Hideo Koyama's truly bizarre adventure centered on the long journey of a post-apocalypse played by Norman Reedus is a game unlike any other. At times tedious, at times mesmerizing, Death Stranding is truly one-of-a-kind. And now the director's cut version is headed to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, thanks to the power of Apple's A17 Pro chip.

Right now, you can pre-order Death Stranding Director's Cut from the Apple App Store in the US for $19 (thanks, MacRumors). This is an unbeatable 50% off, but this is for a limited time only, so you'd better act fast. Director Kojima's baby-carrying game will return to its regular $39 retail price shortly after its January 30 release.

The latest port of Kojium's eco-conscious work is playable on the best MacBooks with the M1 chip or later, and the same chipset is required for the iPad. Make sure it's running at least MacOS 12/iPadOS 17.0, and then you can pile your sci-fi baggage on poor Sam Porter Bridges' back and ruin his shins.

Initially, I was vehemently opposed to Death Stranding. As usual, Kojima loves to have his actors deliver nonsensical dialogue in "Metal Gear Solid"-esque 30-minute cutscenes, and just getting the various mechanical parts from A to B is a pain in the ass. Maneuvering Sam across the eerily beautiful post-apocalyptic America (with large areas inspired by the Icelandic landscape) is definitely an eye-opener. It just gets a little frustrating when you keep tripping over little rocks every 17 seconds.

Sam is no Spider-Man.

If you overload Sam's back with too much stuff, just getting him up a little bumpy hill can be a challenge. Think of Mr. Bridges as a walking Jenga game in handsome human form. If the blocks and loads are not placed in the proper order, the Walking Dead actor will be forced to take painful falls.

Thankfully, you can get bikes, trucks, motorized loaders, and even special mechanical leg braces that make navigation less of a tedious, teeth-grinding task as the game progresses.

On PS5 and PC, "Death Stranding" really holds up, despite its release on PS4 in 2019. Thanks to the Decima Engine, the game runs at a buttery smooth 60 fp on PC and has always been tremendously optimized. My 60+ plays were on PC, so I was playing at double that frame rate, and during motion, Sam was often spectacular, no matter how clumsy he was.

To punctuate the silence that has always permeated the game's lonely mountain ranges, Kojima mainly dropped in absolute classics from former Icelandic indie rock group Low Roar: "Don't Be So Serious," "Because We Have To," Please Don't Stop," and other chilling yet soulful songs.

Although I haven't played it in years, here are some of the big takeaways from "Death Stranding" Why is Sam shoving an actual baby down his throat? This is not a typo. Why am I shooting an oily flying whale? And would I have been able to complete this tedious, yet strangely unforgiving, one-of-a-kind game if I had not been simultaneously playing "The X-Files" on my iPad? I definitely know the answer to that last question. Thank you, Fox Mulder, for keeping me in my senses every time I fall on my butt.

Given that the recent iPhone 15 releases of "Resident Evil 7: Resident Evil Village" and "Resident Evil 4" were not without performance issues even with the power of the A17 Pro, it is not surprising that "Death Stranding" was released on the iPhone 15 Pro and the MacBook Pro 16-inch M3 Max, it will be interesting to see how it performs on both. While I don't expect "Death Stranding" to boast hardware-accelerated ray tracing, Apple's beast should have more than enough power to run this aging game smoothly.