Do be warned that this article contains major spoilers for the entirety of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.
In almost every aspect, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a vastly superior game to its predecessor. The story, while still a mess of proper nouns and full of nonsensical left turns, actually feels more grounded and easier to follow thanks to its stronger emotional core. The game gives you the fun toys way earlier than before, and Sam’s bond with Lou is relatable and beautiful.
The only drawback? The main villain himself.
Higgs, played by prolific voice actor Troy Baker, also served as the primary antagonist in Death Stranding. Even back then, I thought he was a bit of a joke as a villain. Never mind the fact that he’s just an engine designed to spit out even more proper nouns and cryptic bullshit at the player, he’s unbearably arrogant and pompous while doing it too. And he looks silly. I’m sure Higgs being an insufferable, flashy asshole is kind of the point, but the truth is that he just makes the game worse.
Higgs returns in Death Stranding 2 pretty early on. Even though he was supposed to have been trapped on Amelie’s Beach for all eternity, he’s somehow back again. This time, he’s even made up like a literal clown and plays an electric guitar. If you thought he was silly in the first game, well you ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s so much worse in Death Stranding 2.
What starts out as an emotional journey meant to help Sam heal and cope with the loss of his child quickly devolves into the Higgs show, especially as he starts showing up increasingly frequently towards the end. His appearances are so unbearably over-the-top too — which I know might sound like a weird criticism for a Kojima game, but hear me out — as all he does is show up with his guitar, shred on it a little bit, taunt Sam with more cryptic nonsense, then runs away into his dumbass tar coffin after he gets his ass beat. Rinse and repeat, like, four more times.
In one of these instances, we even get to hear him literally sing while playing his guitar and, once again, tormenting Sam. Admittedly, Troy Baker has a pretty good singing voice so I didn’t totally hate it, but my goodness, enough of the Higgs show already.
All the while, Death Stranding 2 had been setting up some kind of weird dissension between Charlie the new creepy robot and the APAS President, suggesting that APAS’ mission to connect Australia might not be as virtuous as it seems. I had hoped that Higgs would be Death Stranding 2‘s mid-game boss fight, or the guy you fight and get out of the way at the beginning of the final act so that you can make space for the final showdown with the ultimate baddie, whether it was Charlie or the President.
After all, Higgs got his flowers in Death Stranding, didn’t he? He was the ultimate baddie in that game. He was the one who got all the Metal Gear throwbacks, especially with that final CQC fight between him and Sam. Higgs’ story was over.
But no. Death Stranding 2 once again insists on shoving Higgs down the player’s throat as the ultimate baddie. Once again, he gets another epic melee showdown with Sam. Higgs even gets to say, “Kept you waiting, huh?” Which, quite frankly, made me roll my eyes so hard I felt my entire head would roll along with them too. And this time, both Higgs and Sam are shirtless against a gorgeous sunset, armed with electric battle guitars.
I imagine Hideo Kojima watching this scene back and channeling his inner Otacon and going, “It’s like one of my creator fantasies!”
At one point during this fight, Higgs stops attacking, adopts a power stance with his guitar and says something like, “Ah I see you, too, have a guitar, like me, the edgy emo clown who plays guitar.” (I’m paraphrasing here for reasons that will become clear in a second.) He brings his hand up and looks like he’s about to shred and probably drop the nastiest, dopest guitar tune that has ever graced my mortal ears. But I wasn’t having any of it. I was so sick of Higgs’ nonsense by that point that I had Sam beat the crap out of him mid-monologue so he couldn’t even start his stupid jam. Higgs tuts at me. At the bottom of the screen, Death Stranding 2 tells me I got docked 100 Likes for my dishonorable actions. Good. I’d do it again dammit.
The point is, the final act being just a redo of the big Higgs showdown undermines the rest of the story in my view. Death Stranding 2 had a really good thing going. We had parental love, we had camaraderie, we had Dollman, we had tension between Charlie and the President, we had awesome kaiju-mech style fights that made my base PS5 audibly scream under the strain. We even had newcomer Neil Vana (played by Luca Marinelli) who, by the way, would’ve served as a really strong main villain. Just like Mads Mikkelsen’s Cliff Unger would’ve in the first game. Death Stranding 2 had so many cool things going for it but no, we just had to have the Higgs show 2.0 to cap things off.
While I’ll always have the utmost respect for Kojima for daring to take risks and making video games that feel truly unique — and make no mistake, there are times where Death Stranding 2 almost feels like a work of art — it’s instances like these that remind me that maybe some auteurs really do need a team of people in charge of keeping them in check.
More interesting stories and characters, less fanservice, please.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is now available on PS5.
