Best settings for Death Stranding 2 – performance or quality mode?

Though Death Stranding 2 is launching on PS5 without all the options you’d get on PC, there are still a few tweaks you can make to improve your overall experience. Chief among them is choosing whether to play in quality or performance graphics mode. The former prioritize visual fidelity, while the latter aims to offer high frame rates.

There are also several gameplay oriented adjustments you make to ensure Sam’s latest delivery run across Mexico is more enjoyable. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the best settings for Death Stranding 2 and offer our thoughts on whether you should play in performance or quality mode. For more help starting your journey, check out our explainer on the DOOMS birthday effect and whether you should help Fragile or not at the start of the game

Game Settings

Game Settings cover everything from difficulty through to HUD icons and markers. Death Stranding 2 can get saturated with HUD elements, pings, and notifications so these quick changes will declutter the screen for an overall more enjoyable experience.

Option	Setting
Game Difficulty	Normal – this offers the most balanced experience, but tweak if you want more difficulty or an easier time
Log In at Launch	On
Shared Content	Everything – Death Stranding 2 is a game about connection and it feels like you’re missing out if you’re not sharing structures, signs, vehicles, cargo, weapons, tools, and so on with other players.
Avatar Image	Off – personal preference
Enemy Encounter Animations	First Time Only – you’ll quickly grow tired of seeing it repeated.
Markers	On
Central HUD Display	On
Command Prompts	On
Help Icons	On
Corpus Icons	Off
Tips Display	Off – leave it on for the first couple of hours then switch it off. The tooltips take up a huge portion of the screen and can be distracting during tense fights and the like.
Hide Signs Containing Spoilers	On – DS2 is best experienced first-hand.

Controls

The default control settings offer a solid foundation, but with these tweaks you’ll make some targeted quality-of-life improvements that you’ll appreciate the deeper you get into Death Stranding 2.

Option	Setting
Controls for Soothing Lou	Left Stick
Controls for Readying Weapons or Structures	Toggle
Controls for Sprinting	Toggle
Switch Camera Left/Right	On
Aim Assist	Weak – anything above snaps almost immediately to enemy targets making combat a little too simplistic.
Left Stick Dead Zone	1
Right Stick Dead Zone	1
Vibration Intensity	Medium
Trigger Effect Intensity	Auto
Control Sensitivity for Keeping Your Balance	5
Minimum Button Hold Duration	4

Camera Settings

Keep all settings on default except for the following:

Option	Setting
[Map] Save Orientation	Off

Graphics Settings – performance or quality mode?

After sampling both modes, I’d highly recommend opting for performance graphics mode if you’re playing a base PlayStation 5. You’ll get a solid 60 FPS for only a minor downgrade to visual fidelity that you likely won’t notice when you’re in the thick of the action. While quality mode does look better with sharper rendering and richer environmental details, it lowers the frame rate to a painful 30 FPS that translates to jagged and choppy movements compared to performance mode’s much smoother 60 FPS. As it’s often said, once you play at 60 FPS it’s hard to go back.

If you’re playing on a PS5 Pro, go for quality mode, which hits near enough 60 FPS, avoiding the frame rate penalty on the base PS5. The game is PS5 Pro Enhanced so there’s no reason not to put that beefier hardware to work.