Kojima's first independent game is just as weird and mysterious as you thought it'd be.
If you don't know who Hideo Kojima is, it's time to pay attention. He's the creator of the world-renowned Metal Gear franchise, known best for his works with the mainline series Metal Gear Solid.
Well, he left Konami, the company that controls the Metal Gear IP, and is now doing his own thing under independent label Kojima Productions. Their first work is Death Stranding, a forthcoming PlayStation 4 exclusive that not even Kojima himself can easily explain. Here's everything we know about it so far.
Kojima's next venture
Death Stranding
It's about to get really weird
If you aren't already excited for this game, I don't know what to tell you. Kojima is keeping it weird in the best ways possible, and Death Stranding looks to provide a hell of a gaming experience come November.
What's new with Death Stranding?
It'll take us a while to fully decode the cryptic teasers Kojima is releasing for Death Stranding, but don't worry. Every time we hear something new, we'll be adding it to this space, so keep checking back for more!
May 28, 2019 — Death Stranding finally gets a release date
Surprising just about everyone, Hideo Kojima revealed that Death Stranding will be out this year on November 8, 2019. To accompany the announcement an extended trailer was released that shows us more gameplay and gives us a better look at its characters. The most important parts? There are characters named Deadman, Heartman, Die-Hardman. Seriously. And also a dude named Cliff, played by none other than Mads Mikkelsen. If the trailer is still leaving you confused, we've also received a more coherent summary of the game that actually makes sense.
"In the near future, mysterious explosions have rocked the planet, setting off a series of supernatural events known as the Death Stranding. With spectral creatures plaguing the landscape, and the planet on the verge of a mass extinction, it's up to Sam Bridges to journey across the ravaged wasteland and save mankind from impending annihilation."
February 2019 — Pre-order options and demo reviews!
So @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN let me play DEATH STRANDING❗️The world is next-level immaculate. It’s like freebasing pure Kojima & Shinkawa. Remember when FURY ROAD blew you away but also made you (in the best-most-thankful way) ask “wtf” how does this miracle exist? YOU. ARE. NOT. READY❗️ pic.twitter.com/RkVxtZCcbj
— Jordan Vogt-Roberts (@VogtRoberts) February 6, 2019
We have two amazing updates for you! First, you can now pre-order your copy of Death Stranding at Amazon for $60. There still isn't an official release date for it as of yet, but we're hoping that our 2020 expectations may look more like 2019 expectations.
In other news, Hideo Kojima allowed Jordan Vogt-Roberts, the director of the upcoming Metal Gear Solid movie, to play a few hours of Death Stranding in a private demo. The review he posted to Twitter, shown above, only fuels our excitement that much more. We are ready, Jordan. I swear we are.
October 1, 2018 — More main characters to be revealed
Main characters of DEATH STRANDING revealed at TGS last week. Yoji made this drawing for TGS based on the setting, the design, the gimmick, the outfit, and the casting as of today (minor change might be considered in future) BTW, there's a few more main character will appear. pic.twitter.com/XV5hA2jv5U
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 28, 2018
In a teaser-recap of the Tokyo Game Show, Hideo Kojima let loose word that there are a few main characters yet to be revealed. The company had recently teased many of the important figures in an artistic drawing that shows the setting, art style, outfits, and their casting decisions. They noted there might be minor changes in the future, especially since there are "a few more main characters" still to come.
Sony and Kojima are still playing their cards close to the chest with Death Stranding. While the recent TGS trailer finally offered more than just scenes of the main charactrering walking around with weird stuff attached to his persons, we still don't have a solid clue regarding its plot or core gameplay.
With no release date in sight, we expect things to keep on at this trickling pace until the team feels confident enough to talk about the game in greater detail..
June 11, 2018 — New E3 trailer!
At E3 2018, Sony and Kojima debuted a new trailer for Death Stranding. The trailer didn't do much to answer any of the lingering questions we have, but there was quite a bit to be learned.
The trailer also gave us our first bit of gameplay, but it was anticlimactic at best. It shows the main character Sam traversing a variety of different terrain types, as well as wading in water and scaling a mountain cliff. Some of the scenes show some sort of robots following him to wherever he's going.
Later on in the trailer, we see Sam gearing up for a mission by activating his weird capsule baby and the mechanical arm. He can be seen sneaking past some ghostly, smokey figures, and whatever he has on him is apparently keeping them at bay. At the end, however, something goes wrong and Sam is pulled into the ground by a bunch of shadowy hands.
In a blog post on the PlayStation Blog, Kojima notes about Sam:
Some might have already picked up on this, but Sam is unlike any other hero you may have seen in games before. A typical hero is usually some sort of elite or someone with a military background. Sam is not. He is a working man of sorts — a hands-on professional. Someone with a skillset akin to a blue-collar worker.
We also see a couple of new characters, including Léa Seydoux from Blue is the Warmest Color, and Lindsay Wagner from The Bionic Woman. Two more unnamed characters have been confirmed, and we also now know that the music featured in the trailers to date was made by a group named Silent Poets. Still no release date, folks.
What is Death Stranding?
That's a good question. The truth is we don't know a whole lot about the type of game Death Stranding will be right now. Kojima has mentioned that there will be elements of action, adventure, RPG, stealth, and open world gameplay involved. That's a pretty long list, but he contends it's not right to try and fit the game into any of these categories as he instead opts to treat the game as its own genre.
While that sounds exciting on the surface, we won't know what, exactly, he means until we see and learn more. Thanks to a few announcement and teaser trailers, however, the picture is starting to take shape, albeit ever-so-vaguely.
The story so far
In typical Kojima fashion, we're left with a lot of nonsensical trailers which challenge the player to piece together their own conclusions about Sam (the main character) and what's going on in the world around him. As attention-grabbing as these trailers are, they just don't tell us much of anything. Hell, some scenes show naked babies trapped in capsules which are attached to characters via mechanical arms (or, worse yet, down Sam's throat), and those babies are eventually sent floating up a river. It's just plain weird and creepy.
Then there's the Timefall rain mechanic, which seemingly both wears on the world and gives it accelerated growth, and it'll also affect Sam one way or another. We don't know how. We don't know why. We just don't know.
And it's not because we aren't trying to know, either. Even Kojima's own team has mentioned that they are sometimes confused when he is explaining his vision for the game and the story. We reckon it'll be one of those things we'll just have to play through before we know what the hell is actually going on, but we're still holding out hope that they'll be a little less tight-lipped before the game's launch.
An official description of the game says that Norman Reedus' character Sam will be journeying across the land to save mankind from annihilation after mysterious explosions wracked the planet and caused supernatural events that set loose spectral creatures.
The human connection
Interestingly enough, Kojima took a lot of inspiration from a Japanese novella called Rope for the premise of Death Stranding. In that written work, the concept of mankind's earliest tools was boiled down to two simple things: sticks and ropes.
The thinking here is that the stick is the object you would use to keep unpleasant or violent things away from you. Think of it as your weapon, even if all you ever do with it is keep someone at arm's length. That's not to say you'll be tasked with trying to cut through the apparent skeletal armies present in this game using nothing but a tree branch, but we know that the main character will heavily rely on one.
Then there's the rope, which is the item you use when you want to keep things close to you like your beloved pet dog on a leash. This is the part where we get a tad confused, though early murmurings from Kojima suggest that the "rope" will shape the concept of "strands" in this game.
So what are strands? Good question. Here's what Kojima has to say about some of its themes and naming conventions:
"People have created 'Walls' and become accustomed to living in isolation.
Death Stranding is a completely new type of action game, where the goal of the player is to reconnect isolated cities and a fragmented society. It is created so that all elements, including the story and gameplay, are bound together by the theme of the "Strand" or connection. As Sam Porter Bridges, you will attempt to bridge the divides in society, and in doing create new bonds or "Strands" with other players around the globe. Through your experience playing the game, I hope you'll come to understand the true importance of forging connections with others."
Life and death
Kojima's theme for Death Stranding thus far seems to surround the cycle of life and death. In most games, death typically means either game over or you're zipped back to a checkpoint to try again.
But death will take on a whole new meaning in Death Stranding, with the player instead being taken to some sort of purgatory realm whenever they die. It's not yet clear what you can do in this realm, but we do know you'll be free to explore it and return to your living form anytime you wish.
Kojima says their desire for changing the role of death in video games stems from the industry's long misuse of the mechanic. He noted that death checkpoints were designed for arcade machines to keep people popping quarters into the slot, but the gaming industry has largely failed to move on from the mechanic even as arcade machines have become a dying breed. While it's just as vague and cryptic as Kojima wants it, it still leaves us wondering what, exactly, death will mean in this title.
Top-notch visuals
Kojima has been particularly chatty when it comes to the technology behind it. He revealed that his team met with over 30 studios to find the perfect engine for Death Stranding.
They eventually landed with the engine Guerilla Games created for Horizon Zero Dawn. Their choice was based on a number of factors, including an engine with great graphical capabilities and one that supports open-world development. Many engines fit that bill by default, but Guerilla's won the ticket due to their willingness to collaborate with Kojima on further developing the engine. In fact, the two have even gone so far as to co-brand the engine with the name 'Decima.' The specifics of what and how they've changed it aren't really important, just as long as you know it'll look good (there's PS4 Pro 4K + HDR support) and play great.
An all-star cast
Not one to shy away from cinematics, Kojima is pulling top talent to help drive the narrative in Death Stranding. The main character, Sam, seems to be portrayed by Norman Reedus. You may know him as the actor for the character Daryl on AMC's The Walking Dead. We also know Mads Mikkelson and Guillermo del Toro will be along for the ride.
When can you play it?
Death Stranding is due out for PlayStation 4 on November 8, 2019 and can be pre-ordered now. Players looking for a little extra can shell out $70 for the Special Edition or a whopping $200 for the Collector's Edition. But the Collector's Edition comes with a figure of that pod baby, so maybe it's worth it.
Kojima's next venture
Death Stranding
It's about to get really weird
If you aren't already excited for this game, I don't know what to tell you. Kojima is keeping it weird in the best ways possible, and Death Stranding looks to provide a hell of a gaming experience come November.
Updated May 2019: We've updated this article Death Stranding's release date along with new story information
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