Death Stranding: Director's Cut adds cargo catapults and racing

A new trailer for the Death Stranding Director's Cut aired during PlayStation's State of Play event today, showing that it'll be more than just a few new stealth missions and a PS5 performance boost. The most salient proof of this is racing. The Fragile Circuit racing mode only appears for a couple of seconds in the above trailer, but that's enough to see that you'll be able to pit roadsters against trikes and trucks in what's probably the creepiest racing circuit since Banshee Boardwalk.

There's also a range of new delivery tools, such as the delivery catapult, which solves the problem of carting a heavy load by simply tossing it to (or towards) a destination. A support skeleton seems to improve Sam's strength, while a new buddy bot follows you around and can be mounted if you want. I'm especially excited for the new jump ramps, which let you glide over wide chasms without fussing around with boring bridges.

Combat improvements include a revamp of the game's melee fighting, a new 'maser gun' (it's a laser gun), mounted machine guns and a firing range to practice using your weapons. There's also new story missions, so it's a pretty substantial update. At the time of writing a PC version hasn't been confirmed, though it'll probably come eventually, fingers crossed.

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.