Death Stranding Director's Cut comes to iPhone 15 Pro, iPad, and Mac this month and if you buy it soon you'll even get it for half price

Death Stranding artwork
(Image credit: 505 Games)

Those who like to play their games on iPhones, iPads, and Macs will have a new AAA title to sink their teeth into soon after it was confirmed that Death Stranding Director's Cut would debut on those platforms on January 30. The game is already available for preorder in the App Store and promises to provide hours of entertainment in a sci-fi wasteland the likes of which only Kojima Productions could imagine.

The game, which first launched on the PS5 back in 2021, is set to make its debut across Apple's IPhone, iPad, and Mac platforms although there will be some limitations on which devices will actually be able to play it. That begins with the iPhone, with gamers needing an A17 Pro-powered iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max in order to take Death Stranding for a spin. Those who own an iPad or Mac will be able to play the game so long as it's powered by Apple silicon with the latest M3 Macs likely to perform the best.

Assuming that you have the right hardware, picking up Death Stranding Director's Cut might actually be a lot cheaper than you expect. 505 Games has confirmed that those who buy the title at launch will pay just $19.99, although that price will double to $39.99 once an unspecified period of time has passed. The upshot of that is that anyone who thinks they might want to play the game should definitely act now. It's also worth noting that one $19.99 purchase will get buyers access to the tile across all three platforms, too.

A shattered world

In Death Stranding's App Store page 505 Games sets the scene, and it isn't a pretty one.

"In the future, a mysterious event known as the Death Stranding has opened a doorway between the living and the dead, leading to grotesque creatures from the afterlife roaming the fallen world marred by a desolate society," the description explains. "As Sam Bridges, your mission is to deliver hope to humanity by connecting the last survivors of a decimated America."

If that sounds like something that you might enjoy getting involved with you might also be interested that the download "also includes a HIGH FRAME RATE, PHOTO MODE, and cross-over content from Valve Corporation's HALF-LIFE series and CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077."

Death Stranding Director's Cut also makes use of Metal 3 features including upscaling and hardware-based ray tracing on supported devices which should ensure improved graphical performance and fidelity throughout.

Gaming was a key focus when Apple announced the iPhone 15 Pro in September of last year and the same was the case when the M3 series of Macs was announced, too. Apple continues to make gains in terms of the graphical performance of its devices in an attempt to make them more appealing to game developers. However, as fast as M3-series Macs are, they still lag some way behind the abilities offered by dedicated gaming GPU hardware used in gaming PCs.

One interesting tidbit from the Death Stranding App Store page — the size of the download. Apple says that the game comes in at a whopping 69.8GB which is going to be a lot for gamers who download the title on their iPhones and iPads. The same can be said for Apple's M-series Macs with just 256GB of storage, too.

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Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.