DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT
Image: Steam store (© respective owners)

How do players who really played DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT rate it? TrueGG Rating 93.8%

Release date: Mar 30, 2022 Data as of 2026-10-19 View on Steam ↗

Players who really played rate it about the same as Steam overall. Early impressions are weaker, so the first few hours tend to decide whether it clicks.

Think twice if you are

  • Players who put story first
  • Players who want variety (reports that it gets monotonous)
  • Players who want a brisk pace

A rule-based guide from review patterns (no AI). How

TrueGG RatingMethodology ↗
93.8%
▲ +1.7 pt
vs Steam overall

Positive among players with 20+ hours (last 180 days) · 4,889 reviews

TrueGG, all time
95.4%
Steam overall
92.2%
Japanese, all time
84.6%

Early wall

Reviews written under 2 hours: 3.8% of all reviews. Their positive share is 74.1%.

This is not a drop-off rate; it describes who wrote reviews. Refund guide: within 14 days of purchase and under 2 hours of play (Steam refund policy).

01 / TRUEGG INSIGHTS

Does the rating change the longer people play?

Used for TrueGG Rating (20h+)JapaneseRight: reviews
Positive share by playtimeRanges from 20 hours up are highlighted. Exact values are in the table below.0%25%50%75%100%0–1 h61%791–2 h53%1202–5 h78%7365–10 h84%74110–20 h86%82720–50 h92%2,15950–100 h96%1,814100–200 h95%811200+ h96%105Positive share by playtime0–1 h7961%1–2 h12053%2–5 h73678%5–10 h74184%10–20 h82786%20–50 h2,15992%50–100 h1,81496%100–200 h81195%200+ h10596%

Positive share by playtime at the time of review (reviews from the last 180 days). Ranges under 50 reviews are pale and dashed (indicative only); “—” means no reviews.

Show chart values as a table
PlaytimePositiveJapaneseReviews
0–1 h60.8%0.0%79
1–2 h52.5%0.0%120
2–5 h78.3%0.0%736
5–10 h83.9%100.0%741
10–20 h86.2%75.0%827
20–50 h91.7%75.0%2,159
50–100 h95.6%83.3%1,814
100–200 h95.4%100.0%811
200+ h96.2%100.0%105

How long people play: half of reviewers had played 20+ hours. 61% had 20+ hours and 10% had 100+ hours (all time).

02 / TRUEGG INSIGHTS

Summary

DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT has a TrueGG Rating of 93.8%: the positive share among 4,889 reviews written in the last 180 days by players with 20+ hours, close to Steam's overall 92.2%. Players who really play it broadly agree with the headline number (all time: 95.4%).

Reviews written under 2 hours make up 4% of the total, with 74% positive. The early hours do not split opinion much.

In the last 180 days, reviews at 2–5h are 78% positive versus 95% at 100–200h: the more people play, the more they like it.

Negative reviews most often mention the story, boredom, and pacing.

Among Japanese-language reviews, the TrueGG Rating is 84.6%, 9.2 points below all languages.

Re-weighting reviews by trust signals (playtime, length, how the game was obtained) barely changes the rating (91.9% adjusted), so Steam's number is not noticeably distorted by key giveaways or throwaway reviews.

All figures come from Steam's public review counts, and topics are counted with our published dictionary (no AI). Data as of 2026-10-19.

03 / TRUEGG INSIGHTS

Why it is rated this way

What drives the rating

Complaints center on the game's design (Story, Boring / repetitive, Movement & pacing, Grind, Controls, UI & camera). These rarely change with updates, so the rating likely reflects the game itself. Judge by whether it suits you. It is also a game many people bounce off early (early reviews are much less positive than those of players who stuck with it).

− Most mentioned complaints

  • Story38% of negative reviews (25% of positive) · most common among 100h+ players
  • Boring / repetitive30% of negative reviews (8% of positive) · most common among 2–20h players
  • Movement & pacing25% of negative reviews (15% of positive) · most common among 100h+ players
  • Grind11% of negative reviews (3% of positive) · most common among 20–100h players
  • Controls, UI & camera11% of negative reviews (4% of positive) · most common among 100h+ players

+ What players praise

No standout topics

+ peak+ 感謝+ cinema+ ミュール+ 最高+ 達成感+ 便利+ relaxing− error− telling− refund− pointless− worst− sure− fix− waste

Counted from 414 recent negative and 600 positive reviews in Japanese and English, using our published topic dictionary. No AI is used. Topics overlap, so shares do not add up to 100%. Sarcasm and nuance are not detected, and this does not show cause and effect.How we count

04 / TRUEGG INSIGHTS

Checking the numbers

Figures with a different scope, shown alongside the TrueGG Rating.

MetricPositiveScope
Official Steam rating92.2%All time, all languages · 69,953 reviews
Adjusted rating91.9%Weighted by trust (95% range 91.6%–92.1%), −0.3pt vs official
Japanese-language reviews79.7%All time, Japanese-language reviews (−12.4pt vs overall) · 562 reviews
Show the positive vs negative breakdown

Share of sampled reviews that meet each condition that lowers trust. When a condition is more common on the positive side, the adjusted rating falls below the official one.

ConditionPositive reviewsNegative reviews
Under 2 hours played at review1%12%
Very short text31%14%
Key activated outside Steam22%23%
Received for free1%1%
Owns very few games7%4%
Over 100 reviews written4%7%
Average trust (1.0 = full)0.810.84

The median total playtime of the sampled reviewers is 31.8 hours. 400 positive and 400 negative reviews analyzed · data as of 2026-10-19

05 / TRUEGG INSIGHTS

When did the rating change?

Monthly positive and negative review counts since release, as published by Steam.

Reviews per month

■ Positive■ Negative
0 2,000 4,000 6,000 2022-03: +350 / −22 2022-04: +1,524 / −159 2022-05: +628 / −64 2022-06: +498 / −54 2022-07: +635 / −54 2022-08: +409 / −32 2022-09: +616 / −72 2022-10: +601 / −48 2022-11: +2,564 / −75 2022-12: +1,430 / −129 2023-01: +1,455 / −116 2023-02: +561 / −51 2023-03: +427 / −40 2023-04: +555 / −70 2023-05: +394 / −33 2023-06: +434 / −51 2023-07: +540 / −55 2023-08: +382 / −34 2023-09: +416 / −46 2023-10: +348 / −30 2023-11: +698 / −36 2023-12: +571 / −60 2024-01: +557 / −48 2024-02: +933 / −72 2024-03: +623 / −55 2024-04: +518 / −55 2024-05: +347 / −36 2024-06: +559 / −56 2024-07: +632 / −56 2024-08: +440 / −29 2024-09: +480 / −53 2024-10: +659 / −60 2024-11: +774 / −79 2024-12: +718 / −56 2025-01: +609 / −58 2025-02: +532 / −61 2025-03: +1,240 / −87 2025-04: +873 / −67 2025-05: +989 / −96 2025-06: +2,159 / −217 2025-07: +4,161 / −321 2025-08: +1,672 / −156 2025-09: +884 / −94 2025-10: +751 / −94 2025-11: +693 / −75 2025-12: +855 / −109 2026-01: +771 / −89 2026-02: +1,609 / −228 2026-03: +1,804 / −214 2026-04: +1,441 / −152 2026-05: +726 / −93 2026-06: +764 / −109 2026-07: +761 / −98 2026-08: +504 / −80 2026-09: +1,083 / −136 2026-10: +630 / −79 2022/032023/012024/012025/012026/01

Positive share per month

0% 25% 50% 75% 100% Monthly data overall 91.2% 2024-04: update2026-03: update 2022-03: 94.1%2022-04: 90.6%2022-05: 90.8%2022-06: 90.2%2022-07: 92.2%2022-08: 92.7%2022-09: 89.5%2022-10: 92.6%2022-11: 97.2%2022-12: 91.7%2023-01: 92.6%2023-02: 91.7%2023-03: 91.4%2023-04: 88.8%2023-05: 92.3%2023-06: 89.5%2023-07: 90.8%2023-08: 91.8%2023-09: 90.0%2023-10: 92.1%2023-11: 95.1%2023-12: 90.5%2024-01: 92.1%2024-02: 92.8%2024-03: 91.9%2024-04: 90.4%2024-05: 90.6%2024-06: 90.9%2024-07: 91.9%2024-08: 93.8%2024-09: 90.1%2024-10: 91.7%2024-11: 90.7%2024-12: 92.8%2025-01: 91.3%2025-02: 89.7%2025-03: 93.4%2025-04: 92.9%2025-05: 91.2%2025-06: 90.9%2025-07: 92.8%2025-08: 91.5%2025-09: 90.4%2025-10: 88.9%2025-11: 90.2%2025-12: 88.7%2026-01: 89.7%2026-02: 87.6%2026-03: 89.4%2026-04: 90.5%2026-05: 88.6%2026-06: 87.5%2026-07: 88.6%2026-08: 86.3%2026-09: 88.8%2026-10: 88.9% 2022/032023/012024/012025/012026/01

Months with under 30 reviews are omitted from the rate.

Updates and ratings before and after

DateAnnouncement2 months before → after
2026-03-19 DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH IS OUT NOW ON PC! 88% → 90% (+1.6pt)
2024-04-19 THE STEAM POINTS SHOP IS NOW LIVE! 92% → 91% (−1.7pt)

Picked automatically from the titles of Steam announcements by the developer (one per month, last 3 years, up to 10). The dotted lines mark those months. Before and after are the positive rates of the two months before and after (excluding the month itself); shown as "—" under 50 reviews or when the two months after are not complete. An update is not necessarily the cause of a change.

Reviews per day, last 30 days

0 20 40 60 80 2026-09-19: +61 / −6 2026-09-20: +75 / −3 2026-09-21: +37 / −11 2026-09-22: +48 / −5 2026-09-23: +42 / −3 2026-09-24: +48 / −4 2026-09-25: +52 / −4 2026-09-26: +46 / −5 2026-09-27: +53 / −7 2026-09-28: +38 / −4 2026-09-29: +28 / −6 2026-09-30: +42 / −6 2026-10-01: +24 / −6 2026-10-02: +32 / −3 2026-10-03: +40 / −7 2026-10-04: +58 / −11 2026-10-05: +41 / −4 2026-10-06: +38 / −4 2026-10-07: +47 / −5 2026-10-08: +26 / −4 2026-10-09: +43 / −3 2026-10-10: +44 / −2 2026-10-11: +45 / −3 2026-10-12: +25 / −3 2026-10-13: +27 / −6 2026-10-14: +24 / −1 2026-10-15: +20 / −1 2026-10-16: +28 / −4 2026-10-17: +36 / −7 2026-10-18: +32 / −5 09/1909/2610/0310/1010/17
Show monthly data as a table
MonthPositiveNegativePositive
2022-033502294.1%
2022-041,52415990.6%
2022-056286490.8%
2022-064985490.2%
2022-076355492.2%
2022-084093292.7%
2022-096167289.5%
2022-106014892.6%
2022-112,5647597.2%
2022-121,43012991.7%
2023-011,45511692.6%
2023-025615191.7%
2023-034274091.4%
2023-045557088.8%
2023-053943392.3%
2023-064345189.5%
2023-075405590.8%
2023-083823491.8%
2023-094164690.0%
2023-103483092.1%
2023-116983695.1%
2023-125716090.5%
2024-015574892.1%
2024-029337292.8%
2024-036235591.9%
2024-045185590.4%
2024-053473690.6%
2024-065595690.9%
2024-076325691.9%
2024-084402993.8%
2024-094805390.1%
2024-106596091.7%
2024-117747990.7%
2024-127185692.8%
2025-016095891.3%
2025-025326189.7%
2025-031,2408793.4%
2025-048736792.9%
2025-059899691.2%
2025-062,15921790.9%
2025-074,16132192.8%
2025-081,67215691.5%
2025-098849490.4%
2025-107519488.9%
2025-116937590.2%
2025-1285510988.7%
2026-017718989.7%
2026-021,60922887.6%
2026-031,80421489.4%
2026-041,44115290.5%
2026-057269388.6%
2026-0676410987.5%
2026-077619888.6%
2026-085048086.3%
2026-091,08313688.8%
2026-106307988.9%
Show daily data as a table
DayPositiveNegative
2026-09-19616
2026-09-20753
2026-09-213711
2026-09-22485
2026-09-23423
2026-09-24484
2026-09-25524
2026-09-26465
2026-09-27537
2026-09-28384
2026-09-29286
2026-09-30426
2026-10-01246
2026-10-02323
2026-10-03407
2026-10-045811
2026-10-05414
2026-10-06384
2026-10-07475
2026-10-08264
2026-10-09433
2026-10-10442
2026-10-11453
2026-10-12253
2026-10-13276
2026-10-14241
2026-10-15201
2026-10-16284
2026-10-17367
2026-10-18325
06 / TRUEGG INSIGHTS

Recent sentiment

PeriodPositiveReviews
Last 30 days90.0%1,693
Last 180 days89.5%7,373
All time92.2%69,953
Japanese, last 180 days78.6%42
08 / TRUEGG INSIGHTS

About this verdict

Every figure is computed from review data that Steam makes public. No AI estimation is used.

Review text is never stored or republished. Read the actual reviews on Steam.

If you disagree with this verdict, please reach us via the contact on the About page. About