New information about Death Stranding 2 is a little sparse, unless you count all the celebrity appearances on Hideo Kojima's social media accounts. But Kojima does sprinkle in a couple of details about the upcoming game between his celebrity cameos and movie reviews, like the fact that Death Stranding 2 will have an easy mode.
A Koji10 post, translated by Genki (via GamesRadar), reveals that Death Stranding 2 will have "a new special feature to help players who are not so experienced at action games." This special feature is a boss battle skip, something that will allow players who are less interested in fighting and more interested in the story to just fast forward through the gritty action with ease.
I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't sound appealing. I've been in countless boss fights where I wished that it could all be over with the push of a button, and I could just carry on with my journey. But that mostly happens in FromSoft games, where the whole point is the gruelling boss battles, and I'd be too stubborn to skip them even if I had the option.
But Death Stranding 2 is very different from a FromSoft game. Yes, there are some weird monsters, and the story is, well, creative. But the focus isn't on battles or builds here—it's all about the narrative and experiencing it for yourself. So while the fights in Death Stranding weren't very hard at all, I think it's still a great idea to make said story more accessible to those who perhaps aren't used to facing up against bosses on a regular or semi-regular basis, or just don't want to.
And it's not like you'll miss out on anything important if you choose the easy mode. Yes, maybe you won't get that winner's high from defeating a difficult enemy, but you'll get to read all about your fight afterwards. After skipping the fight, you'll get an image and some text descriptions about the battle, kind of like a short story.
There's a lot of support for the idea, but not everyone is happy about it, for the usual "you cheated yourself" reason. "I don't like it," one player says. "Learning is half the battle. It is okay if they fought on an easier difficulty, but don't take away the whole fight with a novelised scene."
Quite a few others seem to share a similar view, but I really don't see the issue. People should be left alone to experience any game the way they want—the idea that there's only one right way to experience a game is a boring and restrictive way to look at games. Let them skip boss battles, or don't, it's your game.
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