This looks boring.
It’s a common sentiment heard among those gamers who watch streams ofDeath Stranding, thenew game from Hideo Kojima. While Kojima tried his best to explain whatDeath Strandingis, his desire to preserve the secrets of his latest title superseded any true revelations. It’s only once people play Death Stranding – and truly dig deep into its systems – that they start to understand what Kojima was going for.
Early on,Death Strandingseems like a fairly uneventful experience. Players, asSam Porter Bridges (Norman Reedus), carry packages to and fro, across long expanses of vibrant green empty land. The game says that Bridges is trying to connect the remaining civilized world, but that doesn’t gel with what players are actually doing. In all reality, they are a glorified Fed Ex Man with no truck (at first).
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But as players progress throughDeath Stranding, they start to unlock new structures to build. At first, those structures are helpful, but only on a small scale. Ladders can assist with crossing deep rivers. Climbing anchors offer rope to ascend sheer rock faces. Then players startunlocking things like bridges, and auto pavers, and some really cool options that we won’t spoil. It’s here thatDeath Stranding’s appeal from a gameplay perspective starts to take shape.
There isno multiplayer inDeath Strandingin the strictest sense, but there is a living world. Players’ structures end up in other players’ worlds, offering mutual benefits and new paths between delivery destinations. Players can also cooperate by donating materials to finish structures like bridges. It’s rewarding to know that one’s contribution towards completing a bridge will now benefit any players that come across it.
Once players start seeing auto pavers on the ground, they can donate materials to complete a long stretch of road. Although it would have been nice to have some agency in the road’s placement, connecting pavement between delivery points is a huge highlight. Not just because it allows the player to move quickly between those points –vehicles like the reverse trikedon’t drain battery when on paved road and can boost infinitely – but also because other players will use it.
The idea of creating structures that benefit other players is not something new for video games, but through the use of Likes,Death Strandinghelps build that sense of connection. Once players start receiving likes for building structures or contributing to structures, it becomes motivation to do more. The game’s central plot is focused on building that connection between citizens and strangely, players start to feel that connection between one another.
There’s also a subtle touch to the evolution ofDeath Stranding’s world that shows the impact players have. As the various iterations of Sam travel back and forth they will wear down the ground to reveal easier pathways. The first time around the trek from a low elevation destination to a high elevation area might be uneven, with lots of rock formations and unstable ground.
But as players travel across these areas over and over, pathways begin to form that make walking a lot easier. It’s a detail that many might not even notice, or care about because they find the delivery idea boring, but it all connects back to this idea of re-civilizing a barren world.
Admittedly, players need to buy into Kojima’s vision in order to truly understand and eventually appreciate whatDeath Strandingoffers. Yes, there is an overly complex story in true Kojima fashion, but there are also some truly unique ideas at play too. What may at firstseem boring or uneventfulbecomes the type of experience that is as fun as the player is willing to make it. Hours can zoom past while trying to secure materials and build out pathways between each destination. And what once seemed tedious is actually efficient – as if the story’s claims are backed up by the gameplay.
Death Strandingis available now for PS4. A PC release is set for 2020.
