Death Stranding on RTX 5090 in 8K: Gorgeous Lighting, PC Modding, and What’s Next for the Sequel

Death Stranding has never looked better. Thanks to new ReShade mods and the insane power of the NVIDIA RTX 5090, the game now runs in 8K with full ray-traced global illumination and ambient occlusion. That’s on top of enhanced fog, lighting, shadows, and color grading. It’s not an official remaster, but in motion, it might as well be.

The visuals come from modder Beyond Dreams, who used the Complete RT Reshade — one of the most advanced real-time screen-space ray tracing overlays currently out there. It doesn’t replace real ray tracing like what we get in native AAA games, but it gets surprisingly close. Using only the on-screen data, it simulates bounce lighting, shadows, and reflections, then layers them over the game’s original image. It’s like dragging the 2019 game into a 2025 presentation — and yes, it works.

To make this kind of visual fidelity run at playable framerates, Beyond Dreams used NVIDIA DLSS 4. The exact DLSS mode (Performance, Balanced, or Quality) wasn’t revealed, but the footage speaks for itself. The game stays smooth at 8K, even with the heavy lighting effects turned on. With the RTX 5090 now pushing the limits of what’s possible in single-player visuals, this might be the best way to revisit the original Death Stranding before the sequel lands on PC.

But that sequel, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, is launching this week for PlayStation 5 only. PC players will have to wait. The good news is we’ve seen this timeline before. The first Death Stranding came out on PS4 in November 2019, and hit PC just eight months later in July 2020. If Kojima Productions follows the same approach, there’s a strong chance Death Stranding 2 will come to PC in the first half of 2026.

There’s every reason to believe it will. Death Stranding sold well on PC, and more importantly, it ran really well. Decima Engine’s PC optimization was impressive. The first game scaled across a wide range of systems, and that good reputation likely played a role in the sequel getting greenlit at all. Sony might want the timed exclusivity window, but skipping PC entirely makes little sense given the first game’s performance on Steam.

It also fits into a growing trend: Sony titles, especially from studios with close ties like Kojima Productions, are finding their way to PC more often. NVIDIA, meanwhile, keeps pushing for better hardware to support these ports. From Horizon Zero Dawn to The Last of Us Part I, the trajectory is clear. The more these games go multiplatform, the more NVIDIA benefits, and the more impressive the ports become when paired with hardware like the 5090.

Read also about the confrontation within IGN. How the Japanese branch gave a low rating to Clair Obscure, and the French branch gave a low rating to Death Stranding 2, like this. These ratings are the lowest among critics on Metacritic.

So while Death Stranding 2 will live as a console exclusive for now, the PC version feels inevitable. And when it hits, we’ll probably see even more DLSS tech, native ray tracing, and maybe even full path tracing depending on how ambitious Kojima wants to go.

We already published a dedicated PC gamer review of Death Stranding 2, taking a closer look at how its new mechanics feel and what it might mean for its eventual PC version. It’s clear the team is building for longevity, with layered storytelling and survival design that once again asks players to push through slow, deliberate terrain — this time with a few added weapons, a talking guitar, and a dog coffin with jet thrusters.

And of course, we’ve previously highlighted Kojima’s love for weird ideas that he finds brilliant but others find deeply cringe. That hasn’t changed in Death Stranding 2 — if anything, it’s amplified. The game includes hallucinated musical performances, a baby with tentacles, and a group of AI-powered masks that argue with each other. Kojima’s vision continues to be singular. Not always elegant, rarely mainstream, but impossible to ignore.

Back to the original: what modders are doing with Death Stranding on PC is worth paying attention to. It’s more than just chasing higher resolutions. ReShade Complete RT adds true depth to an already atmospheric world. The cinematic lighting from the foggy wetlands to snowy peaks feels even more oppressive now. Even the simple act of walking looks better, with long shadows reacting dynamically to Sam’s torch or the storm overhead.

Death Stranding on RTX 5090 in 8K doesn’t just show off NVIDIA’s raw power. It shows how modding communities and hardware innovation together can extend the life of a game. What was already one of the most visually unique open-world experiences now stands shoulder to shoulder with 2025’s best-looking titles — and this is six years after launch.

For now, this is the definitive way to experience Death Stranding on PC. And while Death Stranding 2 is keeping its secrets locked on PS5 for a bit longer, it’s only a matter of time before Sam Porter Bridges comes wandering back to Steam, just with weirder cargo and even more gorgeous lighting.