Death Stranding Director's Cut Now Available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Post-apocalyptic open world action game Death Stranding is today officially available on iPhones, iPads, and Macs powered by Apple silicon.

Death Stranding
Previously released on PlayStation 5 (2021) and PC (2022), the Director's Cut version for Mac was announced by legendary game creator Hideo Kojima at WWDC 2023 to showcase the potential gaming performance of Apple silicon. Apple subsequently teased an iPhone 15 Pro version at its "Wonderlust" iPhone event in September.

Gamers take on the role of Sam Bridges (played by Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead fame) as a courier tasked with delivering supplies to isolated colonies and reconnecting them via wireless network following a cataclysmic event known as the Death Stranding. Unfortunately for everyone, the event opens a doorway between the living and the dead, leading to grotesque creatures from the afterlife roaming a ravaged and desolate world.

MacRumors sister site TouchArcade has an updating review of the game, which supports ‌iPhone 15‌ Pro and ‌iPhone 15‌ Pro Max devices, as well as Macs running one of Apple's M-series chips.


Death Stranding Director's Cut is currently listed in the App Store at the promotional price of $19.99 (normal price $39.99). Note that this is a universal purchase giving players the ‌iPhone 15‌ Pro, iPadOS, and macOS versions in a single purchase as well as support for cross-device progress syncing.

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...

Top Rated Comments

Successful Sorcerer Avatar
12 months ago

Great game. Obviously it won’t run that great, because even the GPU of a maxed out M3 Max is far from being as fast as a PS5-GPU (and you can get a PS5 with 825 GB of SSD for less than apple charges for 1 TB of a slighly faster SSD alone). Still, it’s the game that counts, not the graphics. If it runs smoothly on a Macbook Air, it’s a win for Mac gaming.
Is that really true? When I look up some benchmarks on CPU monkey ('https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-apple_m3_max_16_cpu_40_gpu-vs-sony_playstation_5') for example I see M3 Max beating the PS5 in every aspect, not all benchmarks are available on both platforms so only compare the ones with data available.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Unami Avatar
12 months ago
Great game. Obviously it won’t run that great, because even the GPU of a maxed out M3 Max is far from being as fast as a PS5-GPU (and you can get a PS5 with 825 GB of SSD for less than apple charges for 1 TB of a slighly faster SSD alone). Still, it’s the game that counts, not the graphics. If it runs smoothly on a Macbook Air, it’s a win for Mac gaming.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ilikewhey Avatar
12 months ago

This game as seemed interesting to me but I'm just not sure. The mechanics seem kinda boring. I think I'll still pick it up but it's probably worth the sale on my PS5 instead of the full price for macOS.

Anyone really enjoy this game and want to offer some insight?
storyline was mysterious enough for me to push through, but after beating it, you are stuck with maintaining your highway network and wrapping up side quests, by that I mean you basically become a glorified fedex driver deliverying goods between each locations. if you like logistic games this might be your cut of tea.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bradman83 Avatar
12 months ago
There's a lot of comments on this site about how Apple should partner with Steam if they really want to boost Mac gaming, but it's pretty clear that this is an example of the strategy Apple would rather pursue - putting the games in their own app store and enabling universal purchases across their platforms rather than partnering with a third party service like Steam. (And given Apple's track record this should not be surprising).
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
waynema Avatar
12 months ago
49.4GB download for iPhone.. I can finally use my backbone usb-C
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bradman83 Avatar
12 months ago

Why in the world is this not available also for Intel Macs?
The technical reason is that the game relies on Metal 3, and Metal 3 in turn relies on certain features of Apple Silicon GPUs, not the least of which is tile-based deferred rendering for acceptable performance. The GPUs in the overwhelming majority of Intel-based Macs use immediate-mode frame rendering; Intel only started supporting TBDR in 11th generation chip GPUs (which are not found in any Macs) and AMD only supports it in Vega GPUs, which are found in a very small subset of upgraded iMacs and Mac Pros.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)