Happy Death Stranding Day for those who celebrate! This week, we finally have the sequel to the 2019 action-adventure video game, Death Stranding. Called Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, this instalment picks up 11 months after the events in the first chapter, where Sam Porter Bridges (played by Norman Reedus) and his buddies seek to connect the isolated colonies in the Australian continent to save humanity... because what else are you gonna do in a post-apocalyptic world? Twiddle one's thumbs? Write fan-fiction?

Developed by video game doyen Hideo Kojima, the plot of Death Stranding takes a little elbow grease to take in: set in the United States, a cataclysmic event aka the titular "Death Stranding" introduced invisible monsters called "Beached Things" ("BTs") that roam the planet. There's also a weather anomaly called "Timefall" that rapidly ages anything it touches. Because of these occurrences, the surviving human race are isolated into remote colonies.

Due to this disengagement, the population is dependent on porters—delivery people, who can brave the terrains, BTs and bandits to transport supplies. Sam is one such delivery person and is tasked to journey to key colonies to restore the Chiral Network system in a bid to reform America. As a porter, Sam is outfitted with a Bridge Baby—a premature child kept in a pod—that allows them to sense the presence of a BT... and I'm gonna end it there because there's a lot more to the Death Stranding lore and that's only for the first chapter.

For the sequel, after Sam has established the network system in the United Cities of America, he is now living off-grid and raising the Bridge Baby (now out of the pod and is a toddler). Once more, Sam is asked to form another Chiral Network, this time in the Australian continent, linking up the isolated survivors to save humanity from extinction. Y'know, the usual post-apocalyptic stuff.

Death Stranding 2 features returning Léa Seydoux and Troy Baker, as well as new addition to the cast like Elle Fanning, George Miller (yup, he of Furiosa), Fatih Akin and Luca Marinelli, among others. The trailer alone doesn't look like it will explain anything but the game design looks great and the action sequences look even off-the-wall than usual.

Hideo Kojima is one of the rare creators who, in a bid to think out of the box, reshapes said box and with Death Stranding 2, you know that the experience with it is anything but ordinary.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is out now on PlayStation 5 platforms