Update January 4: The leak was legit and there's now an official press release and Steam page for Death Stranding: Director's Cut, which shows the release date as 2022. Original story follows.
Death Stranding: Director's Cut looks like a pretty wild enhancement and upgrade to what is already our 2020 game of the year. The game was released as a Playstation 5 exclusive late last year though, as with the original, the expectation was we'd eventually see it on PC (after all, the Steam version sold incredibly well).
That now looks like a cert after hardware site Videocardz.com acquired an early copy of a CES 2022 press release from Intel about its new Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) graphics technology. Videocardz tends to be one of the biggest leakers of hardware stories on the web, and the release includes a quote from the president of 505 Games, Neil Rally, about the integration of Intel tech into Death Stranding: Director's Cut.
"We’re delighted to announce our partnership with Intel for the Death Stranding Director’s Cut edition on PC," says Rally. "Death Stranding has been a hugely popular game with PC players and we’re excited to see how Intel’s new XeSS technology will enhance player experience for Director’s Cut."
No other specific titles are mentioned as implementing XeSS, though studios mentioned to be working with the tech include Codemasters, PUBG Studios and Ubisoft. Intel has spoken about its XeSS technology in some depth previously, and its GPU agnostic approach should appeal to developers.
Well, it appears it might be time to deliver some cargo again. Death Stranding is a gorgeous experience anyway and the Director's Cut added a huge amount of new stuff, including VR missions echoing Metal Gear, new items like hoverpacks, and a rather absurd racing track. Perhaps the most Kojima moment around the DC's release came when he declared that he wasn't happy with it being called 'director's cut'—as if he had no say in the matter.
