navigating terrain, you feel me? A lot of different transversial tools as far as ladders, ropes, customizable trucks. Oh, my fault. We're not talking about UPS and FedEx. my phone we're talking about death stranding two which jokes set to the side for a second this game is going to have a

phenomenal release especially coming off of the original death stranding as that game sold over 10 million copies across the ps4 ps5 and pc by 2022 reaching 20 million players by april 2025 and if that wasn't enough for you just know that the original death stranding ended up selling what ended up grossing 91.6 million dollars and if that wasn't enough for you the director's cut came out and that earned another 14.6 million dollars safe to say well not even safe to say objectively speaking it was the best selling physical game in Japan with a debut of a hundred and eighty five thousand copies in his first week topping the charts in Taiwan South Korea Italy France okay I'll get the point right as far as the 93% as far as positive

reviews and a lot of hours being watched on Twitch to the point where it was 22.2 million Twitch hours watched back in 2019, y'all could probably understand the huge anticipation built up for the game that's about to come out, which is death stranding too. Safe to say by the time this review comes out, this game would have already been played by the masses to the point where everybody and their mom are going to be talking about this song. So usually I like to do sales review around us for games, but especially since I haven't, I'm not even covered Death Stranding. Like, I kind of, let me see.

Death Stranding. So the first death stranding came out July 14, 2020. I believe my podcast started in 2020, in 2020. But I think it started like at the beginning of 2020. So death stranding was definitely now on my radar back then. But of course, now being more in tune with the industry and gaining more of a identity as far as notorious mass effect. I kind of realized what type of. of products I want to get into, especially on the gaming and music side to let people know

what's notoriously affecting the masses, pun intended. So anyways, this game, Death Stranding 2 is developed by Kojima Productions. It's published by Sony Interactive Entertainment and actually is a PS5 exclusive with PC released likely in 2026. So sometimes as an Xbox gamer, you just look at your game log and you realize to yourself, Death Strand and 2 is not on it. You cannot go on your Xbox marketplace and type in Death Strand 2

because guess what? It's going to look at you and say to, and it's going to look at you and say Shepard. Just look at the state of gaming. Like, what is going on? They're going to be thinking, what is going on

that one of the most popular games in the world is completely inaccessible. Is that word? Hold on. Let's look it up right now. inaccessible i think i said that right hold up we're looking at definitely yeah okay i said that right i'm keeping the end there too it's inaccessible to xbox players so i'm not really trying to rubbing in your faces

because i've always said the game pass is beyond phenomenal i mean you have xborder you have expedition 33 you have south and midnight um you have other games you can you have other games you can play all jokes aside uh said to the side the xx the Xbox Game Pass is definitely one of the best platforms, especially for gamers that want to play a lot of games in this economy. It's definitely the most cost-effective way to be a true gamer that I think is accessible right now. So, with that being said, the platforms is only PS5. It's a PS5 exclusive PlayStation wins again. They're looking at the competition, and they're basically saying that not only do we have another PlayStation exclusive, but we have another PlayStation.

exclusive that sold phenomenally as far as back when it came out in 2020 selling 10 million copies by the year of 2022. So getting more to what this game is about. Just know it's set in Apocalyptic Australia and Mexico, I wonder what type of human-sized spiders they have out in the Death Stranding version of Australia. So anyways, John knows you have action adventure. And of course, when it comes to protagonist is Sam Port. border bridges. And with that being, the reason why I paused is because I was going to make a

bridge to gap joke, but I didn't want to do that. You know, I'm just going to leave it alone. I'm going to continue on with my coverage. So then it was, this game is directed by Hideo Kajima, hideo Kijima. I forget which way. As far as Jeff Keely and the Game Awards show in the Summer Games Fest, I'm not going to lie to you. At some point in time, I think Kojima is going to have a whole award based off his name if he doesn't already. I don't know what type of, you know, backing he's given Jeff Keely, allegedly. But all I'm going to say he is, he definitely gets a lot of support. Some would say is warranted.

Others would raise some red flags as far as how much support he'd be getting compared to other developers. But that's what I was the point. So you have Hideo-Kajima. The engine that this game runs on is the Decima engine. I haven't heard of that before. I've heard of the Unreal. Let me see.

It is Decima engine. I haven't really heard that ever All you really hear is like the Unreal Engine 5 and maybe like what the Unity the other engine I've never heard of Decima Anyways the Decima engine is a game development engine Created by Gorilla Games used for crafting High Fidelity Open World Games

Known for as Advanced Rendering Physics and AI Capabilities Help for titles Well it was a part of title such as Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden West, and Death Stranding, and Death Stranding, too. Okay, so it doesn't work on a lot of games. So I would assume this game should look. Like, obviously what you're seeing right now doesn't do it justice, especially if you're

playing on a PS5 Pro, it may run a little smoother and may look a greater, but right now it's just 1080P, so I don't know what type of, I don't know what the engine does for when you're playing the end game. Maybe it looks better than this. Maybe it looks the same, but y'all would have to be the judge. that as we don't have actual roundup of players playing the game we have the of course the the gaming publications and things that nature but i would like to give another review later down the line of people actually playing a game because i love doing review roundups but of course

with death stranding two on the horizon and me i never touched death stranding as far as when it came out back in 2020 so i wanted to give just a sales roundup of that game while all also letting you know that death stranding too is coming out tomorrow so with that being said we don't really know too much about how good the game is or how bad it is the publications the conglomerates have came out and gave it raving reviews to the point where um safe to say cojima has found himself another game of a year nomination and i do not say that lightly as this year has been jam-packed with great games and for death stranding To be shaping up to be a nominee for game of the year.

You already know the think pieces are going to come out as Death Stranding 2 is literally getting better reviews than the first Death Stranding. Now granted, these are just from gaming publications, but IGN gave this a 9 out of 10. VGC gave this a 5 out of 5. What in the actual? These are all perfect scores. This is my first time seeing this. Hold on. Because usually I do review roundups with like actual people who played the game.

I try not to do only publications. But this is insane. Like I have to show you all this. Analytic Dreams video on Spotify. See the video along with the audio. That's currently what the review roundups are. Like, like, hold up. Can I say that?

Is that close enough? I'm trying to be a W tech guy. Hold up. Give me a second. Here we go. Okay. That is insane. It's just straight 10 out of tens, five out of five.

Obviously, you have your, you know, you have your 9.5s. You have your game spot being completely different in all of these. Like, all of these are perfect scores, and then you get the game spot with a 7 out of 10. I bet you, Kojima's going to give them a strongly worded email. So that threw me all the way off. I did not know the scores were just, well, they're saying, well, not saying, I didn't know the scores were just so perfect.

Like, what in the world? Like, usually it's eight, nine, tens, Like usually it's in that range. Everybody is coming out and just going. I wonder what, I don't know, man. Kojima, like, I don't know. Maybe I need to start a marketing campaign for Kojima. I don't know what he's doing.

Like, maybe the game's actually good. You know, let me not hate. But, you know, seeing perfect scores across the board, hey, you know, to each his own, man. Maybe people like UPS simulators more than me. But anyways, so to get more into the game, there's a asynchronous multiplayer, meaning players can build infrastructure such as bridges,

monorails that persist in others in others games. What? That's insane. There's holographic signs and resource sharing, boost indirect player collaboration. Maybe it's like an elder ring type of format where if you don't, if you never play elder ring, throughout the game, there's a little messages, right? And if you like the message,

the player who put that message there could get a boost of health, right? And that can happen whenever. So you could be playing the game, somebody can like your message, and now instead of dying, because you was one hit, now you get a boost of health,

and now you don't face defeat, right? Because it incentivizes you to put more messages, well, helpful messages. Because if they don't like it, if you just put some troll message on the edge of a cliff to make people fall off, there's not going to be a lot of people liking that message.

So you won't get the benefits of people liking it. So it incentivizes people to leave messages, but also leave helpful messages. So maybe that's what they're talking about as far as the holographic signs and resource sharing that indirectly boost player collaboration. But that's just me guessing. Obviously, I don't know exactly how that works. I'm just, you know, just from the description. I'm just going to say that that's, to me, that's what it sounds like. And then you have the inventory management. I'm sorry I had to laugh.

the UPS and FedEx comparisons just are beyond funny especially when you see the gameplay you're like imagine getting off of a you know what? Hold on. Let me pull this up right quick. I wonder if this is still on the internet. This is one of the funniest skits I've ever seen.

Let me see. I think it should pull up. So let me see if I can find this right quick. But while I looked this up, the comparisons to death strand and the UPS and FedEx it's simply because of the whole gameplay loop like delivering packages should not be this fun and the way that kojima's set out to make deaf stranding uh completely uh about that premise is insane because they actually like made it enjoyable so uh but yeah this uh analytic dreams analytic dreams video on spotify to see the video along with the audio

because we're about to show what it looks like uh for for for Everybody making jokes about death strand and two, myself included. Let's just say this is how they're going to be acting after seeing all these perfect review scores. Hey, it's probably a lot of stuff right here. Here you go, sir. Who are you? You piss, man. Check out the watch.

Oh, shit. Nothing really. What's up? Why are you dressed like this? Like what? A Dior, sir? A chain. Is that a cartier?

Oh, you wearing Cardi Air? No, I'm not wearing no Cardi. This is some shit you ain't hurt, but chill out. Look, I'm not going to lie to you. Looking at these reviews, oh, let me see if I can pull this up again. This is how every Death Stranding player is going to be acting because of this game getting phenomenal reviews.

Like, hold on, let me see if I can pull this. Okay, here we go. Yes, sir. Here we go. All right, this is how every Death Stranding player is going to be acting because of these perfect reviews out right now. Where is your truck at? My truck.

Your UPS truck? Oh, man, I let that little shit long. You got me a Lambo real quick fresh out of the lot. I drove it straight over here. I almost forgot your boxes for it. You bought a limba off the lot, bro. How much is UPS paying you? You ain't heard the news?

Tans across the board. Shocking news. What news? They just start paying UPS men a little bit over a buck 50. See why? All right. All right. They about this all showing out because

these reviews are beyond perfect uh we don't know if it's going to stay like that especially as far as the actual public being able to get their hands on the game but as of right now it's shaping up to showcase how kojima is going to continue to get high praise throughout the gaming industry as they're saying that death stranding too as far as huge conglomerates are objectively getting better scores than the first death stranding so um with that being said if you want to know the estimate runtime because we have estimates because you know of course IGN had the game entirely so they basically said they are estimating 35 hours as far as the main story specifically but of course when it comes to side content side missions which you should be doing i think an RPG open world

setting if you do other side content is going to be 40 to 80 hours of content so safe to say you can get your bang for your buck if you you you explore throughout this game. And then of course, there's a lot of content to transverse and to explore, whether it's the biomes, the deserts, the forest, mountains, whether it's optional story events, explorative only encounters, which happened in the first game, many fetch quest style missions that add to the lore and world building. Y'all see the jacket, right?

I don't have to tell y'all, I'm a huge Mass Effect fan. Like if y'all don't know by now that I'm a huge mass effect fan, they don't know what is, you know, I can't say. But anyways, the reason why I say that is because exploring in an open world game will realize, will make you realize that Mass Effect 1 was leading up into Mass Effect 2 in a more obvious way than you would have initially understood because all of these Cerberus projects behind the scenes was showcasing how Cerberus was such an evil corporation so that Mass Effect 2, it may have. all the sense in the world that yes you came back from the dead but people are as happy because you're working with surbit as mass effect one set it up perfectly how evil service was behind the scenes you go to a random camp i'm not going to spoil too much you go to a random camp and let's just say some experiences some experiments was going on that wasn't humane let's just put like that and in mass effect two those side type of missions don't exist because now you're working for serveris and you're

doing other things just wasn't a part of mass effect two the mass effect one you was doing a lot of side content exploring and you ran into stuff that really added on to the lore to why you understood while mass effect two was so hard hitting as far as shepherd working with surpers so anyways don't you love when you're talking about ups simulator and you're able to uh correlate mass effect to it so anyways uh when comes to the performance right the ps5 reportedly has near instant loading times with hdr support 65 frames performance mode. Default 30 frames per second as far as people are saying it cause headaches or whatever.

So they would like prefer 60 frames per second. So if you prefer that, definitely put in performance mode. PS5 Pro version offers enhanced visuals, which you know you would hope if you had a base PS5 going from like I went from the base PS5 to the PS5 pro. And let's just say I saw a. huge improvement on graphics in an assassin creed specifically no other game have i seen that big discrepancy and performance for uh and performance plus graphics besides the assassin creed game that was the only game i saw a huge jump after i upgraded to the ps5 pro all the other games i'm not going to lie to you it looks the same so with that being said they did say that there's a lot of improvements as far as

quality of life you have better menus you have better route planning and of course you have better vehicle hand handling which is always i don't know what it is i wish i could sit down with a gaming dev so he could talk to me and under and like explain to me how difficult it is to get vehicles to maneuver certain ways in video games because apparently it's like harder than doing rocket signs like i'm gonna be i'm being a little facetious but as far as having vehicles transverse the environment to developers it's very is a very difficult task. So I can't break it down. I'm not a gaming developer,

but apparently that's harder than the looks. With that being said, I think that's basically I was trying to see what else I had to cover for this game. So they said the combat versus delivery loop is balanced well. They said a narrative of accessibility could be better as far as clear exposition.

That's another thing. What in the world is the story of this game? What is he doing? do not know what this man is doing i need to watch some type of recap because i looked at death stranding he's kissing some baby and i'm so confused because he's delivering package throughout the whole game i'm like where is the baby at is the baby with him and if he is somebody called the child protective services whatever to call you know what i'm saying like what is happening right now so i don't know what's happening in the story um people are enjoying it of course as far as the first death stranding as

as far as the overall story that they're building up to death strain and two people are enjoying it. We'll have to see how much they're enjoying it when the game eventually comes out tomorrow. And for people watching this after the fact, just know it officially launched June 26, 2025. And I'm recording this June 25th, 2025. So safe to say, we're going to see if those perfect scores from many publications are true in a foreseeable future. So that being said, click my link to my bio. Let me know on one of my social medias. What do you think about Death Stranding 2 coming out tomorrow?

And at the end of the day, do realize that it's only out on PS5 exclusively. Maybe it'll come to PC, but that's likely only to happen in 2026. But in between time, will you be playing Death Stranding 2 when it comes out, June 26 of 2025?