Just over a week ago, after dedicating a significant portion of my Sunday to traversing the vast landscapes of Australia in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, I found myself drifting off to sleep with a dull ache nestled behind my temples. Initially, I attributed this discomfort to the usual culprits: perhaps I hadn’t consumed enough water, or my penchant for snacking throughout the afternoon had replaced a proper meal, leaving me with a headache that felt like a side effect of hunger. Maybe it was a caffeine deficit? I hadn’t spent the entire day glued to the screen, which can sometimes leave my mind buzzing and in dire need of a break. However, by Tuesday, a new suspect emerged: Death Stranding 2.
After a week and a half of immersive gameplay, I went to bed that Tuesday with a pounding headache. It was the kind that jolts you awake in the middle of the night, only to be met with a wave of relief at the realization that the pain had subsided, alleviating a tiny, irrational fear that my brain might simply be in a state of perpetual discomfort. Tuesday had been otherwise uneventful; I worked throughout the day and felt fine, but after just two hours of playing Death Stranding in the evening, the ache began to take root.
Understanding the Framerate Dilemma
The game, with its zoomed-in first-person perspective, can often induce a sense of nausea. As a console title, it runs at 30 frames per second, a stark contrast to my usual gaming experience on PC. After years of primarily gaming on a PC, it seems that this modest frame rate was enough to disrupt my brain’s equilibrium. Like many high-fidelity games on the PS5, Death Stranding defaults to a “quality mode” upon launch, prioritizing resolution without making this fact readily apparent. The option for a performance mode, which locks the framerate at 60 fps, is tucked away in the graphics settings menu, where one can only adjust screen brightness and graphics mode.
In the realm of PC gaming, I would typically check this setting first, but during the initial days of playing Death Stranding 2, I didn’t even think to explore it. I assumed the game would not offer the granular settings I was accustomed to, such as texture quality and draw distance. Besides, the visuals were impressive, so I dove right in, only to find myself grappling with persistent headaches.
Reflecting on my gaming history, I grew up enjoying numerous console games at 30 fps or lower, without any adverse effects. However, over the past decade, such experiences have become increasingly rare for me. I’ve grown accustomed to locking games at a minimum of 60 fps on my 144Hz monitor. Even on my Steam Deck, I generally engage with titles that don’t demand rapid action at lower frame rates, opting for more relaxed games like Dorfromantik.
As I resumed playing on Wednesday, I finally ventured into the limited graphics menu and switched to performance mode. The transformation was immediate; it felt as if I had broken free from the tar pits that marred the world of Death Stranding. Suddenly, everything moved with remarkable speed. The animations and the responsiveness of the protagonist, Sam, to my inputs were so much snappier that I could hardly believe I had been tolerating the sluggishness for days.
Now, toggling between the two graphics modes, I suspect the primary culprit for my headaches is the camera movement. Spinning it around at 30 fps tends to make me feel a bit queasy. Perhaps introducing stronger motion blur could help mask the choppiness of the refresh rate, but I remain uncertain if that would be a definitive solution.
Ultimately, the core issue appears to be responsiveness. I’ve grown accustomed to games that react to my inputs within a 16.67 millisecond window—the time required to generate a frame at 60Hz. Waiting double that time for each button press, compounded by input lag from my TV and wireless controller, has become jarring. It’s reminiscent of playing a VR game where the refresh rate is slightly off, creating a disconnect between what my brain perceives and what it expects to see.
I am grateful that Death Stranding 2 offers a performance mode on consoles. For players who are content with 30 fps, the game runs smoothly in that mode. I now find myself headache-free after logging over 20 hours of gameplay in recent days. This experience has also reignited my appreciation for the fact that even the most basic PC ports today typically provide enough graphical options to achieve 60 fps on hardware that is several years old.
While challenges remain with unoptimized games and performance issues, advancements in graphics settings, upscaling technologies like DLSS and FSR, frame generation, and community-driven tools like Special K have made 60 fps a more attainable baseline for PC gaming. Given the quality of the first game’s excellent PC port, I anticipate that when Death Stranding 2 eventually arrives on PC, it will deliver an even more refined version of an already visually stunning experience.
