Death Stranding has quite easily become one of the most polarizing video games of 2019, if not in the history of the industry. People seem split on whether the game is yet another Hideo Kojima masterpiece, or if it is a boring slog, and the review scores reflect that division. Twitch streamer Felix "xQc" Lengyel, mostly known for his Overwatch streams, recently completed a playthrough of Death Stranding on Twitch, and he had some blunt words for reviewers who gave the game low scores.
While the Death Stranding end credits played, xQc said that "trash game reviewers" gave the game a low score because they couldn't play it properly. "[Reviewers] would get stuck on parts where you have to walk a lot, because they couldn't climb properly because they're just stupid. So they gave it an overly bad review."
xQc then acknowledged that someone who is more interested in "gameplay" may come away with a bad opinion of Death Stranding. Even so, he feels as though those who didn't like the game still shouldn't have scored it as low as they did. "If you're someone that's more for gameplay, then of course this would have a bad review, but not that bad. Not as bad as people gave it in the first place. No way dude."
Many of the negative Death Stranding reviews cite the same reasons for their low scores, including the game's slow pace and purposefully tedious gameplay. The more positive reviews argue that these elements are part of what make Death Stranding special. Regardless of where one falls on the Death Stranding debate, though, it's clear that this game is going to be quite divisive for some time to come.
xQc isn't the first person to comment on the Death Stranding review scores. Game director Hideo Kojima has also offered his opinion on them, making somewhat controversial statements about why Death Stranding scored lower with American reviewers compared to those elsewhere in the world.
Despite the mixed reviews, Death Stranding has received enough perfect scores to counteract those on the lower-end, with the game sitting at an impressive 85 review aggregate score on OpenCritic. More reviews for the game continue to be published, though, so it's possible that its overall review score will change.
Death Stranding is out now for PS4, with a PC release to come in the summer of 2020.
Source: Twitch