The brilliant mind of Hideo Kojima will always amaze me. The way the stories are told, and how the team at Kojima Productions can inject the amount of grit, stress, and intensity within a few 3D modeled objects is insane. If you haven’t already seen or heard, Death Stranding Director’s Cut has snuck its way onto PC.

Now, I’m not going to go into the nitty-gritty details of the story, soundtrack, and graphics since we have already reviewed the base game here and the Playstation 5 Directors Cut here. I am, however, going to touch on the additions of the Director’s Cut to PC.

So apart from the base game, the Director’s cut adds some new quests, weapons, a training mission where you can compete globally for high scores, and a racetrack builder. The PC version now offers ultra-wide monitor support and a photo mode, as well as framerate and performance upgrades through Intel ARC Xe Super Resampling. The base versions originally ran at a capped 30FPS, whereas the PlayStation Director’s Cut ran at 60FPS.

On my Acer Predator gaming laptop, equipped with a 9th Gen i7, GTX 2060, and 16GB RAM, I averaged 80FPS with maxed-out settings at 1080p. Changing over to my main rig, equipped with a 3070TI, AMD 5800x, and 32GB RAM, maxed out settings with DLSS and AMDFidelityFX off, at 1080P I averaged 130FPS. Bumping the resolution to 1440P made no difference to my framerate. Some other cool little additions with the Directors Cut include some crossover skins in collaboration with Cyberpunk2077 and Half-Life.

Director’s Cut runs for about $70NZD, but if you already own the base version, you can upgrade to the Director’s Cut for $15NZD. The same goes with the PlayStation versions. These two games, however, are standalone, meaning even if you are upgrading you will have to have 70GB free to install the newer version. This loyalty scheme is awesome, and I wish more producers/developers incorporated it.

If you have been on the fence about the game, the Director’s Cut is the option to go for. Crammed with more content and features, it’s an obvious choice. If you already own the base game, then do yourself a favor and pick up the Director’s Cut. Relive the game with some new toys to play with! I experienced this game with fresh eyes and although it’s literally a single massive fetch quest, the story elements and mystery behind the Death Stranding had me enveloped for hours on end.

Written by: Bigfoot