Death Stranding

Any piece of media that takes big swings, that really goes for it, will always be more interesting than something endlessly focus tested to the widest possible audience. Hideo Kojima’s “unleashing” from Metal Gear promised a wild ride, and while it isn’t anywhere near as complicated as hyperbole would have you believe, Death Stranding sure is, if anything, interesting.

The sheer volume of things Death Stranding wants to say is… a lot. From climate change to social media, from post apocalyptic obsession to the inherent need for human connection, the game jumps from point to point like an excited kid trying to show you all their favourite toys. Focused, Death Stranding is not. 

Yet, I love that. It wants you to engage with so much that Kojima Productions wants to talk about, straight to your face. Subtlety is a tool for cowards, so the saying goes.

Sometimes metaphors get lost in the wind. Meaning can be misconstrued, intention can give way to misinterpretation. Sometimes, just straight up saying what you mean can be more important than just implying it.

“I brought you a metaphor”. 

And then there’s the game you play.

The plot beats and cutscenes in Death Stranding are utterly ridiculous. That’s definitely not a bad thing - they certainly grab your attention and speak directly to you. And I mean You, the player. 

In what are more comparable to a stage play soliloquy than anything, every single major character gets their time in the spotlight to lay bare their entire life story. In the beginning, I saw these as laughable. Though the more I thought on them, the more I came to appreciate and enjoy the stylistic choice.

Heartman’s stands out as particularly egregious - both in the "outstandingly bad; shocking” and "remarkably good” definitions. Upon entering his home, there is an immediate air of mystery surrounding this man - even if you didn’t care about this character at all up to this point, his elaborate housing and choice of decoration certainly piques curiosity.

Then over the course of the next 40 minutes or so, you’ll not only have any questions you might’ve had answered, but you will get every specific detail as to why absolutely everything is the way it is about him. All pretence of wonder is given over to pinpoint precision of fact, with Heartman’s constant direct-to-camera glances belaying an obvious “do you get it???”

The performance of this rollercoaster is nonetheless captivating in its exaggerations. I physically burst into laughter at the ridiculousness of Heartman’s thumbs up’s directed at the screen when Sam answers his questions, as if this were a mid-term literature class where your teacher turns to you and nods when another student answered the asked question of the room.

But hell, it’s effective. I will never forget exactly why Heartman is Heartman, why Heartman wear’s that device on his chest, or what tragedy befell Heartman to warrant the nickname “Heartman”. And by the end, all the characters were endearing enough that I love them anyway, despite - or maybe because of - their absurdity.

What kept me going for 120 hours though, from the initial wander over the first hill through to a platinum trophy, had nothing to do with the capital P plot. No, despite the extremely Kojima-esque Kojima-ness of this Kojima-written story, the coolest parts of Death Stranding have nothing to do with story at all.

The idea of “Making America Whole Again” is pumped into your veins countless times on your trip across the continent, yet you don’t ever feel like that’s your “mission”. It might be your overarching goal, but not once do you ever stop and think, “My sole purpose here is reuniting the continent”. 

You are thinking about the levels below, in the micro and macro. Your goal is to delivery this package to this place. Your focus is on how you are going to get from this place you are right now to that place just up that hill, around the other side of this obstacle, or through this area of danger. It’s all about that "one foot in front of the other” vibe. About moving forward.

For all the over-exposition of Deadman’s conundrums and Higg’s diabolical plans, the physicality of the movement in Death Stranding conveys a more subtle brilliance I was not expecting.

Death Stranding takes something nearly all games smooth over - walking - and makes it the core mechanic. The beauty of this is instead of simply sprinting in a straight line from A to B, the player is instead focused on taking in the environment around them, considering every rock, incline and obstacle. When your sole purpose of doing so is weaving back and forth through the world between locations, you come to intimately learn the space you inhabit.

This core mechanic then makes the journey the point, rather than the destination. Your overcoming and mastering of these systems, along with the excellent upgrade curve the game doles out over your journey, make for a satisfying loop. 

The increasingly arduous treks you tackle in embodying Sam Porter Bridges empowers the idea that the delivering of cargo to those in need is a worthy pursuit. You put in the work and tackle the obstacles in front of you, all for the sake of lightening your load, getting a reward, and importantly, increasing another’s quality of life. The feedback loop of likes, star ratings and enhanced equipment spins this into a positive on all sides. It’s one of the simpler messages of the game, but one of the most potent thanks entirely to its gameplay: helping others benefits all.

This egalitarian message is compounded by Death Stranding’s next level of engagement - your connection to other real-world players.

Throughout the hours I spent in Death Stranding’s America, a healthy chunk of it was spent doing two things - rebuilding the main highway, and constructing elaborate zip-line installations. Both of these boosted my ability to traverse the entire map with ease, with increasingly large amounts of cargo in tow. The satisfaction in driving across the entire middle section of the continent to deliver thousands of kg’s of materials, or zipping across an entire mountain in seconds, is tremendous. 

Rebuilding sections of road takes increasingly large amounts of resources, so progress takes time and effort in both finding and transporting said resources. As you begin to work on these sections however, you will begin to notice that you do not have to rebuild them all from scratch - when connected to the “chiral network”, you will see that other players have also placed thousands of denominations of resources towards their reconstruction, making your job infinitely easier. 

Likewise, as I built out my network of zip-lines, I placed mine in such a way that utilized the zip-lines other players had already built themselves. This meant I was able to build out a larger network than I could if I did so alone; there is a limit to the amount of items you can construct, but this limit is unaffected by other’s constructions.

This goes the same for bridges, generators and anything else in the world. I found myself thinking not only where the best place might be to build to benefit myself, but how anyone coming after me might do the same. I was forever thankful for the placement of certain bridges and timefall shelters others had already made as I ventured further out, helping me with my deliveries - forwarding that on to the porters to come felt… right.

That’s the crux of where this game hits home for me. For those of us who shy away from the endless destruction and slaughter AAA games in particular put their focus on, this move to instead concentrate on the building of a world is a sorely needed breath of fresh air. 

Even the simple act of walking between places a few times benefits both yourself and others. It incredibly didn’t even click with my until 60 hours in, but paths walked can be created almost anywhere in the game. What was once rocky terrain becomes a worn dirt track more suitable for traversal.

If others use that trek it will continue to be a well worn path a hundred hours later; if boots or wheels do not continue along that path, it will return to its natural state. Much like regular hiking tracks in the real world, the paths that players create and use through the world become thoroughfares for future generations.

For all it’s wild plot, bizarre characters - I didn’t even get into Mads Mikkelsen’s Cliff, who’s performance is simply captivating - and intensely overt mission statement(s), I can’t help but feel that Death Stranding holds something special inside. It might not be as smoothed out or as focused as other titles, but you can clearly see the intense dedication the entire team at Kojima Productions had behind this work. It’s "lack of editing”, for wont of a better phrase, only serves to help Death Stranding shine.

The sole focus of what you are doing in Death Stranding is helping people. Whether it’s through the ridiculous story, your work delivering cargo to NPC’s in need, or your time spent creating structures that help you and those you connect with online. Your journey is never straightforward, but you hope that the path you leave will make it easier for others. That sounds pretty neat to me.