Death Stranding Review

 Once there was an explosion, a bang which gave rise to life as we know it.

Hideo Kojima and his relationship to the world of gaming has been pretty important for the evolution of the industry as well as my own personal evolution as an artist. The work he and his teams over the years have done in creating Metal Gear and pushing forward the role of cinematic storytelling in a video game environment was the bud that would grow into the modus operandi for the vast majority of AAA video games in today's landscape. Thus whenever he sits down to make a new game it's always something that the world of gaming has an ear out for, because they expect great things each time. Now of course, greatness isn't always easily replicable, and a lot of the times it doesn't take the form we expect, but I think you'd be hard pressed to say that Hideo Kojima has, at the very least, never failed to make a consistently evocative game in his career since the days of that first Playstation Metal Gear. (As for the emotions said-games evoke- well that's up to you to decide, now isn't it?) But even with that legacy behind him there was something about Death Stranding, when it was still in the earliest stages of marketing, that stood out as a project perhaps one step further than any he had laid down before. And I think that comes from the idea of a 'high concept' world.

For all the years of Deus Ex-like conspiracy strewn worlds and deep 'soap opera' familial trees that always somehow become important to the narrative even when it makes practically no sense for it to, it almost seems like a blatant lie to say that Kojima has never done anything 'high-concept' before, and of course there's touches of that in a lot of his work- but Death Stranding might be the first time he's imbued every rock and stone of his freshly built world with a conceptual purpose in order to drive home mostly one key message. This sense became somewhat apparent in the marketing, when Kojima would bring up Kōbō Abe and mention some of his ruminations on the nature of man and it's relationship to modern day beings, as well as the memorable recitation of 'the rock and the stick', the apparent first creations of man that relate to the foundations of Death Stranding. It was clear from the getgo that this game wasn't going to be some mindless flight of fancy- (not as though his others had been. Even Metal Gear Rising Revengence has a little to say beyond the rocket-fuelled action and handbanger character themes that seem to get better with age.) this would be a game with a message above everything he had made before.

Unfortunately (well, fortunately for the game, not so much for me) the title was the first to be worked on after Kojima broke ties with Konami, meaning that his newly formed studio were really lacking in the tools necessary to bring this grand vision to life. That's where Sony stepped in, as well as some of the studios working under Sony, and as the saying goes: 'you scratch my back I make your videogame a console exclusive'. And so it was that Kojima's passion project science fiction high concept title became a Sony exclusive and everyone not within that bubble had to sigh and go about our days forgetting about the game. That was, however, until the game got a surprise announcement for PC. Of course, that was more than a year after it was already out for Playstation, but it was still great news and greater still now that the game was out, had been played, and had evoked a strong reaction from just about everyone who has touched the thing.

It really does seem like a love it or hate it situation, for Death Stranding will accept no inbetween stragglers. Either it's a sweeping philosophical suite worthy of everyone's time, or a sleepy walking simulator worthy of being crowned with the mantle of 'worst game ever'. I'm sure you're not going to be too shocked or surprised to hear me say that the truth is neither extreme, but instead floats somewhere distinct entirely dependent on the type of gamer that you are. Before playing this game I remember being chuffed about the fact that I had managed to avoid any real spoilers for it's contents, but after reaching the second credits screen, (I'm genuinely shocked that there wasn't a third) I get it. This isn't an easy game to spoil by any stretch of the imagination. Not because it's difficult to understand, like one of those enigmatic narrative games out there, but simply because there's so much to cover. In the space of this review I absolutely refuse to spoil any of the traditional story beats, but I may allude to them and I will unpack a bit of the overall themes and talk about the insane world Kojima has created. So if you'd rather touch this game blind, which I actually recommend, (and you haven't already, obviously) then I respect your decision and hope you'll skip to my summary at the end. Otherwise let's rap.

The World

So the world of Death Stranding is the first riddle we're tasked with unpacking when it comes to the game, and that's a solid first foot forward because it's one of the best ingredients in this entire package. Death Stranding's America feels like the dream science fiction (Hard F) setting that 90% of the directors who end on the 'Sci-Fi channel' wishes they could achieve, but lack either the budget or the imagination. That was actually what drew me to this game, wanting to see how strong the soul of proper sci-fi was in this game when we have an industry much more commonly inundated with science fantasy worlds. (Which I love just as much, but sometimes you want a little Star Trek to balance out all the Star Wars.) And I can say that I was impressed, the whole way through, with the science fiction heart at the centre of this narrative. Nearer the latter half of the narrative things get a little shakier, as techno-babble threatens to creep into lengthy explanations that then get condensed into a too easy metaphor which makes you start saying "Wait, is that how that works? I don't think that's how that works." But I would be remiss not to celebrate that when this game gets it's genre right, it excels above most any other Sci-fi universe I've seen in games or on TV; it's truly incredible. And now I'm going to spoil a bit of it for you.

In the game, America has suffered the post-apocalyptic results of a mysterious happening known as the Death Stranding. Typically a term used to describe beached whales winding up where they don't belong and suffocating, in this context it describes a mysterious event where (to simplify enormously) the veil between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead has been shattered. I mean that in a very literal sense, in that the non-theoretical afterlife now has the means to spread into the still living world and effect us in a plethora of bizarre and seemingly incomprehensible ways. Like placing a third dimensional people in a suddenly forth dimensional universe, we seem to initally lack the functions to comprehend what has happened to our world. Now you might hear that and think you have vague idea what something like that would look like, having consumed various piece of fantasy media in your time, but trust me when I say: unless you've played this game, you have no idea what Kojima's idea of what a world married with death looks like. 

For one it sort of looks like New Zealand. Yes, despite this game being set in America and featuring a slightly jarring fetishization of the American world, (there's some more level headed rhetoric in the game too, but it comes amidst a bevy of surprisingly heavy pro-America flag waving) the world as we know it is full of mossy rolling hills and empty stretching vast reaches of overgrown nothingness all swept under an endlessly chilly pale blue sky. It's a truly haunting beautiful locale for it's hollowness and it's size, thus one can imagine that the button for photomode (up on the Dpad) is something that many players are going to become intimately familiar with over the course of their playthroughs. In narrative, the game is supposed to represent the journey of the player, named Sam, as he travels literally from the eastern shore of America to it's western tip, and though the game world obviously doesn't encompass that much space, the sheer overwhelming scale of everything does work in selling that illusion. (As well as the handy couple of 'region splitting' loading screens, of course.)

In this world, the spirits of the dead stalk the world as invisible wraiths called 'Beached Things' or BTs, floating deathly spectres that can only interact with the world by blindly groping out in an act that leaves tar imprints of their palms in the physical world. What makes them dangerous is the fact that when these BTs come into contact with living beings, the result is known as a 'voidout'. A collision of antimatter and matter that vaporises the surrounding area in a massive explosion with a 98% efficiency energy-conversion rate. Considering a new BT is born each time someone dies, that essentially means every corpse is liable to create an invisible nuke switch that can simply destroy everything you've worked towards in the blink of an eye. (Think Minecraft Creepers, but invisible) And therefore you can see how easy it was for the world to fall apart. Compounding that, however, is the appearance of Timefall. A new rain that rapidly and irreversibly ages all matter it touches to the point of death, handily represented in the way that we see the full life cycle of plants breaking through the rocks each time it falls. And if I told you that's merely the brink of a world buzzing with oddities and strange happenings, you might start to see why I consider this one of the most rich post-apocalyptic worlds in premise alone that I've ever seen. 

Gameplay

But with gaming the shape of the world is only as important as the way we get to interact with it, and it's here that a lot of people have their biggest problems with Death Stranding. You play as Sam Porter Bridges, modelled after and voiced by Norman Reedus, who does a brilliant job portraying the isolationist delivery man who shuns people and affection so that he can persist as this self torturing living ghost. Oh, and in typical Kojima fashion, his and every other character's name is imbued with meaning or symbolism that sometimes makes your eyes roll. In this case, he works as a Porter (a deliverer of goods across the disparate patches of society remaining after the cataclysmic Death Stranding) and he does so under the banner of the America rebuilding organisation known as 'Bridges'. And 'Sam Porter Bridges' is his real, apparently not assumed, name. Sure thing, Kojima.

As implied by that title, Sam's job is to port. All day and all night. (Actually there is no day/night system, so just all day.) This translates to the player being tasked with making various delivers of boxed goods that they must carry on their backs (because vehicles and roads are rare commodities) across hilly mountains and craggy ravines and even snow tipped mountains. That is the bulk of this game. And that isn't a throw-away mechanic tossed in by any stretch of the imagination, Death Stranding is built to support an entire ecosystem of game mechanics that shake hands in order to replicate the experience of carry heavy loads. I'm talking a planning stage where you stack crates in the pouch on your back or strap them to your arms and legs, a balancing mechanic where you have to account for terrain you're walking on and the weight of stacked cargo on certain parts of your body and even complications that might effect the durability of what you're carrying, such a stamina system you need to manage in order to not fall over and the aforementioned Timefall which will rapidly age and decompose cargo if you keep it out in the elements for too long. There's a lot of systems in play to make sure there's a genuine game out of making deliveries, which is important given how many the game expects you to make.

The mental hurdle that you're tasked with overcoming, as a player, is figuring out and identifying whether or not the process of delivering parcels is something you can find enjoyment from. For all of  it's tranquillity, logistical challenge, unexpected dynamism and occasional peril, the inherent concept is enough to turn some people off and if you can't get over that initial hump you will not be able to enjoy this game. I'll admit that after I came to grips with the world which drew me into the game, I did sort of hover around aimlessly and wonder 'is this it? Is this the entirety of the game for the next 50 or so hours?' But then I took on a contract which required me to recover some cargo that had washed down a river; a task that asked me to catch floating boxes whilst trying not to get swept away by the rapids, so I had to figure out how to lay down metal bridges over the water in order to 'catch' the crates and time my dives for the boxes that were swinging around my trap. It was a little mini-puzzle, and after getting through that I was forced to admit "Okay, there is a game here!"

Where the USP comes into the game is in the Chiral Network, which forms the basis of what Kojima called his 'Strand Type game'. (His name for this 'genre' of game.) Essentially what that means, without going into the whole lore about Chiral density and that stuff, is that asynchronous online components allows items you place in your gameworld for convenience (ladders, climbing hooks, bridges) to show up in others worlds (the connection is done behind the scenes and is typically random so you rarely know what structures you'll find) and vice versa. This lays the way for dynamic situations like one where you're perhaps struggling with a tough delivery and a snow storm just hit with enough ferocity to threaten the mission, only to happen across a handily strewn bike that another player left from their world. Or a zipline which cuts travel time down immensely. A hook and rope that makes vertical climbing feasible and not so dangerous. There's untold countless ways that unconscious co-operation slips into your normal gameplay and reminds you that you're connected to a bigger collective. Of Death Stranding players in the real world, and within the gameworld, to a network of dreamers trying to reconnect the lost souls of a broken America.

Narrative

All this marks what I think is Death Stranding's greatest victory; the way it marries narrative themes and gameplay. As is made utterly evident from every inch of this game, from the way that the world is empty save for various preppers and cities dotted far away from one another, to the oily handprints left by BTs in search for the living, the key most theme of Death Stranding is that of human connection and the way we reach out to one another. (Or rebel against all attempts to do so.) Sam is also nakedly tied to this theme as a protagonist, with the game's human exposition dump, Deadman, (modelled after Guillermo Del Toro. I'm not joking.) stating that Sam suffers from Aphenphosmphobia: the fear of being touched. (literally the longest variation name of this phobia that Kojima could have picked.) Learning to connect with others, physically and emotionally, is the character journey that the player is challenged to undergo, and not only is it perfectly represented in the gameplay of literally connecting with the travels of other players and almost unconsciously coming together to make each other's journeys less difficult, but it's also a strangely prescient tale to mount in the prelude to total worldwide pandemic lockdown. Death Stranding launched just before Covid, and I played it well into year 2, but the fact this game is about a society that has been cut off from one another trying to slowly reconnect strikes home in this age better than I'll bet even Kojima expected. (Almost suspiciously so... what did he know?) 

For it's narrative structure Kojima leans on the storytelling device he toyed with back in Metal Gear Solid V, with the story being broken into 'episodes' that each lean on a particular main character's story whilst in pursuit of the ultimate goal of reuniting America under the UCA. (That's United cities, if you're wondering) Some episodes are longer than others and some characters get multiple revisits, but for the most part you're learning about this colourful cast one at a time and being given the appropriate amount of time between long delivery treks to ruminate on all of their symbolic significant traits and quirks. At times it can sort of feel like the people you're dealing with are less people and more "This is the thematically weird thing about me" devices, but with the amount of time we get to spend with them over the course of a long video game there's more than enough time to bring people back into these occasional caricatures and Kojima does take advantage of that. (Although if these were movie characters I have a feeling they'd be pretty vapid.)

This particular game, even more than Kojima's previous impressive work, I really took notice of some genuinely great cinematic angles with key story beats, from natural no-cut scene transitions to the odd effortlessly framed wide shot- this is a man who truly brings his love of cinema into his work and it does wonders. Throughout the entire game the many set pieces absolutely shine with masterful intensity, and when peppered against an otherwise relaxing gameplay loop these stand out as total highlight moments. Although, again rather typical for Kojima, some of the most memorable scenes are moments of characters interacting rather than that of explosions and giant mecha death BTs. That and trying to untangle the web of a narrative which occasionally slips ahead of itself a little in a manner reminiscent of a movie that has been slightly edited out of order, although everything does spell itself out neatly eventually. Kojima is that kind at least.

The cast all do an excellent job of holding this game's sincere premise to a serious standard, and in my opinion is was their performances which elevated an initially bare and close-to-cringe-worthy tale of togetherness and turned it into something that gets the chance to be an epic nearer to the end. But the stand out character in my opinion was the one portrayed by Mads Mikkelson. I was expecting that celebrity cameo to play a fleeting bit part, but he ended being a major part of the story and getting easily my favourite monologue in the entire game. No wonder his role was so lauded during the Game Awards at the time, he did perfectly. Also, he was by no means the only cameo, as from all of the preppers dotted around the game world a good chunk of them are references this way and that. From Conan O Brian to Geoff Keighley to even Edgar Wright. Kojima just face scanned all of his friends into his video game and I find that somewhat hilarious.

BTs

The most notable part of the gameplay loop comes from the way the player is tasked handling one of the few enemy types that the game has to offer- BTs, and how the gameplay lives up to the promise of the narrative. As you can likely suspect, eventually you figure out a way to occasionally see these monsters, but even then entering an area with them becomes a tense scene of creeping about as though on a mine field, trying desperately not to set one off. There's this fantastic sense of being helpless thanks to their general invisibility, and how even when you are granted a gun, it's usually more of a hinderance for dealing with groups than a benefit. In the early game running into BT groups is truly a road block that the player is forced to think their way out of, and that's the mark of a fascinating and well executed enemy type. Unfortunately, the arms race isn't really kept up over the course of the game and by late game there really is nothing to stop you just blindly crouch walking through a BT pocket and tapping the 'execute' button when in danger.

If you do get caught by a BT, however, it isn't game over. Instead a miniboss activates and the entire immediate area is drowned with tar from the otherside, out of which rises a, usually aquatic themed, BT monster summoned to eat you. And what happen if it succeeds? Well, Sam is unique in the universe as a Repatriate, meaning he can reenter his own body and come back to life after death, but what about that voidout thing? Well this wasn't something I learned until literally the final delivery of the game, but yes, if you get killed by a BT and you're not in a boss fight, you voidout and permanently erase a big hole in the map. Apparently the same goes for if you get a little too shooty on the human enemies in the game and then neglect your duty to incinerate new corpses. That's quite the commitment to the bit which I wasn't expecting out of Death Stranding, but kudos for them having the courage to make true consequences for ingame death.

Boss

Hark, did I just say that there were bosses? Yes, yes I did. And you know that with the reputation Kojima has for bosses this is going to be something worth my time! Except it isn't. Yes, for the first time in a while a Kojima game features bosses that really don't add much to the game and mostly feel like shoe-horned sections. I think the problem comes from the fact that this isn't really a game built to contain a lot of character combat, so forced prolonged boss fights feel like messy slogs, but the game's precise equipment system even feels taxed by these encounters. As though the very nature of the game doesn't want these sections muddying the otherwise solid gameplay experience. Unexplained milky ghosts pop up only for BT bosses in order to chuck resources at the player, not as a lifeline but because a typical player isn't going to be hauling the arsenal required to down this hematic bullet sponges. If you have to go to that length just to make the boss fight feasible, maybe you don't need a boss fight at all.

That isn't to say that every boss fight sucked, however. These various battlefield boss fights struck impressive set-piece notes as they whisked the player away to... well I don't really want to spoil where, but trust me when I say they're all surprising and vivid. The actual fights themselves are just fine, nothing special, but the atmosphere goes a long way. The best boss fight in the game easily goes to the penultimate mandatory duel against a certain character who clearly displays influence from two other popular Kojima boss fights from the past. MGS 3's The Boss for her overwhelming frontal fire power which forces the player to rely on ambushes (only this game allows you to use cargo for ambushes, which is fun) and MGS 4's Liquid Ocelot for a fighting-game style 1v1 portion. It was all very self indulgent, which is what we love out of Kojima cinematic gameplay moments. Unfortunately that was easily the only good boss fight in the game, the rest sucked hard.

Music

I always forget to talk about the music but this time I absolutely refuse to make that mistake, it would be totally unforgivable. Death Stranding features an OST, but the majority of the music tracks you'll take away with you for life are the selections of indie music that Kojima has drawn from his personal soundcloud library and slotted neatly into this world. Post-rock indie bands like Low Roar and Silent Poets sneak into key moments of explorative contemplation with special little music breaks whenever you're on particularly long deliveries in unexplored territory. Tracks like 'Bones', 'Don't Be So Serious' and, of course, 'I'll Keep Coming' light up your journey is subtle moments that soar so much for their inclusion. I'd never heard of these bands before, but now I genuinely have trouble not thinking of their great tracks whenever walking the typical long trips I have to do in my real-life day-to-day. (Thanks Kojima, you successfully pawned your music tastes onto me.) But of course that doesn't mean Kojima Productions could live with themselves without conducting their own songs for the OST and the unexpectedly grand "BB's Theme" will probably live with me as one of my favourite music-synced gaming moments ever. (To be fair, most of the other contenders in that narrow field also spawn from this game, but that's still something of an achievement.) These gameplay music collaborations were probably the closet the game ever got to making me feel an outward emotion, and I appreciate the hell out of that. (Still didn't personally shed a tear, but I can easily imagine some people might.)

Summary

It absolutely is not a game for everyone and I don't blame any person out there who hates this game and thinks it's a total waste of time: but I humbly do not agree. What started off as a confusing Sci-fi romp slowly erupted into a veritable suite of surprisingly emotional stories, sweeping journeys and simple pleasures which kept me entertained for the vast majority of it's huge playtime. I grew to love this game, which isn't to say that it's perfect but as with most Kojima games I grew to love it's flaws, such as the iffy enemy AI and boring bosses. (Okay, I never loved the boring bosses.) I am so happy I gave this game the commitment to experiencing first-hand its story as I know it's going to stay with me for a while as I think back on this strange adventure with fascination and a smile on my face. Even in the times when I was giving it a break over the couple of months it took me to play through the game, this little cargo delivery simulator was never far from my mind; nor it's blatant heart this game carries proudly on it's sleeve- a clear mark of a storyteller who has reached peak creative maturity.

I would not go the length of calling this game perfect, in any of it's vertices, but truly amidst every other AAA game of the past 10 years this is one that stands alone in what it was trying to achieve and how it set out to do it. If only the game hadn't ended with no less than an hour and a half of endgame exposition, I'd have nothing but positive impressions to leave on. But it did take that long. (And there were two whole credit scrolls within an hour of each other! I saw Kojima's full name listed 8 times- I know you made this game, Kojima, no one else could!)  Recommendations are hard when we have a game as hot or cold as this one, but if you've a mind for a slow paced experience, minimal in-your-face action and seeking joy out of exploring haunting vistas, then I probably don't even need to recommend Death Stranding to you because you've clearly already played it. On the off chance you've not, however, let me reassure you with a solid A grade in my personal game ranking system, with only the lacklustre bosses dotted throughout the game dragging away those extra couple of marks. With Sony trademarking the Strand-type infrastructure for this game and the narrative wrapping up too neatly for Kojima to squander things with a sequel, (at least I think they are, who knows what's going on in his head) it's likely we won't see a game like this that tries the many things it does ever again. Which makes it all the more important that we celebrate it now while it's here for the weird, unique, wonderful and bizarre swansong that it is. Needless to say, I'm ravenous to see what Kojima Productions is cooking up to follow this.