Shacknews Best Graphics of 2025 - Death Stranding 2

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is one of the most graphically impressive games we've ever played.

We live in an era where so many AAA games are chasing ultrarealistic graphics and still, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach blew us away with its visual fidelity. A stunningly beautiful game from beginning to end, one could argue that a game has never looked better.

Death Stranding 2’s use of performance capture, combined with brilliant work by the animators at Kojima Productions, resulted in lifelike character models. Actors like Norman Reedus, Elle Fanning, and Léa Seydoux look 1:1 with their real world selves in the game, making every moment where your hands aren’t on the controller feel like a feature film.

It’s fitting, given director Hideo Kojima’s affinity for film and specifically, cinematography. Death Stranding 2 is a globe-trotting adventure that features a diverse range of biomes and environments, from lush jungles to arid deserts. There’s an incredible level of detail everywhere you look, the result of the painstaking effort of the developers at Kojima Productions.

In a year where most of Sony’s major first-party studios didn’t release new games, Death Stranding 2 delivered a premium experience that made us want to plug our PS5s into the highest-quality screen possible. It’s a mouthwatering game to look at, and our eyes remain transfixed whenever we load back into Kojima’s latest game.