Death Stranding is one of those games that feels like a black sheep of the Internet. I can't think of a single person I've ever met who likes the game like I do, and the only essays I've ever read on the game has pertained to why they think a game where you don't shoot people every half hour is boring, also seeing holograms instead of people makes them upset. My feelings on Death Stranding have been pretty inscribed on my sleeve along with my heart all this time. I love the game, think it's truly bizarre and narratively rich in a way few other games have ever managed to match and let my time with the game live in on the cusp of my psyche at all times- ever ready to snatch me into a pensive mood of wistful pondering. All I wanted was a sci-fi world that took the kind of insane risks you never get in a modern world where every property is a marriage with something similar and marketable. Death Stranding's world and narrative were about as risky as it gets.
I could write volumes on the insane way that the Death Stranding world works. Why the dead seek out the touch of humans, how babies from brain-dead mothers kept in jars power the defence of the living and why the rainbow in the sky is devoid of the colour blue whenever the Timefall occurs. I read and listened to every single piece of lore I could around this fascinating exploration into the relationship of people to death and each other- and how these ties bind us beyond the confines of life itself. I was a huge fan of every single drop of it and think only a truly inspired mind could conjure all of this up, wind it together and then actually have it seem a little coherent on the other end of it all. But even with that foundation I still have no clue what the hell happened at any point in that Death Stranding 2 trailer. And it's actually driving me insane.
First-off I have to admit to being a little scared by the proposed scale of the game this time around. Death Stranding had us essentially travel from one end of America to the other, as simulated by the large tracts of land we had to cross and connect as we went. Death Stranding 2: on the Beach wants to drag us all the way across the world, presenting at the very least some travels through Mexico and the sand-swept hills of what could very well be Egypt. (Or perhaps the Gobi Desert?) Death Stranding 1 was a huge game that kept us for perhaps an hour or two longer than it needed. Death Stranding 2 seems to be hoping to eclipse that original game with a lightly horrific amount of distance to cover in a vague journey to 'connect the world'. I imagine the real hook of the story is going to be held back until launch. Afterall, they want the splendour of the weird to stick out all the more.
And by 'weird', I am indeed referring to things like the talking puppet-man who Sam hangs on his belt- which takes the impressive spot as 'weirdest member of the Death Stranding cast revealed thus far' atop a cast full of Heart attack-proof scientists, zombie morticians and an immortal mailman with a squint. Yeah- the talking puppet sure takes the cake. Although he was given tough competition by the samurai robot with a dead baby's voice who was locked in Mortal Kombat with an undead Troy Baker wielding an electric guitar that shoots lasers. I swear all of those are real things that are really in the Death Stranding 2 trailer, I don't know what to tell you. But my head hurts trying to conjure all of it my head, I just want to stop thinking about it and do anything else, truth be told.
At the very least I'm quite impressed with the fact that despite answering most of the world's large questions about how the Death Stranding functions, DS2 is taking the phenom in an entirely different direction to keep things interesting. There's no 'settling into the world we've already built' or anything like that, it's all pedal to the metal- new swathes of bizarre sci-fi conceptuals that are here to fry our brains once more. Now we have an entire ship that can apparently exist within the realm of the dead in a monochrome state? And Fragile seems to be entirely healed from Timefall, despite her heavily reduced lifespan from the original game? Oh, and BB is dead? Or is she? What is going on? Haven't a darned clue.
Bizarrely, what I find most fascinating is the apparent fact that we're not walking around with tranq gun equipment anymore. The protagonist is shown with an assault rifle as their default weapon which is addressed as an active plotpoint- which implies a change in the makeup of how the Death Stranding functions. Previously murder wasn't just morally questionable, but it opened up the possibility of a void-out if the body was not destroyed. Has that changed now that Sam is happy to sling iron out in public, or is this just an insanely specific cutscene circumstance that denotes nothing on a higher level whatsoever? And does this mean that Death Stranding is going to have better gunplay in the next go around? (Hope so.)
Also I find it genuinely hilarious that we're somehow finding ways to throw in more mystery to even the core most plot threads from the original game. Despite the original stretching its whole story across the premise of discovering the truth behind the special BB you've been given and it's apparent relation to The Solider who hunts you- now we're being teased that the BB unit we have was actually scheduled as having been destroyed months before we ever met her! So then who have we had strapped to our chests all this time? And does that matter now that she is apparently dead? At least Madds won't be returning so the Cliff plot point has been put to rest- but I have a feeling I'm going to be questioning everything I thought I knew about Death Stranding 1 by the end of this.
Oh, and it probably bears repeating that Troy Baker is back. I know I mentioned it earlier but seriously- what the heck? The easy answer would be just to say that Fragile didn't gun him down like we all thought she did, but judging from some of the dialogue in this trailer and what we know of Hideo Kojima's general sense to go the most confusing route- I suspect he actually did die. Which is infuriating because of all of the excessive amount of lore that went into affirming that in that one location in the entire game, caught on the beach as they were- there would be no way for Sam to repatriate if he died. So to bend over backwards explaining that, only for Higgs to hop back to life no questions asked- you're gonna need a big explanation for this one, Kojima- that's all I'm saying!
I know it's a bit of a controversial title, but Death Stranding for me will also be one of my most cherished off-beat gaming memories- simply for how it achieved it's intended premise with neat style that no other pretender could replicate. Death Stranding is a style of game all of it's own, and though I do find the whole 'strand type game' concept a bit pretentious, I will admit that for the puzzle-style game that Death Stranding was- you won't find a competitor as engrossingly cinematic and twistingly laid out as DS accomplished. Of course, this is a PS franchise so I can look forward to the three years after it launches before my PC playing ass gets a handle of it. Thanks Sony.
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