Death Stranding might be one of the most unfairly critiqued games I’ve seen. I know it’s subjective, and what I find to be fun will never align fully with someone elses opinions on it – BUT THE AMOUNT OF SHIT I HEAR FROM PEOPLE ABOUT THIS GAME DRIVES ME NUTS!
Death Stranding is a very weird game. When the trailers first came out, I was under the impression that it was going to be something more akin to a “horror thriller”, or heavily inspired by Kojimas scrapped Silent Hills project. I remember watching a ton of theory videos about all the symbolism in the trailers, and it got me bloated with hype. Then the game released, and it sort of flew under my radar for a while. All I knew was that people called it a “FedEx simulator”, and I was actually quite sad when I first heard it. I knew that I had set myself up for failure with the amount of hype I pushed onto the game, but I wasn’t expecting A FUCKING MAILMAN GAME!
Anyway.. I didn’t play it until a couple of years after its release… and I hooked.
I don’t know if it’s because my expectations were naturally lowered after its release, or if the game simply lived up to the hype in some weird, unnatural way, but the experience I had with it was absolutely great.
Now, I sort of understand why people don’t like this game. It’s very niche, and weird. You play as a courier, delivering packages and tasked with connecting people in a wasteland of death onto a central system. Your goal is to sort of revive a dead society, and usher in new hope. The story – in usual Kojima fashion – is very complicated and difficult to keep up with, but very much worth it. The acting, sound, music, landscapes and storytelling were great, keeping you intrigued and almost starved for information on what’s actually going on in the world. Kojima cast the bait, and hooked the fish. He even managed to deliver during the ending – of which I won’t spoil anything. I kept thinking about this game for weeks after completing it, preaching to all my friends to give it a shot. Naturally, since it’s so niche in terms of gameplay, I understand if people don’t enjoy it – but I think it’s important to judge media from the perspective of what they’re trying to accomplish. This game knows what it is, it knows what it’s trying to do, and it does it extremely well. It’s very slowpaced, but doesn’t overstay its welcome and the pacing was good – outside of one specific moment in the game, but that’s fine.
So if the premise is delivering packages, you might wonder where the difficulty or “pushback” comes from. Usually a game puts you against some sort of NPC enemy that you need to defeat, but Death Stranding plays more similarly to a “Survival Horror”. Since you need to trek across the country with your packages, you need to plan accordingly with what and how much you bring. It affects you speed, but also your balance. The main adversary comes in the form of the land itself. Slippery slopes, mountains, rivers, rocky terrain and cliffs. You’ll need to be careful not to break you packages and lose, or even die, and so you organize your equipment in the most effective way possible. On top of this you have bandits (called MULES) that try to steal your packages, and ghosts (known as BT’s) that try to kill you. The enemies aren’t everywhere, but when you run into them it can be very intense trying to manage and save your treasured packages. Most of the time, it’s just you and the landscape. There are moments where you journey and all of a sudden music starts playing, in a normally very quiet game. These moments never failed to amaze me, and it almost felt like they pulled me into the game. The artistic genius that Kojima has managed to create is uncanny.
There is also an online feature. Not in the usual way, but instead the equipment you decide to use in the world around you may spawn in another players world as well. “Connecting” us to eachother. I remember having to cross a violent river, only to find another players ladder laying across some rocks, allowing me to carefully balance my way over. In a lonely and desolate world, these moments always felt very good, and brought a sense of “hope” almost. It motivated me to put ropes and ladders down for other people, even if I myself might not need it.
Kojima stated that one of the reasons people don’t seem to appreciate Death Stranding is because they’re so addicted to fast paced games and only want to play shooters like Call of Duty. I agree that it’s an obnoxious take, but I can’t help but somewhat agree with the core of what he’s trying to say. We all have phones, and most of us sit with social media almost religiously. We play games, watch movies, eat junk. We are so addicted to fast dopamine that it hurts us. In that sense, I think a lot of people might need to almost “force themselves” to sit down and experience something like Death Stranding before they start appreciating it.
I’m glad I played this game. It got me to think, and I thought it was really fun. It was unique, and I like that. It’s the embodiment of “maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way”. 9/10!