After Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil 4 Remake, Death Stranding is now flying the triple-A flag on the latest iOS devices. This means: There is fresh, full-length gaming fodder on new iPad Pros with M1 chip, equivalent Macbooks and iPhone 15 Pro. And after three “hardcore” games in quick succession, I have to say: This time it could really work to get more core gamers excited about the ecosystem. All that is needed now is the willingness of other manufacturers to try their hand at this too.
Why don’t we always do it like that?
Above all, it seems as if publishers have now understood that full-price console games are generally less well received than on the devices from which they originally came. After Capcom, 505 Games is also trying out pricing that I find extremely attractive: the game is drastically reduced right from the start, at 22.99 euros it is almost half cheaper. The sale runs until February 20th and offers everyone who is interested in the title a good incentive to buy it long enough. It’s unimaginable on console to reward early buyers so much – the reward there is being able to have a say at the start. “We” have always done it this way – long enough not to change anything now.
If you think about it more closely, in this case the publishers are only submitting the sales that have already gone through both Resident Evil Village and Part 4 Remake and Death Stranding on the dedicated gaming devices. On iOS, where many people may be seeing this game for the first time, it still has a signal effect to be so accommodating to buyers in terms of price. I think this helps many people who have “outgrown” gaming over the years get over the hurdle of watching something fresh from Resident Evil or Kojima again. If I were to reinvent the games industry again, I would have sales – real sales! – also hold in the first three weeks.
Death Stranding iOS in pictures
And then there is the game itself. What I didn’t like about Death Stranding is extensively documented and has primarily to do with the content and style of the narrative. The story fizzles out, and does so in an exalted, flirtatious dance step that I no longer wanted to follow, especially towards the end. From the first few meters, the world formulates an insanely magical promise that the characters and the mythology they explore never even begin to intend to fulfill.
With its mix of a literal walking simulator and arduous exploration, it is playfully strange enough in a good way and a very special feast for the eyes. Kojima hides interesting gameplay tricks even in unexpected places and, in terms of staging and aesthetics, after the first few hours on the iPad I forget that I’m going to be annoyed about the finale and a few stops along the way. The atmosphere is simply unparalleled, what you do can’t be done anywhere else like in Death Stranding. This actually still creates a considerable pull that can hardly be explained. Magnetic.
Complex games, solidly shrunk to mobile format
Technically, the image that Death Stranding Director’s Cut presents on the iPad Pro is similar to that of the Capcom titles that were released at the beginning of the year: compared to the console, the resolution is visibly lower, which means that Yoji Shinkawa’s clean, mechanical designs suffer a little. But Apple’s MetalFX upscaling does an excellent job of delivering a stable 30fps and in general it’s a very playable and attractive experience on this diagonal. For such portable hardware, there is a lot to offer. It’s a bit of a shame that we can finally say goodbye to the graphics settings that Resident Evil Village still provided. But don’t forget: 505 Games has largely chosen the right settings here.
Death Stranding: Also on the iPad, a very special game that keeps you on the good side between impressed nods and eye rolls long enough to ultimately be worth the considerable amount of time it demands of you. Here in an easily accessible, maximally mobile implementation, if you grab it quickly enough, at a very fair price.