One of more original games of the last generation, Death Standing's focus on traversal and delivery over combat was a welcome alternative take to the open world concept - and it was also one of the most beautiful games on PlayStation 4. So where does Kojima Productions go next for this inevitable upgrade to PS5? The answer is the Director's Cut, which delivers a range of options, improvements and additional content. Rest assured, you're getting your money's worth from £5/$10 upgrade fee in this case.

Of course, this isn't the first time Hideo Kojima has revisited his games - releases dating back to Snatcher, Policenauts and the first three Metal Gear Solid games all received similar re-releases back in the day. Death Stranding: Director's Cut is essentially Death Stranding: Subsistence or Substance, if you will. New elements like the firing range, for instance, offer a lot more than what the name would suggest - this is effectively equivalent to the VR Missions from those first three Metal Gear Solid re-releases. There are also new story sequences and areas to explore along with a subtle revamp to the open world itself.

However, in terms of tapping into the PS5's horsepower, a number of options are available. Quality and performance modes are available - both targeting 60fps - while both options can also be paired with a 21:9 ultrawide presentation. By default, the game boots with its standard 16:9 aspect ratio in performance mode, which runs the game at 1800p resolution, upscaled to 2160p. Image quality wise, it looks comparable to the PS4 Pro's checkerboard rendering mode - sharper in some areas, softer in others, but similar. Obviously, the main improvement to this is frame-rate, which is now 60fps, and in performance mode it is entirely locked in my experience. Quality mode is also available, raising the resolution to 2160p - so it's very sharp indeed - but there is a performance penalty. Both exhibit a slight softness suggesting some sort of reconstruction (though it's difficult to say) but it differs from the checkerboard rendering features used on PlayStation 4 Pro. Cutscenes and combat can see frame-rates drop from 60fps, mostly into the mid-50s but also into the high 40s too. I'd consider this to be a great option for variable refresh rate display support, if and when this function comes to PlayStation 5.

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Death Stranding players on PlayStation 4 eager to experience the new features arriving as part of the post-apocalyptic open-world ambling game's upcoming PlayStation 5 Director's Cut will be able to do so by upgrading for £5.

Previously, Sony revealed those looking to upgrade from the PlayStation 4 original to the PlayStation 5 Digital Deluxe Edition would be able to do so at a cost of €10/$10 USD, leaving many to assume a UK equivalent of around £10. However, the official PlayStation UK Twitter feed has now confirmed an upgrade cost of just £5.

That £5 - or £44.99 if you opt for full version of Death Stranding's PS5 Director's Cut (or somewhere in-between if you upgrade from a discounted PS4 physical copy) - will get you the compellingly mystifying original experience, complete with enhanced visuals, new story missions, new combat mechanics, a firing range, and even a racing mode. Oh and your PS4 saves will carry across too.

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Death Stranding has sold 5m copies, Kojima Productions has confirmed.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Kojima Productions' head of publishing Jay Boor said Death Stranding had performed "quite well".

Death Stranding launched first on PlayStation 4 in November 2019, then came to PC in July last year. It hits PlayStation 5 in Director's Cut form (although Hideo Kojima himself isn't thrilled with it being called a Director's Cut) in September.

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Death Stranding director Hideo Kojima has said he doesn't like the name of his expanded Death Stranding: Director's Cut.

In a series of tweets this morning, Kojima compared the typical use of the term Director's Cut in the movie business, and what had happened here.

Kojima's reasoning is the PlayStation 5 version's new features were all developed after the original Death Stranding released, rather than it being a new version of the game assembled from cut content.

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In a dark room encircled by a 360-degree screen, Patrick Moran methodically leaps through a series of blue spotlights on the floor. The Barbican curator is showing me an internal cheat code to speed through a section of Book of Sand, a specially-commissioned work named for the Jorge Luis Borges short story about a book with infinite pages. The meditative scenes projected around us are from Tequila Works' 2017 puzzler RiME, reincarnated in a new form here at the ArtScience Museum in Singapore.

Book of Sand is one of six new installations at Virtual Realms, an exhibition co-curated by the Barbican and Sega alumnus Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who adapted elements of his own game Rez into a new piece for the show. Six game developers were paired with shortlisted media artists to create what Mizuguchi terms an "experiential new artform" for collaborative group play; onedotzero's Shane Walter jokingly describes the Barbican as a sort of marriage broker armed with lists of potential matches. The idea was to get visitors to think about games as art, and push some boundaries in the process.

Each realm is defined by a theme*:

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Talks between Xbox and Hideo Kojima are reportedly underway, with the aim to secure a publishing agreement.

Venturebeat - which first reported on potential plans for a deal between the two back in April - say discussions have now progressed to the stage that a letter of intent has been signed while legal teams hash out the finer details.

This leaves development work to continue (and Xbox boss Phil Spencer to continue displaying a Kojima Productions figurine on his shelf) in the meantime.

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Death Stranding's PC version made £20m last year, its publisher has revealed.

Digital Bros, parent company of publisher 505 Games, released its half year financial report to 31st December 2020, and in it said Death Stranding's PC release made 23.192m euros in 2020.

Kojima Productions' game launched on PC in July, so this figure includes all money made by the PC version last year. It does not include money made in the first quarter of this year.

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Death Stranding now has a Cyberpunk 2077 update on PC.

The update adds six new missions featuring characters and lore from CD Projekt's game. There are new items and a new hacking function, too.

Currently, the collaboration is exclusive to the PC version, Kojima Productions said. "We'll have more announcements coming in the near future, stay tuned!"

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If all the current Black Friday deals already flooding the internet weren't enough, the Steam Autumn Sale is now here, with hundreds of deals on PC games and software.

This year the sale lasts until December 1st, 18:00PM GMT, and as usual the main Steam storefront has been redesigned to promote the new deals, with sections for genre, for major franchises, for users' wishlists and featured deals, among others. We've outlined some of the best offers we've seen here, and there's a good chance that there'll be other offers cropping up as we go through the week.

This also marks the start of nominations for this year's Steam Awards, the site-wide ceremony where users can nominate and vote for various games in various entries - game of the year, best VR game, soundtrack, story and so on. Nominations start now and voting will occur during the Winter sale later (presumably landing in the Christmas period).

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As with E3 2020, gamescom moves online with a virtual show this year.

Alongside some daily programming is a headline stream once again hosted by Geoff Keighley of The Game Awards fame. Beyond that, the Future Games Show returns to round out the week.

Though Microsoft is due to announce something Xbox Series S related soon, there are no signs of a conference at the time of writing - so don't expect much from them, or PlayStation, in the week ahead. The wait for next-gen pricing and dates continue!

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