Death Stranding is another brain twister by Hideo Kojima – and he went way beyond what he has ever done – in so many ways. Before he began on Death Stranding, he parted ways with Konami over Metal Gear Solid, there is no official word on the details. Kojima went on to make his own game studio, which made waves. Death Stranding really settled the studio onto the market and we have a sequel coming.
Deliveries? Call Sam
You play as Sam Porter, in a world where surnames don’t have much meaning. You get in doubt about who you relate to really quickly. Is Porter his name or his field of work? Does the field of work set his surname? Then again, that is not what the gameplay or the story is about. You are introduced to a world in shambles where nothing makes sense. Physics does not make sense. It quickly surfaces that when people die – they don’t really die. To add to it, it gets dangerous when they do die.
You see, when tissue starts to turn necrotic, it gets volatile. It literally blows up. Your job is to stay safe in a very dangerous world, while delivering very essential things to different places. This turn weirder and weirder, the world is haunted by the formerly living in the form of big goey oily beings. And they are all but docile – fierce, feisty and powerful they come at you on sight. Your job is to go west, and as you progress you get tools to make your journey easier.
Go west into the sundown
As you progress your way across the former United States, a story will unravel as people you talk to will confide in Sam in the hopes you/Sam will help out, and of course you do. You start out on foot, and between weight, rainfall which indicates danger as there is nearby Beached Things – BT’s for short – and possible dangerous goods in your inventory, you need to be real careful. At the beginning you don’t have much option to fight the BT’s, so cautiousness is advised, and you might want to tiptoe around.
Further ahead you get other ways to travel the map and you will be able to move faster, as you upgrade abilities, learn how to traverse obstacles and how to deal best with the BT’s. There is an unlimited number of side missions or deliveries to do, as it seems the jobs pop back in after a short while.
You fight the BT’s with different kinds of weapons, but you also meet different fractions of criminals out in the field – they have different back stories, which will be told to you if you listen to the people you interact with. Mind your step, weight of backpack, and your surroundings.
Looking incredible
Graphics are rather good, but we rarely meet games outside indie games that are under par. Kojima has done really well in making an immersive world that makes absolutely no sense and I can not wait to get my hands on the sequel which has been announced and confirmed by a trailer.
I had a stupid amount of much fun in this game, and while the weirdness took out the immersiveness of the story still very much grabbed my attention, not to mention the voice acting which is top notch and beats almost everything else on the current market – even now 5 years after launch. Admitted, I did play the updated next gen version on my PS5, but I still want to go back in when I get time to hunt trophies. And that is rare.
If you like my content, don’t forget to check out the about page, maybe come say hi in Discord or stop by one of my livestreams sometime. Don’t forget you can support me via ko-fi. Every little thing coming my way makes me wanting to do this even more, and make more great content for you.
