The upcoming release of Death Stranding is generating spasmodic waiting. Kojima’s experience as independent developer is creating many expectations and hopes. Hideo Kojima is a great and indisputable innovator of the medium. Metal Gear Solid 1, 2 and 3 are titles that made history and art of video games. It would take a whole book to analyze in depth the legacy of Kojima. Since the beginning of his careeer the intent of Kojima has been to ennoble the medium and not to understand it simply as entertainment for teenagers. He tried to include in his games the suggestions of cinema and literature. To the violent and simple mechanics of shooters, he prefers stealth mechanics: less violent and direct, more thoughtful, keeping the player in suspense for dilated times. He has been refusing or minimizing violence and killing since his early games. He makes massive use of cut scenes of the highest cinematographic level and of dialogues full of deep reflections about cold war, nuclear weapons, pacifism etc. The love for espionage and science fiction is evident, even if he relegates narration to cut scenes. Kojima is not an innovator of interactive storytelling, he has a ludic approach to the medium; he doesn’t renounce challenges, score, bonus, boss fight, game over, etc. Following Kojima, games are still electronic and challenging toys for entertainment, but they can be toys for adult people and can tell meaningful stories and deep contents. He has the historical merit of putting story and contents at the base of the gaming experience. He has always cared for characters, story, contents and direction as if he were directing movies; plots are complex and long, full of memorable characters, real Colossal! Game mechanics have also benefited of such cinematographic features; Kojima has always striven to create original mechanics consistent with story, contents and characters. He doesn’t invent stealth mechanics but makes innovative use of them. He can be compared to Fumito Ueda, another pioneer of alternative mechanics; mechanics able to seal an intense relationship between player and AI-driven NPC (see ICO), or to transmit a strong sense of epic and transience (see Shadow of the Colossus). However, the art of Kojima is quite different from that of Ueda.

MGS1 breaks through the so-called fourth wall between the real world of the player and the virtual world of the game. It’s well known the sequence where Psycho-Mantis boasts of reading in the mind of player/Snake by guessing and mocking his favorite games; he also comments on the progress of the player, judging him as skilled or coward, according to his achievements: basically software reads data in memory card! Furthermore Psycho-Mantis takes control of the gamepad, which starts to vibrate, and makes a black screen appear; Major Campbell voice suggests to the player how to regain control: you have to physically change the port of the gamepad! We find something similar in MGS2, where a computer virus enters our communication system through the false ID of Major Campbell, locks the console and force us to turn off and then turn on the console! These are moments of absolute genius emphasizing the smart use of programming. Another coup de gene is the interactive and real-time sequence of the immersive challenge between the sniper The End and Snake in MGS3; still enjoyable today thanks to great use of AI, and better than its second implementation in MGS5, where instead of The End we find the charming female sniper Quiet. Not to mention the stealth mechanics brought to maximum enjoyment thanks to the several Snake’s disguises in MGS3. It sounds weird that games from more than a decade ago were more sophisticated in programming and design than most of the current ones! Following Kojima, games are also an opportunity to express his profound pacifism and opposition to nuclear weapons; repeatedly he underlines the lawfulness of war, the uncoherent ethics of soldiers; Snake himself is a tormented figure, suspended between a soldier and a pacifist rebel, who suffers from the contradiction of pursuing peace through weapons and war!

And here we come to Death Stranding, where Kojima wants again to put deep contents at the base of the experience: the need to unite and make people communicate, in order to build a nation, a collaborative society, a better world. On such content, he has built game mechanics that promise to be innovative; we don’t know anything specific yet, but we’re expecting for original gameplay. Definitely something different from the usual trivial and vulgar shooters; sincerely they have broken my chestnuts, really! I believe that Kojima will not betray his cinematographic style and his ludic approach; he is not a narrativist, a prophet of interactive storytelling that games like Edith Finch are successfully experimenting. Trailers betray the massive use of passive cut scenes for narrative purposes, clearly separated from real time action and challenges; however, as in the past, we can expect some innovative mechanics giving depth to story and characters, able to make the experience immersive.

Certainly there is the risk that DS is a delirious creative mess of an author who may have already had his days but who desires to remain on the market and even to overcome himself; Kojima has sometimes been victim of his own exaggerations and excesses in the purest Japanese style, even in his most famous games. His last game, MGS5, reaches high technical level, but story and gameplay are not up to expectations; maybe responsibilities come from Konami; Kojima probably didn’t even want to develop another MGS and I believe he hadn’t imagined it in the form it has been released; that caused the breaking of the decades-long relationship between Kojima and Konami. Hideo wants to leave to posterity the image and the myth of a committed, creative and independent author; he has bet everything on DS, but there is always the risk of being pretentious and failing. Obviously I cannot do nothing than supporting Kojima, not only as an appreciation for his creative and innovative contribution to the medium: if DS were to be an alternative but successful game, if it were to win over the general mainstream audience despite introducing mechanics different than the usual ones and relying on stories and profound contents, artistic evolution, industry itself, indie developers and video games market could only benefit infinitely of it. By the way, I think that Kojima’s ludic approach is not the right way to art, the narrative approach is the right one! Maybe there are some narrative mechanics in DS, we’ll see!

Anyway: go Kojima, go! Give us the masterpiece we’re waiting for! Nevertheless, I promise you a trusted review, I will not let my hopes take over honest critical analysis. While I’m writing, first reviews are being published. Give them a look: https://www.gamesradar.com/death-stranding-review-round-up/