Stranded, deathly.
A game about nothing.
The drawback of releasing so many long, deeply cryptic, mysterious trailers, with zero explanation, is that it allowed us to create our own explanations and mythologies around these characters and concepts. It sparked deep inspiration. “This could be anything” we speculated. The vagueness and strangeness of the imagery allowed our minds to wander to new and exciting places.
But Death Stranding is concept art without a purpose. It’s a dream half remembered. It pains me to say it, but it is unfulfilled potential materialized and taken to an empty precipice, leaving me to look back at the path it laid for me, wondering what could have been.
For roughly 80% of the game’s length it holds it’s cards very close to it’s chest. The world is in a strange state, people act in peculiar and specific ways, but there is no explanation given. It just is. This is just how it is now. Nearing the end of the game I realized the problem is that there is nothing on those cards it held so closely. When it finally begins to lay them on the table, there is nothing there. The idea of something greater was the thing I was chewing on this whole time. Stimulating my brain meats in preparation of what could be ended up being the only reward.
When I begin this game I was convinced it had something to do with multiple timelines converging. The fundamental idea of Timefall (rain that ages whatever it touches), the way Sam seems confused by every interaction, and the juxtaposition of Fragile’s sleek, futuristic gear with Sam’s blunt, bulky, dirty functional wear. Surely there is some juicy, timey-wimey shenanigans afoot here. How clever, for different time periods to intersect and move alongside each other like this, I thought. My theory was proven false.
Meanwhile, my partner, having witnessed only a few minutes of cutscenes and gameplay was utterly convinced it was about The Singularity, and that all the holographic people were actually living in an advanced computer system. This inspired my own theories. I thought “Oh, because everyone is living in a simulation in their private bunkers, delivery men are logically the only job left for people to fulfill”. And even that is becoming obsolete with the onset of “autonomous delivery bots”. It’s about the inevitable oncoming of automation, It’s about the gigification of our economy, and it’s about the unavoidable loneliness that will accompany it, we surmised. This was also false.
My partner then commented that this game was so clearly meant to convey how we in western society greedily gather material possessions and haul them around with us, no matter how heavy the burden is, physically or mentally. Showcasing the shear ridiculousness of treating all of this stuff as valuable and essential. Which then made me realize how easy it was in the game to create new stuff whenever I needed it. It was all replaceable. Do not fret, what you need will be provided, I thought the game was teaching me. No need to hoard. This, also, probably, wasn’t intentional.
Death Stranding is like someone excitedly telling you about a surreal dream they had but then forgetting why it was so interesting halfway through.
At certain points near the end the game tries to throw twists at you, as though saying “Aha! We sure got you! Bet you didn’t know that was this all along!”, proverbially pulling the rug out from under you. That is, except, there was never any rug to begin with. There was nothing there. There’s no there there.
There are long, beautifully shot cutscenes that allow you to relish the photorealistic character models and detailed textures of the world. The thoughtful pacing keeps you interested and the mystery keeps you engaged. But the problem is there’s no backbone behind any of it. What you see is what you get. Those strange, ambiguous trailers shown to us in years passed, that made us all wonder “What is this really about?” That is all it is about. It is not about anything. The entire game was spoiled in those trailers.
Where there could have been delicate morality plays about violence, there is only bombastic “I guess this would look cool” cinematics. Where there could have been lofty allegories about loneliness and lessons on being a pack rat is just routine, designed-to-be-addictive gameplay loops. Where there might have been prognostic tales of an impending singularity and the self-made destruction of our planet is instead simple lovecraftian horror and routine sci-fi technobabble. Where there could have been subversive representation of what it is to be a video game and a warning against growing invidisualism, there is instead fantasy-apocalypse-hooha.
And I am so fucking bummed about it.
Of course this is not to say the game is irredeemable garbage. This is mainly an opinion piece, and I am only so disappointed because the hype was so great, and the trailers were so very, very well done. You can read any number of other reviews to get the low down on the many things it does well, but I’ll list a few here.
The gameplay is impeccable and bug free. For someone who loves travelling and exploring in any game, Death Stranding is often a treat. The world is beautiful and well thought out. The mood, especially in the beginning portions of the game, is so delicious; like a bright, bitter cocktail. The music is is soft and lovely and never repetitive or irritating. And a whole lot of it is unabashedly weird
What would I have done differently, if somehow I were involved in the creations of Death Stranding? Honestly, a few minor adjustments would have saved this for me.
Characters need to be woven through the story more often. Fragile shows up a couple times and then disappears. Mama shows up, recites her backstory and then, well… spoiler. Heartman gives you a fifteen minute slideshow and then wishes you off. Bridgett, lovely Bridgett, is literally used as a plot device and then immediately thrown into a fire.
Think bigger. Players can handle weighty themes and subversion. Look at Nier Automata, which somehow delivers philosophy and excitement in one serving. You can’t talk up your game being wow so different and then fall back on classic tropes at the exact moment we expect more.
Along similar lines, don’t pretend to be an anti-violence game but then give us guns and monsters and battlefields.
Just… give me a reason to care, at least within the first couple hours. I played entirely based on good faith and habit. You can’t dangle a carrot for 99% of a game.
If your main character is going to act like a clueless nobody, please please please give me a reason why.
The presentation is perfect, the mood is exquisite, the gameplay rock solid. I do think Death Stranding is absolutely worth playing, and my teenage self would probably have been satisfied with the story as it is. (After all I enjoyed Metal Gear Solid 2 at the time, another Kojima game, and it uses an almost exact template for story telling) But when you allow the audience to fill in the gaps for you, unless you have some serious messages and profound ideas up your sleeve, we will inevitably be disappointed
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I have two asides I’d like to mention. Chapter 9 is, frankly, a huge ripoff of Bullet Witch, an Xbox 360 game made by the now defunct Cavia (famous for Drakengard). I love Bullet Witch. No one else will admit they do. But I will. It is a big, stupid, messy, fun game about a witch summoning tornadoes and shooting zombie nazis. But anyway. In Bullet Witch there are these bizarre floating brain enemies that kind of float around and throb menacingly. Chapter 9 rips these off wholesale. Also, the final boss of Bullet Witch is a dark, hulking colossus with tentacles that you must shoot at for almost 45 goddamn minutes before it dies. The mood, setting, and main baddie of this fight is awfully similar to the one featured in Chapter 9 of Death Stranding. Hmm coincidence???
And, finally, what amounts to a level clear screen in Death Stranding, after you have completed any delivery, is a horrible UI nightmare. Numbers are everywhere. Lines and words are used generously. None of it is explained. But there is so much of it. Eventually I accepted it, but I don’t think I ever understood it.
