Get to know the most bizarre game in the PS4’s E3 2018 lineup, courtesy of the mind of Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima.
Outside the halls of its development studio and the mind of Hideo Kojima, few people actually know what Death Stranding is all about. We expect to see some more details at Sony’s E3 2018 press conference, but it’s unknown whether those updates will come in the form of yet another trailer or actual gameplay.
But since Death Stranding has been teased for years at this point, we do know a few things about the game, its world, the famous faces involved and a few gameplay tidbits thanks to its strange trailers and interviews with Kojima himself.
Death Stranding is the first game from Kojima Productions, a studio founded by legendary game developer Hideo Kojima. After a rocky departure from Konami, where he built up the Metal Gear franchise, among other projects, Kojima started his independent studio and revealed the first title would be exclusive to Sony’s Playstation 4. The reveal trailer premiered during Sony’s 2016 E3 conference, and sets the stage for the weirdness we’re delving into.
Still confused? Don’t worry. Ever since its initial announcement, Death Stranding has been shrouded in mystery. Kojima is famous for his unconventional promotional methods (at one point pretending to be part of a non-Metal Gear studio making a non-Metal Gear game) and for building strangeness into his games ( see any Metal Gear ever), and Death Stranding is no exception.
Norman Reedus is the most obvious face of Death Stranding. He’s prominently featured in two of the trailers and is credited as Sam, the only named character. Reedus and Kojima previously worked together on the canceled Silent Hills project. If you’re lucky enough to know someone with that project’s demo, P. T., still installed on their PS4, drop everything and play it.
Reedus elaborated on his experiences with Kojima and teased the weirdness to come in an interview last year with CNET:
But Reedus isn’t alone. Actor Mads Mikkelson appeared in the second trailer as what appears to be an antagonist to Reedus’ Sam. That same trailer also featured none other than Oscar-award-winning director Guillermo del Toro as some sort of suit-wearing baby-holder. Little else is known about their roles, but like Reedus, del Toro’s partnership with Kojima stretches back to Silent Hills.
Troy Baker and actress Emily O’Brien are also reportedly involved, according to a since-deleted Instagram post from O’Brien. Even if you don’t know his name, you’ll recognize Baker as the voice of Joel in The Last of Us, Booker Dewitt in Bioshock: Infinite and Pagan Min in Far Cry 4, among others.
Right now, next to nothing is known about Death Stranding’s gameplay. Kojima helped create the stealth-action genre with Metal Gear, so his area of expertise is well defined. But he’s strayed into horror with P. T. and tried bizarre concepts with Boktai (a game that required you to take your Gameboy into the actual sun), so there’s no guarantee Death Stranding will be MGS in a new universe.
One interesting thing Kojima has persistently hinted at are « ropes » and « sticks. » Citing a Japanese play titled « The Man Who Turned Into a Stick, » Kojima has said that he has focused on the idea that humans first invented ropes and sticks. Sticks are for protection, to create space between a person and harm, while ropes tie people to things they treasure.
« Most of your tools in action games are sticks. You punch or you shoot or you kick, » Kojima told IGN upon the game’s reveal. « The communication is always through these ‘sticks.’ In [Death Stranding], I want people to be connected not through sticks, but through what would be the equivalent of ropes. »
In a later interview, Kojima hinted at Death Stranding’s death mechanics. Players will be placed in an interactive purgatory, where they can gather items before being brought back into the game world.
« Death will never pull you out of the game, » Kojima said, meaning that in Death Stranding, death… will never leave you stranded.
And while Kojima has confirmed that multiplayer will be a « big part of the game », the shape it will take is a total mystery. Given the popularity of the Dark Souls series and its imitators, it’s easy to see a similar blend of uncontrolled cooperative-competitive mode taking hold in Death Stranding. Less so the standard competitive multiplayer suite seen in Metal Gear Solid 5,4 and 3.
After gameplay, the world of Death Stranding is the other element we know the least about. Let’s run through just some of the disparate elements that have been a part of its trailers so far…
You only have to go as far as the Death Stranding subreddit to see the rampant speculation about what any of those elements actually mean for the game’s story and world. We know those aforementioned babies have a particularly important role in the story and gameplay — Kojima has already said as much.
But knowing that only raises further questions: Are the babies a rare resource? Vessels for some sort of alien power? Is there something unique about them that has implications for the cast or the world as a whole? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And most importantly… where is all of this going? What does it all mean? Will E3 2018 bring us the first actual gameplay of Death Stranding instead of bizarrely entrancing trailers? We’ll update this page as more information emerges, so keep checking back.
E3 2018: Everything you need to know
E3 2018 coverage at CNET: All of our E3 2018 coverage in one place.
E3 2018 coverage at GameSpot: Wall-to-wall coverage of the show from our sister site, GameSpot.
E3 2018 coverage at Giant Bomb: Still more commentary and news from E3, from our colleagues at Giant Bomb.
