Death Stranding: A Retrospective and Hopes For the Sequel
Death Stranding, released on November 8th, 2019, is a genreless, confusing, controversial, and innovative game. Hideo Kojima, the creator of Death Stranding, is a developer I respect, so I started the game with an open mind and high expectations and ended up loving it.
Death Stranding’s sequel, abbreviated as DS2 during its announcement, was revealed to be in development in December of 2022. One year later, there has not been any news on the project, not even a release date; however, my excitement for the game hasn’t lessened. Death Stranding’s innovative design and experimental qualities have cemented it as a classic in the making, but the sequel has the opportunity to be even better.
The game follows a professional delivery man, Sam Porter Bridges, who attempts to reconnect the scattered fragments of American civilization after it was destroyed by a supernatural event called the Death Stranding. Death Stranding's underlying narrative is complicated, but the primary goal is simple: reach the western coast of the United States and link up the outposts you find along the way.
On launch, the game's detractors referred to it as a “walking simulator,” a label used for games that offer little mechanical complexity and nuance. This label is a massive misappropriation of Death Stranding’s design philosophy. There’s no denying that I did a substantial amount of walking throughout the game, but that traversal was made interesting through innovative mechanics.
Perhaps the most innovative feature of Death Stranding is its clever integration of multiplayer elements into a single-player structure. The amount of supplies you bring on your shipping expeditions is limited by what Sam can physically carry on his back. This means that the supplies you take with you, such as ladders for crossing ravines, or robotic legs for faster movement, are extremely limited and likely won’t carry you to the end of your journey. Anything that is placed down by a player, however, has the chance of appearing in someone else's game, no matter how much time has passed. This means that one player's actions can benefit another; a bundle of rope placed last year could help a current player scale a tall cliff. Although you never physically see another player-controlled character in Death Stranding, this mechanic gives a sense of companionship and community to the experience.
Even when the game wasn’t favored in the public eye, this mechanic was praised. Unless Kojima throws a curveball with the sequel (something that he has been known to do), I expect this mechanic to return in DS2.
There are many ways that this system can be built upon, but the greatest and most thematically relevant would be to incorporate elements of player sacrifice. Forcing players to give up something of their own, such as an in-game currency, in order to help out another player, would build upon the mechanics and themes of Death Stranding in a logical and clever way. The 2017 title NieR: Automata pulled off a similar concept to great effect, strengthening the game's own themes of compassion.
Because of the nature of video games as a medium, the plot beats of a game's story often do not line up with the player's actions. In Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2, the narrative pushes themes of companionship and community, but the gameplay offers little in the way of supporting those themes.
In contrast to the dissonance between gameplay and narrative found in most games, Death Stranding weaves the two together. Connection is the primary theme of Death Stranding, so the gameplay of Death Stranding is based on the literal process of reconnecting a destroyed civilization. The online elements I mentioned earlier are a large reason why the theming of the game is so strong. In the AAA game space, the narrative is almost always delivered through traditional cinematic elements; Death Stranding’s dedication to a gameplay-focused narrative was a refreshing departure from the norm.
Death Stranding adopts the blend of 80’s science fiction and 90’s anime that defined Kojima's previous work, but those ideas don’t mesh with Death Stranding’s world and narrative as well as they did with the Metal Gear Solid series. The game’s plot and characters are hurt by the game's severely corny melodrama.
Death Stranding, on a few occasions, attempts the large-scale, bombastic setpieces of the Metal Gear Solid series, but they fall flat because they go against the main gameplay loop in a way that is hardly fun or interesting. The game’s clumsy controls work well during long stretches of travel but don’t mesh well with action sequences, where the player's eyes will be on enemies rather than the terrain around them.
The game’s story does have its moments, such as the tragic relationship between the main character and the central antagonist. Other moments, however, feel as if they weren’t thought out in the slightest; for those who have played the game, the conflict of the third chapter comes to mind. Although corniness worked in Kojima’s favor throughout his previous work, Death Stranding’s drama and characters work best when they are more grounded. The last act of Death Stranding contains deeply grounded, emotional scenes that almost feel like they weren’t written by the same person who created Metal Gear Solid.
Death Stranding represents a shift in Kojima’s design philosophy. The game thrives in experimentation and innovation but is at its worst when Kojima attempts to graft the identity of his previous work onto a setting where it does not belong.
The only thing that DS2 needs to do to surpass its predecessor is to fully embrace this new vision. As someone who has appreciated Kojima’s contributions over the years, I see Death Stranding as a progression of his style. Rather than the overt, in-your-face messaging of the Metal Gear Solid games, Death Stranding is a quieter, melancholic experience. With a developer like Kojima, it is difficult to know what the next game will entail, but if he can successfully build on the solid groundwork laid out in Death Stranding, I know that DS2 will be a game to remember.
By Christopher Eckl