Release date: 8 november 2019

Developer: Kojima Production

Website: http://www.kojimaproductions.jp/en/death_stranding.html

Genre&Topics: adventure, action, catastrophic, war, drama, cinematographic, existential, bulding community, delivery, stealth, fighting & shooting

Before reading my review you may find useful get some more informations about the past works of Hideo Kojima here. The following review is SPOILER FREE.

Ropes & Sticks

Following Kojima public interviews, inspiration for Death Stranding comes from a short story by Kobo Abe focusing on the opposite concepts of ropes and sticks; the formers represent everything that tend to unite, join, tie people; the latters represent everything that tend to separate, divide, offend, turn people against each other. Kojima compares main mechanics of usual action games to sticks: shooting, fighting, kicking, punching, etc. He has been refusing or minimizing violence and killing since his early games. Metal Gear Solid series is based on stealth mechanics; you can find also shooting, but killing people is not there or is minimized, just like violence, which is never evidenced, spectacularized or amplified for stimulating low istincts as it often happens in mainstream games. Hideo recently ended the MGS series, left Konami and became independent. His first purpose was to experiment new mechanics based on the concept of ropes; he was searching for something to stimulate positive and constructive attitudes in players, something to underline the need of people to unite, connect, tie, join each other in order to build a community, a collaborative society, a better world. Good concept! Thumb up! 🙂

Hideo didn’t want to develop an on-line multiplayer game or a cooperative game, he wanted to innovate the single player action-adventure genre, to replace sticks with ropes, weapons with other more positive and peaceful tools; and at the same time he wanted to give players the same level of challenge and entertainment as usual action-adventures games. Inspiration came from delivery games! Lately, gaming market is plenty of delivery simulators, games based on delivering packages, items, pizza, letters, etc by driving trucks, trains, drones, cars, motorcycle or bikes. No surprise, it’s an actual topic. Don’t forget that we’re living the age dominated by on-line delivery corporations as Amazon, and more and more people order food through delivery apps. Main DS mechanics come from here! As usual, Kojima doesn’t invent new mechanics, but makes innovative and original use of already existing mechanics. It was the same with stealth mechanics. The latters were already existing when Kojima developed MGS for MSX2 system in 1987 and its sequel in 1990. By the way, MGS for PlayStation 1, along with Tenchu and Thief, exabilished the actual stealth genre in 1998. Let’s come back to DS.

Setting

The main idea behind DS is very simple: to put players in the shoes of a delivery man, a postman, but not an ordinary one, a special one, a real superhero! The key was to give epic, drama, romanticism and thrill to the feats of a porter! Kojima needed a powerful apocalyptic narrative context where porters can be heroes helping to re-build and re-connect an entire nation. Do you see? Porters as ropes! He imagines that America has been devastated by a catastrophic event called Death Stranding. Strand means wire, filament, and also beach; stranding means creating ropes, and also ship grounding. Death is the beach where life grounds; life and death are like two symmetric mirror worlds linked by invisible wires. That reminds me of Lewis Carroll‘s novel Through the Looking-Glass or the anti-matter theory by Dirac. The catastrophic event melted the world of dead with the world of living and caused the apparition of “Beached Things” (“BTs”), invisible creatures originating from the “Beach”, a sort of limbo between afterlife and physical world. BTs cause explosions known as “voidouts” when they devour living creatures (a sort of matter-antimatter annihilation) and their presence is announced by a weird rain known as “Timefall” that rapidly ages and deteriorates whatever it hits. The latter is caused by a strange substance called Chiralium able to accelerate time, dispersed through the atmosphere of the planet as a result of the Death Stranding. As consequence, America is a rocky wasteland, everything humanity has built is now destroyed. The few survivors live underground, they are building isolated and remote colonies called knots, some of them are forming the United Cities of America. Colonies survival relies on services by a company called Bridges, whose porters have to brave BTs, bandits, and terrorists for delivering supplies.

You’re Sam Porter Bridges (Norman Reedus). Your mission is very special, you have not only to deliver supplies; you have to connect colonies and survivors to the Chiral Network, a system that facilitates instantaneous communication across vast distances thanks to temporal properties of Chiralium dispersed in atmosphere. You’re appointed by the last President of ex-USA to physically re-unite, re-connect cities and people of America and help to re-build an entire nation! You’re the rope! Good setting! Thumb up! 🙂

Main challenge: delivery by walking

Let’s see details of main challenge. You’ve to deliver very heavy packages of items, tools, materials, food, medicines, etc. etc. Wasteland has rocky soil, walls and peaks, canyons, rivers, snowy mountains, etc. so you have also to carry useful tools as ladders and climbing anchors. And this is just the beginning! Crafting more and more items will come useful later! You have to load all the packages on your body. You have to carefully distribute the load on your backpack, shoulders and left and right hip. You’re a strong muscular man and you can wear powerful exoskeletons; by the way, it’s very hard to stay balanced, especially when running on the rocky soil. Avatar animation when walking and running on the rocky soil is at the state of art, so natural and realistic! You can actually feel the loss of balance, even thanks to the perfect interfacing with the sensible and vibrating Dualshock. You use the two triggers for balancing your gravity center. There is total physical synergy between you and your avatar. Game physics is spectacular, sensation of inertia is strong. You can feel the effort for climbing, jumping or walking uphill and the risk of falling when you’re going downhill. Walking on the snow is perfectly simulated. It seems you’re really there, in the virtual world, facing the hard challenge. Obviously virtual America is not as big as real America; nevertheless, your walks are very long, game has low pace and dilated times. But it’s not a walking simulator at all. Atmosphere is very oppressive, the sky is always covered by gray or black clouds, “timefall” rain is heavy and suffocating, timefall snow is even worse. There is nothing to contemplate in the rocky and monotonous wasteland. There are perils at every corner. It’s like immersing in an alien dangerous world. One of the most fascinating feature of DS is the ground vegetation continuosly growing and dying under the effect of “timefall” rain. I think such effect consumes a lot of graphic resources, but it’s worth it. The path is full of perils: you have to brave BTs, bandits, terrorists. I’ll describe stealth and fight challenges later. The risk to lose your packages is very high. You can be hurt and lose blood; you can carry blood bags for instant transfusion or collect and eat weird bugs called Cryptobiotes, similar to big Tardigrades. Pay attention at the blue energy bar measuring endurance and stamina. Running, climbing, walking uphill, crossing cold river, fighting, losing blood, moving in strong wind or in snow, etc. all this consumes a lot of energy. You have a limited amount of energy drink for restoring endurance, but stamina is more difficult to restore, and short stamina is a serious problem. When happening, Sam can barely move, the risk to lose consciousness is very high. You have to carefully plan your journey, strategy is very important. You can choose different approaches: crossing rivers or mountains? The long easy way or the more difficult short way? Facing or avoiding bandits? Which items and tools are coming useful? I’ll describe crafting features later. After a long time finally you reach the goal, the colonies; you’re bruised, fatigued, dirty, wounded, the survived packages about to disintegrate; you feel you’ve accomplished an epic, titanic endeavor. That’s when clouds becomes less dark, rain stops, sky becomes more clear and luminous and an ethereal post-rock music starts! Romantic moment for sure! Most of songs are from the icelandic band Low Roar. When you arrive to knots, you connect them to the Chiral Network; you get in touch also with isolated settler, called preppers. You’re the “rope” reconnecting America. You can use knots and preppers terminals for crafting items and tools. In knots you find even resting rooms for sleeping, restoring energy, taking a shower, going to toilet, etc.

Well, such challenge has something original for sure, not the usual delivery challenge. From a technical point of view, it’s at the state of art, I’ve found no particular bugs to report. As said, mechanics and animations are very fluid and smooth, almost perfect; that’s true for all the games directed by Kojima. It’s impressive that the japanese team developed DS in just 3-4 years; maybe Decima Engine from Guerrilla Software gave big help and didn’t regret FOX Engine at Konami.

I’m analyzing just one challenge for now, but there are several challenges strictly related each other that I’m going to describe later. Even if challenges are not my primary focus in games, I must admit that delivery challenge in DS is more compelling than usual challenges in mainstream action games. It’s a thoughtful and romantic challenge: you are (almost) alone against an inhospitable deserted alien world full of dangerous supernatural creatures where it’s continuosly raining cats and dogs and entropic processes are accelerated. Sometime I have felt something epic, the sense of adventure was strong, I was sincerely engaged. The final reward, the ethereal post-rock song assisting your arrival, is very pleasant and satisfactory. Remember: challenges are challenges, nothing more, they are not the same as gameplay; gameplay is the whole interactive experience, I’m talking about it later. For now, it’s just a matter of going from point A to point B applying the best strategies, making the best choices, mastering the control of your avatar despite the heavy load and the hard path; you have to show good skills, you need a lot of patience and determination to win. I think it’s a good entertaining challenge, in particular a not-violent challenge; no sticks, just ropes, remeber? I found it better than trivial and violent mechanics of shooting and fighting in FPS, stimulating testosterone and low instincts. Not the usual re-heated soup.

Just focusing on delivery mechanics, I can say that Kojima has won his personal challenge. He went indipendent and created good entertaining not-violent original mechanics. “Rope” or “strand” mechanics, not “stick” mechanics! Yes, he managed to innovate action games. Maybe it’s not a great innovation, but something different and new for sure. I cannot say if such mechanics are going to inaugurate a new genre; I don’t think so, I think DS is going to remain a unique one-of-a-kind experience strictly bond to the personal vision of a single artist! But, who knows, maybe I’m wrong and we’ll see some games imitating DS in the next future! Maybe such mechanics can evolve in something different we cannot imagine now! To say the thruth, it’s not properly my cup of tea, I’m searching something different in video games: interactive narration, good stories, amazing aesthetics, deep contents, immersiveness etc. I’ll talk about them later. Neverheless I have to be an honest reviewer armed with scientific attitude. Kojima has won his personal challenge! Thumb up! 🙂

You are adviced: delivery challenge is not for casual gamers, it’s for medium/hardcore gamers; it’s not hard, but you have to explore wide scenarios and take it easy, to plan and experiment strategies, to test your endurance and exceed your limits. You have great freedom, you can do a lot of things that maybe developers didn’t even imagine. You need a lot of patience, determination and time! They are positive features: if you, young aspiring developer, cannot do without action challenges, then go for meaningful, thoughtful and demanding challenges! But remember: you need no challenges for creating good virtual interactive experiences, gameplay is not the same as challenges. We’ll talk about this later.

Crafting mechanics

Every item or tools you use is deteriorating. From time to time you have to craft new items by connecting to knots terminals. You can craft boots, exoskeletons, ladders, climbing anchors, blood bags etc. very useful for your delivery challenge. Cafting items consumes materials (Resin, Metals, Ceramics, Chiral Crystals, Chemicals, and Special Alloys). Resources are limited but they renew over time. You sometime deliver materials from knot to knot; you can also collect materials by exploring.

The most of time you’re delivering by walking, but there are also different options. You can craft vehicles: motorcycles and trucks! They are supplied by batteries that need to be recharged. You can build and place recharging generators in strategic points of your path. You can access special bags called PCC; they allow you to build big structures as generators and bridges, even timefall shelters and resting rooms. You can even build paved roads, very useful for vehicles; but not everywhere, just over specific paths. Crafting such structures asks for a lot of resources, not so easy, and timefall rain degrades structures, so you have to repair them from time to time. However driving mechanics are not good, it’s not easy to drive. Vehicles have limited use in few specific flat paths. The rocky soil, continually interrupted by rivers and mountains, make it impossible to use vehicles for long distance and time. The most of time you’re delivering by walking. That’s a clear and right choice by developers. Luckily, DS is not an apocalyptic GTA!

However I discovered a better way than walking! My favorite transport is cableway! Yes, you can place cableways everywhere, even on snowy and rocky mountains. That’s one of the best features of DS, no joking, very funny! I have built a wide web of cableways along the country! You have to build them at a maximum distance of 300 meters, then you can go up, down and in every direction never touching the ground! Here it’s again the concept of “ropes” connecting the country: cables! Animation while slipping through the cableway is spectacular. It’s like flying above dangers, bandits, BTs, terrorists, etc. I completed main story, but I’m still playing from time to time just for building cableways!! Thumb up! 🙂

You can also istantly teleport yourself thanks to the weird power of your friend Fragile (Lea Seydoux), but you cannot carry items; it is useful just for quick travels with no delivery.

Asynchronous cooperative gameplay

The concept of “ropes” connecting people comes true thanks to asynchronous cooperative gameplay.

It’s the exact opposite of multiplayer shooters, based on the concept of sticks, where people kill each other. In DS people help each other. All of your successes in DS are also successes for other players. They can follow your paths and use your items, tools, structures and vehicles. You can do the same, use their structures, items, tools, vehicles and paths! Everytime someone finds something useful, he gives “like” as in social media. If you lose bags, materials, etc. other players collect and deliver them to destination and you can do the same. DS tries to give the impression that you’re re-building America together with other players. By the way, virtual reality is so far different from physical reality! Players cannot communicate in any way, nor give “dislike”; they are obliged to do positive actions, no choice! There are never real time interactions. I have never felt to be part of a community re-building the country. There is one clue betraying the real human relationships. You know, Kojima is obsessed by weird situation; do you remember Snake hiding under the cardboard box in MGS? Well, in DS there are so many Kojima’s oddities. E.g. you can piss outdoors, everywhere you want. Mushrooms grows in the spot you’ve pissed! Every player can see mushrooms! Well, you know? Most of players piss on the middle of roads and paths or next other players structures! That’s a clear clue of true human relationships!! Someone is not collaborative and doesn’t want to respect other people, but he cannot do anything bad than growing pee-mushrooms!

There is a problem with cooperative gameplay. Community’s help changed drastically my experience . In my early game sessions I was finding very few manufacts and structures from community, the virtual world was really deserted. It was me alone in an inhospitable world. Lately I started to find a lot of manufacts in distant and inaccesible places that were deserted and savage no more; I was alone no more, even if I could not see anyone! Weird! I think this is how developers have planned the experience: at the beginning you’re alone, in the end you have contributed to build a community. I think the experience is the same for all players, no matters of when you begin to play. I think on line features are managed by algorythms filtering and showing you just a few manufacts and asynchronous interactions as function of time. You can also have stronger link with specific users and their structures, but I’ve not tested such feature. The fact is that initial romanticism gets lost. You’re alone in a savage wasteland no more, civilization expands. As time passes, missions are more and more easy, you’ve not to collect materials and build structures, you find them already built! Maybe developers were aware of the problem; in the last espisodes I found less structures on high mountains and on the west coast.

Collaborative features are not the core of gameplay, they didn’t give me particular engagement, emotions or feeling. I was not stimulated to do something for community’s sake, just focused on single-player missions. I think that virtual anonymous and asynchronous cooperation, where you cannot see others avatars in real time, makes people feel more alone than what they really are! So alienating! Players can make a mark of their presence planting road signs in the ground. Well, to say the truth, too many ugly signs ruining game aesthetics, they bothered me! I’ve not appreciated the social-like rewarding system based on thumbs up. Now I’m taking revenge by giving thumbs to DS! 🙂 You give “like” to unknown people who don’t deserve it, they are just playing for themselves! I’m curious how experience could be with no internet connection! My best experience in collaborative games is still Journey by ThatGameCompany; it’s beautiful to meet other avatars like you in the desert and make the long journey together in real time, comunicating just through sounds and not words! DS cooperative gameplay is not up to it. Thumb down! 😦

Stealth, fight and shoot mechanics

Stealth, fight and shoot mechanics are intrinsically linked to delivery mechanics. It’s very easy to encounter BTs or bandits (MULEs) on your path. Terrorists are more rare.

I’m not dwelling on MULEs. They are thieves using just stun and not lethal weapons. It’s easy to escape them, you’re not obliged to face them. Maybe you would steal something they have in their magazines; I don’t recommend it, a waste of time. You can get all that you want in different ways. If you kill MULEs, then you must burn their corpses in the incinerator, otherwise catastrophic matter antimatter event happens. That’s a good trick for discouraging players to kill. Fighting MULEs is not funny, they have an ugly AI. Maybe developers want the challenge to be easy for a wider audience. Thumbs down! 😦

BTs are announced by heavy timefall rain, but you cannot see them. It comes in handy the so called BB, the bridge baby you carry on your chest. Your suit is equipped with a pulsed “flower” radar; usually it scans the environment searching for resources. When connected to BB, it’s able to scan BTs. They are the souls of the dead connected to our dimension through the umbilical chord. Do you see? Again “ropes”! You can avoid BTs in a pure stealth style or cut their umbilical chords returning them to the Beach. BTs can hear your breath, you can keep it but for limited time! Good stealth mechanics! Thumb up! 🙂

There is another option: grenades, but not the usual ones! Here it comes another Kojima’s weirdness. Grenades are armed with your blood or with your body fluids! Sam’s body has special supernatural property called DOOMS. So when you take a shower or pee and poop or make blood transfusions, you can collect your fluids and craft anti-BTs grenades. So stupid and disgusting! Thumb down! 😦

When BTs notice you, something special happens! You can see menacing footprints of the dead following your heavy breath; you can keep it, but for a limited time. If BTs find you, black tar or pitch begins to fill the ground. Dead covered by tar emerge from the ground and try to pull you down. If they catch you, it’s like the world of the dead (the world of the future, death is our future, our destiny…) and the world of the past melt each other. Old buildings, houses, vehicles etc. emerge from the pitch. Now you have to fight giant creatures from beyond! If they devour you, a big explosion happens, like matter-antimatter annhilation. Game Over! Well, I think this is the best part of DS gameplay; no cut scenes here, everything is happening in real time, you’re experiencing an extreme visionary situation without losing control of your avatar. Environment is always changing, pitch is like a black ocean where structuures from the past are floating up and down; you can climb buildings for escaping dead and giant creatures. High level of interactivity here, mixed with beautiful Kojima’s artistic visions. Thumb up! 🙂

Nevertheless, here it comes another problem ruining the beauty of the moment. You have to fight the giant creatures using weapons! Guns, rifles, grenades and even rocket launchers! You can craft them at knots terminal. They are completely out of the visionary, mystic, metaphysical context and scenery! Epic fail! Weapons are ”sticks”…. not “ropes”! Kojima should have developed another kind of challenge, a more complex interactive mechanic different from trivial shooting, e.g. something involving complex interaction with environment. DS is an AA mainstream game produced by Sony (not wrong, AA, yes, we’ll talk about it later). Developers and producers obviously want to attract the wide audience of mainstream gamers and shooters are the most popular games. Sigh! Association between shoot mechanics and video games is really strong. The curse of video games! Always the same re-heated soup! The most of gamers cannot do without weapons and shooting! It’s a fact that shooting is a trivial, elementary mechanic wasting the infinite possibilities of our beloved interactive medium: click click click… By the way most of mainstream games implement repetitive shooting. Boring, absolutely boring, the best way to turn off your brain and turn on the worst and more violent istincts. And even the best way to support weapons industry…

I’m open minded; I played a lot of shooters in my youth (I’m 47 y. o.), and even now I play some action games implementing shooting (e.g. Uncharted series, The Last of Us, Sairento VR, Blood and Truth VR, Resident Evil 7, RDR2, GTA V, etc.). It could be ok few games to be shooters, but not almost every existing game to have weapons and shooting! That’s the problem! Kojima made a heavy compromise: he put guns, rifles, grenades and even rocket launchers in DS! You use them not only against giant creatures, even against terrorists! Yes, as said before, you’re killing people in DS too! Terrorists are more dangerous than MULEs, they have lethal weapons, but it’s very rare to meet them. Fighting terrorists is more challenging than fighting MULEs, they have better AI. Kojima is not immune to the curse of video games, even in a game based on the concept of “ropes” and coming with amazing surreal metaphysical visions! Epic fail! Thumb down! 😦

You may think that I have an ideological position against weapons and violence. Wrong! Well, let’s see the situation from the right point of view. You’re Sam, a porter, a man of few words, a peaceful, solitary and shy postman who doesn’t like to get in touch with people; he is a sensitive and fragile man crying a lot, frustrated by difficulties of life, disillusioned by people and society; a generous man concerned with problems of friends and other people; a man searching for love and for family, so much so that he is attached to his BB, usually considered just a tool by other people! What the hell has a porter, a postman, a man like Sam, to do with shooting and killing terrorists and monsters using heavy weapons that not even a simple soldier would know to use? I’m open minded! You, dear developer, want to develop games centered on challenges? Ok, no problem. But if you develop a game based on the concept of “ropes”, if you write a story for expressing deep contents about life, death, society, human feelings and relationships, if the protagonist is a man like Sam, if you creates surreal visionary metaphysical scenarios and situations…. well, you have to develop challenges that are not in contrast with your creation, consistent with story, contents, characters, aesthetics, scenery, context. That’s not the case! Epic fail! And you know? Fighting and shooting mechanics are not good at all! It’s clear that Sam mechanics were created for main delivery challenge, not for fighting or shooting. Poducers and developers forcedly inserted fighting and shooting just for marketing purpose, it’s just a compromise ruining the coherence and the value of the work. The curse of video games! Hideo, here you have lost your personal challenge! Thumbs down! 😦

Dog of war

Do you remember DS trailers at E3? You can see Mads Mikkelsen acting in a war context. There are precisely three different war scenarios along the whole game: WWI, WWII and Vietnam. You, Sam, are abruptly catapulted in such scenarios apparently with no reason. Your goal is to find and kill Mads. It’s a sort of third person view war-shooter. In WW scenarios, mechanics are not the best and don’t fit Sam. What weapons and war-shooting have to do with a peaceful postman carrying on his back a lot of uncomfortable and heavy packages obstructing the view? Last war experience is in the Vietnam jungle. Mads emerges from black water just like in the movie Apocalypse Now by Coppola. This time I appreciated the challenge. Good enemies AI. You have to follow specific strategy for winning, an alternation of stealth, fight, shoot and search for medication. However, Sam trying to hide in vegetation with bulky packages is implausible.

War-like challenges are visionary moments meant to show monstruosity and irrationality of war. You fight against army of dead in aesthetically pleasant and meaningful scenarios, with great environmental sound. I appreciated the diversity of mechanics and challenges breaking monotony of delivery. That’s good.

To show monstruosity and irrationality of war, that’s what Kojima has been doing since MGS series. But…. MGS is the story of a soldier, it is about nuclear weapons and cold war. Death Stranding is the story of a postman reconnecting delivery facilities, not a soldier in war missions! Sam is out of context! Sam, a postman, uses incredible weapons and become a dog of war, a skilled soldier able alone to win veteran Mads and his army of dead! It has no sense! Kojima, Kojima, you have to read my articles! 🙂 🙂 🙂 It was sufficient to change avatar! Why always Sam? Sam the porter, the shy man, the monsters killer, the super soldier, the lover, the father, the friend, etc. etc. Why not multiple avatars? You want war challenges? Ok, change avatar, put players in the shoes of another character more suited to the role! Well, no thumbs here, there are pro and cons! Beautiful visions, aesthetics and deep contents compensate for narrative weakness. 🙂

Meta-gaming: boss fight and game over!

You are used to fight final level boss in action games, aren’t you? Well, even DS has boss fight, but in the middle of the story, not in the end. At first, you have to fight a big-like-skyscraper BT-monster… What? A peaceful postman turned into a colossal monster killer?? Armed with rockets launcher?? Giant monster reminding of Godzilla and Resident Evil at the same time!?!? And you know? Fight mechanics are not good, nothing special, no particular excitement! Tsk tsk, Hideo, that’s not good, sorry! I can appreciate variation and diversity of challenges, it’s not always carrying packages, but this is definitely out of context! This is not MGS, Sam is not a soldier like Snake fighting metal gears!

I had to fight three boss in the middle of the game! The second one was so far better, not Godzilla-RE-like monster! Phew! Classic stealth-fight challenge where your avatar has no weapons; it better fits Sam personality. But… you know? Not so compelling: mechanics and AI are nothing special. Well, I was expecting more from the developer of the engaging duel with sniper The End in MGS3. In the end of the fight, the worst and weirdest moment ever: a boxing match! No joking! Boxing…. Ok, I appreciate diversity of mechanics, but… boxing? So weird! Kojima is aware of such weirdness! Before fighting, the boss speaks of the need to have boss fight and game over because, after all, it is a game! A game that speaks of games and of itself; that’s what critics call “meta-gaming“, similar to “meta-cinema” (do you know ” 8 1/2 ” by Fellini?). I can see that Kojima is an artist in conflict with the traditional adolescent approach to video games as challenging electronic toys; he would express something serious, but he cannot go deep, entertainment industry is always requiring fighting, shooting, boss and game over.

Third boss is in the style of Shadow of the Colossus, a flying giant BT-monster; but we are so far from the epic of Ueda‘s masterpiece. Another challenge just for accomodating mainstream gamers that cannot do without fighting and shooting.

Well, in my opinion boss battles ruin story. Plot, protagonists, their actions and dialogues are forced and distorted for justifying childish fight challenges. Thumb down! 😦

You know, most of mainstream games end with final boss battle. Well, no final boss battle in DS. That’s good. In the end of the story there is also a metaphor about a gun that has the role of “rope” and not of “stick” as usual. Summing up, Sam tells the President to not fund economy of America upon weapons industry. That’s very good, I appreciate the political message so much. I can understand Kojima mind! He’s saying: games need no boss battles, you don’t solve problems and end story with violence and weapons. Yeah, correct! Thumb up! 🙂

But… The previous 45 hours are plenty of weapons: you, a peaceful postman, have to shoot a lot of monsters and enemies with guns, rifles, rockets launcher, grenades, etc. I think that the most of shooting challenges have an end in themselves, they are there just for accomodating mainstream gamers. Boss battles are not in the end, but are in the middle of the game. You, dear developer, put weapons along the whole game, and in the end do moral about use of weapons!?! A bit contradictory! Thumb down! 😦

You know? I have the impression that Kojima is a bit confused. He was no able to well manage compromises with gaming industry and market. DS is not the work of a real indipendent developer; it’s an hybrid! I can see unresolved conflict between the will to create a serious, mature, different, meaningful interactive experience, and the need to entertain with traditional ludic and challenging mainstream approach. Kojima has no clear ideas, he didn’t think enough about this. He should read my articles! 🙂 🙂 🙂

It’s a video game, we cannot do without boss fight and game over, that’s Kojima’s thought. Completely wrong! Video game is not the same of electronic challenging toy for teens! Video games can be serious virtual experiences causing immersiviness and embodiment, expressing deep contents, telling amazing and compelling stories by means of fine aesthetics, evolved processing and complex interactivity. No need of boss fight and game over, especially in story-driven games. Nevertheless DS comes with MGS-like “game over”! How can “game over” fit story? If Sam dies, story ends! Kojima inserted a ploy: Sam has DOOMS, he is a “repatriate”; when he dies, he goes to the afterlife, but he has the power to come back in the living world! It has also a metaphoric meaning (see below), it’s a good ploy. By the way games need no game over! Kojima is an old school developer who has no clear ideas about recent expressive and narrative evolution of video games. He calls himself “homo ludens” and his games have always something adolescent. DS is a game suspended between adolescence and adulthood!

The powerfull beginning: gameplay & narration, challenges & cut scenes, video games & cinema

My first impressions after the first two-three hours were definitely positive: WOW! I can confirm such impressions still now. I was very skeptic before to start. That’s the right “scientific” approach in my opinion. Reviewers have not to have prejudices or, on the contrary, to be fanatic; just skeptic. I’m a long time gamer, I know very well the past works of Kojima, his art, techniques, language, ideas, etc. There was the risk that DS were the delirious creative mess of an old school author who had already given his best but desires to remain on the market and even to overcome himself; Kojima has sometimes been victim of his own exaggerations in the purest Japanese style, even in his most famous games.

On the contrary, in DS I can see a more mature, adult Kojima, far from the excesses of youth. Ok, some oddities are still there; as said before, something adolescent is still there; but DS has something serious and deep to express, really. Kojima uses two different languages and media: cinema and Video Games. He is a talented film director and game designer at the same time, he is able to summarize the best from such different media! Well, in the first two/three hours, DS is more cinema than video game! Yes, not joking! Now I can understand what Kojima means for merging Cinema and Video Games. Story, contents, pathos, dialogues, relationships, psichology etc. they are all entrusted to long cinematic cut scenes. In the powerfull beginning, DS is first of all a good movie, mature, intense, dramatic, compelling. The core of DS movie is the need to unite and make people communicate, in order to build a nation, a collaborative society, a better world. Gameplay is just aimed at challenges and action moments, where Sam has to physically reunite a country by travelling through America. Gameplay is able to sustain the premises of the movie. Movie and gameplay are well connected because mechanics are coherent with contents and story. Gameplay and movie support each other! As consequence, experience is full of drama and pathos, immersivenes is high. Introduction of story, setting and main characters is promising, making you curious, intrigued, engaged. Don’t forget that Hideo has been always considered a film director devoted to Video Games! When joining Konami he knew nothing about programming! In traditional mainstream games, cut scenes are just a dressing for filling the emptiness of trivial shooters or action games. On the contrary in the first hours of DS we can enjoy a perfect synergy of gameplay and storytelling, challenges and cut scenes.

When you take control of Sam, you feel invested with your mission: reuniting America; Sam’s journey through the desolated country is a contemplative, thrilling, thoughtful, romantic experience. You can feel all the hardness, pathos and drama of the mission thanks to the alternation of cut scenes and challenges. Cut scenes give the global meaning, the urge to act , the contents, the narrative context; they build relationships, feelings, drama, pathos; challenges give action, realize the assumptions of storytelling, keep the story going, make you feel the hard work for achieving narrative goals; you move from place to place and story goes on only if you reach the goal, only if you help to re-build the nation. Thumb up! 🙂

By the way, Hideo does not refuse the classic repertoire of video games: tasks, strategy, RPG features, bonus, score, etc. He is an old school developer. When you complete the task, a lof of data and scores fulfill the screen, rating your mission; I always skip such useless screens. Everytime you deliver packages and complete the mission, settlers are always saying that you’re the best porter ever, you’re wonderful, an hero, no one is like you, etc. etc. etc. Please, Kojima, please, we are kids no more! 🙂 Very annoying and childish! I was not stimulated by challenges, bonus, score and encouragements; I felt immersed in story, I wanted to keep the story going. You move from place to place and story goes on only if you reach the goal after a lot of time, patience and work. Story is the stimulus, not challenges with an end in themselves!

However, DS is not a narrative game. Games can be defined narrative only when narration is interactive. DS gameplay is not narrative, it’s just aimed at not trivial challenges: delivering packages, exploration, avoiding enemies (stealth, escaping) etc. Narration is confined in passive cut scenes. Narrative games are: Edith Finch, Life Is Strange, The Walking Dead, State of Mind, Detroit: Become Human, etc. Games centered on narrative mechanics, where story, contents, characters, relationships, dialogues, psichology, feelings, events, narrative contexts, situations, etc. are experienced and influenced through real time interactions and not entrusted to passive cut scenes. No separation between narration and gameplay or story and interaction, no juxtaposition of cinema and video games.

Speaking of interactive narration, there are a lot of missed opportunities in DS; instead of passive cut scenes, Hideo could have used scripted scenes, multiple choice dialogues, and all the narrative techniques I use to describe in my articles. E.g. Sam is handcuffed to the bed; Kojima could have done a scripted scene in first person view where Sam/player tries to break free, no need of passive cut scene. Sam has to escape on his motorcycle; no need of cut scene, Sam/player could drive the motorcycle in a scripted environment. Sam/player could talk to other protagonists by means of multiple choice dialogues. Several actions, e.g. taking a shower, could be executed through scripted scenes. AI could control NPCs in real time when relating with Sam, so that player doesn’t lose control of avatar. And so on.

Kojima is not a prophet of interactive storytelling, he juxtaposes cinema and video games. E.g. you have to read too many documents for better understanding story and narrative context, an old and boring disused trick of game design. No thumbs here, I respect the traditional approach of old school developer Kojima.

After the powerful beginning: lack of narrative support

The fact is that the first 2-3 hours are powerful, full of drama and pathos, making you say: WOW, great mix of gameplay (challenges) and narration (cut scenes); after that, the narrative features are completely put away! At first you’re excited by story, characters, visions, emotions, contents etc. etc. After that, just challenges; so many that you almost forgot story! Cut scenes are very rare and not meaningful. Without the narrative stimulus, challenges are just challenges! They are good challenges, better than usual challenges in mainstream games, but just challenges! Goodbye pathos and drama!

In the first 2-3 hours of DS there is more Cinema than Video Game. Well, after the first 2-3 hours, roles are inverted! There is more Video Game than Cinema! You may think it’s good; on the contrary that’s a problem, because in Kojima’s titles gameplay and story are separated! Narration is entrusted to cut scenes; gameplay is exclusively centered on action and challenges! DS gameplay gives its best only when game sessions are interposed between meaningful narrative cut scenes. Missions result epic and romantic just when strongly linked to story. After the first 2-3 hours, game sessions become very long while story has less and less room! Plot doesn’t go on for a while! As consequences, you lose immersivity and pathos; you have to repeat always the same actions and challenges but nothing or very few happens in terms of narration, no more drama and pathos!

I know, I know, you’re thinking: games have to entertain people through challenges and actions, who cares of story! Well, when I was young, I enjoyed all kind of challeging games, even shooters. Now I’m adult and I search for more meaningful virtual interactive experiences. Repeating always the same actions and challenges bores me! Mainstream gamers like to shoot, fight and make violence with an end in itself all the time! I find it so boring and childish, sorry!

Interactivity and narration are the keys for good virtual experiences. The more varied, complex and substantial interactivity is, the better the game is! Story and contents are more important than challenges so far; story and contents give meaning, immersivity and pathos to virtual experiences and challenges. When you merge narration and interactivity you have the best: the most noble and engaging entertainment!

Kojima has something meaningful to express. He uses two separated languages, Cinema and Video Game. Cinema for narration, video game for action. When such languages run together, as in the first 2-3 hours, you have the best moments in DS. I’m not saying that gameplay alone is not good. DS gameplay is far better than any trivial shooter on the market. I’m saying that it loses immersivity, drama and pathos when running alone, with no or very few narrative cut scenes supporting it.

There are so many people enjoying games based exclusively on delivery, e.g. truck games. On the contrary, they bore me in the long run, sorry! By the way, DS gameplay is not only delivery, is even stealth, escaping, fighting, shooting, crafting structures and tools, etc; it has also collaborative asynchronous on line features, not so impressive and inviting to say the truth. DS gameplay is better and more varied than Metal Gear Solid V gameplay. Nevertheless, with no movie-like cut scenes supporting game sessions, the latters become more and more repetitive, with an end in themselves, and could bore someone searching for immersivity, drama and pathos. The more the time passes, the less the excitement to play. Hours and hours and hours of delivery, BTs, crafting. Story completely freezes. Just few short cut scenes and some secondary events. Hideo is not a pioneer in interactive narration merging gameplay and story, that’s a pity! Cinema and Video Games, narrative and interaction, are divided! Weird, a game about links and connections is not always able to link narration and gameplay! Here we have a severe problem: DS would need many more cut scenes to support the whole 50 hours of playtime! Thumb down! 😦

Why 50 hours long and why such narrative void?

AA game

I think DS is not an AAA game, it’s an AA game! Graphics are not the best of the actual generation, but still good; environment is monotonous and bare, so that sometimes exploration lacks of interest. Enemies have not the best AI ever. Some fight mechanics are forgettable, with just few exceptions. Relationships with other characters are confined in cut scenes, gameplay is solitary. The virtual world of DS has not the richness and vitality of the virtual world of Red Dead Redemption 2 (by the way I enjoyed DS more than RDR2!). Above all, story is not proportionate to 50 hours of playtime! Narrative cut scenes are concentrated at the beginning. We find good amount also at half way and of course in the end, but they are not as surprising as the initial sequences.

It seems that DS must be 50 hours long for marketing reasons, but the narrative core is not proportionate; probably because of limited budget. Long breaks between narrative blocks are fulfilled with extra long gameplay sessions exclusively centered on challenges and lacking pathos and drama. It should have lasted much less than 50 hours, about 20-30 hours.

When you’re in the middle of very long sessions of challenges, you forgot story. Cut scenes are very short, they show just few interactions with people you deliver packages to. Well, in such scenes Sam (Norman Reedus) never speaks!! Short budget not enough to pay actors? I think Kojima was aware that long gameplay sessions with no narrative support could annoy someone. Probably budget was not enough to cover the whole 50 hours with the main starring actors. As consequence, Kojima tried to support challenges with few short secondary narrative events and more cheap actors. That’s the reason why in one of your missions you can witness a poor short ridiculous love story between settlers that was good just for telenovelas! Epic fail! Sometime it’s better nothing than bad fillers! Thumb down! 😦

It’s a pity that Sam/Norman Reedus is one of the less interesting avatars ever! He almost never speaks! Limited budget? He is just a body for carrying packages! Lovers of male bodies will like DS! There is also a cut scene in the shower with clear homosexual suggestions! I cannot say more, no spoilers here! I prefer female bodies but it seems right to me to underline this latent and spicy aspect of the game. It’s not just Sam/Reedus; the acting of characters is not particularly brilliant. Actors are good, but they didn’t give the best. Maybe not much time and budget for preparing the parts and filming the scenes.

In the middle of the game cut scenes become rare, just poor fillers between challenges. They are not so good from a cinematographic point of view. Cut scenes are very rare and didactic. They have cinema-like quality no more! Just talks between characters. People are crying too much, too many tears! Building drama by means of such trivial trick is not good! Thumb down! 😦

The story of Fragile in the end of episode 3 gives a good kick to narration, you can watch long cut scenes with good content. After that, narrative void again. At half way, story and cut scenes focus on the bad guy, the boss you fight. After that, again narrative void filled with just secondary events and talkings. War-like scenes break monotony of delivery just three times. Story returns to the fore only at the end. We’ll talk about it later.

The RDR2 syndrome

Death Stranding is clearly affected by what I call “RDR2 syndrome”! Too many mandatory missions just for stretching playtime. Many missions are poor and repetitive and could be optional. I hate such syndrome! Long is not the same of good, and short is not the same of bad. I prefer intense experiences lasting as much as they deserve.

The screen at the end of last chapter shows my overall statistics and global playtime: around 48 hours! The experience is forcefully stretched too much. You have to do a lot of useless mandatory challenges that have nothing to do with story, just for reaching 50 hours of playtime; story itself is artificially diluted too much and is negatively influenced by several forced fillers. It’s a bad trend of today mainstream market and DS makes no exception.

You’re Sam Porter Bridges, the postman; you travel through America from east coast to west coast for re-building and re-connecting the community; you have to re-activate and re-connect the main knots of the network. You have to reach such knots by walking or sometime by driving or by cableway in very long missions; on the contrary, knots already activated can be instantaneously reached by teleportation. Well, when in the end you arrive at the west coast, your next mission is…. to return to the base on the east coast! Ok, I can understand, but… surprise!!! Teleportation no more!!! Why? Because of a stupid and arbitrary subterfuge with no narrative sense! Yeah, you have to cross the whole America again, retrace your steps, redo what you’ve already done, see again what you’ve already seen, because of stupid market trend! Because the game needs to be 50 hours long! On the way you encounter even more perils, enemies and monsters, even a flying monster reminding me of Shadow of The Colossus; challenges are more difficult than before! Sincerely, I was tempted to give up, I felt like developers were making fun of me! Luckily I like to explore, I like games where you have to walk a lot; I had previously built a lot of roads and cableway making easier my task; above all I had to write a complete review! So I found the stimulus to go ahead and made it. I think the most of players are not like me, I’m curious about their reactions to such silly situation!

Very very bad trend of the whole industry and Kojima makes no exception! The more the playtime, the more the price, but no proportion between time and content! Thumb down! 😦

Speaking of commercial compromises, I was disappointed with intrusive Monster Energy advertisement. Where are the companies producing and selling Monster Energy after the death stranding catastrophe? It’s completely out of context! Colored and sugared water sold as energy drink just because of caffein and taurine, the latter having no effect scientifically proved. One thing is sure: consuming energy drink is unhealthy. Many more teens will drink such dishwater because of DS advertising! Two thumbs down! 😦 😦

Story, aesthetics and contents (no spoilers)

Kojima’s cinema is visionary; this time he manages to avoid the excesses of the works of his youth. Fantasies in DS are visionary metaphors going straight to the expression of deep and not-trivial contents. Hideo has built good dramatic atmosphere: cold, spectral, dominated by death, even thanks to the collaboration with art director Yoji Shinkawa, the same as MGS series. I liked the visions of black peach emerging from the ground, umbilical chords up in the sky, timefall rain, clouds dispersing with ethereal post-rock music as background. I liked also the spectral atmosphere in war scenarios. Cinematographic aesthetics are good. Thumb up! 🙂

It’s a pity that while delivering game world is bare and not so exciting to explore. Short budget, AA game, remember? Thumb down! 😦

We have to appreciate Kojima’s effort to express something meaningful and poetic for a mature audience through Video Game. Following Kojima, games can even inspire deep thoughts and emotions. DS is full of meaningful metaphors, a visionary work worth of your attention going beyond usual mainstream boundary. Metaphors refer to actual political and social topics and at the same time express universal values. DS talks about: the hard coexistence of life and death, environmental catastrophes, global warming, collapse of civilizations, wars, crisis and disgregation of modern society and “american empire”, social relationships, web and social networks, how to build efficient and united community, social heritage for children and next generations, private hopes and illusions, love, family, etc. etc. Two thumbs up! 🙂 🙂

I liked relationship with BB. The more you take care of BB, the more he loves you. He represents alternation of generations, heritage of individuals through reproduction and family, transmission of experience from past to future, contact point between life and death, past and future; living being has to die in order to reproduce himself and transmit life! Life and death are two faces of the same coin. Entering Sam’s mouth, camera finds BB inside! That’s the metaphoric child that never die inside our mind, even when we are adult; here we can see that Kojima suffers the Peter Pan syndrome! 🙂 🙂 It’s also a metaphor for the past evolving towards the future, continuity of life and death. Even civilizations and Nature live and die! Wars, catastrophes, collapses of civilizations; and then again new civilizations, new ages, life and history going on, up and down!

The Beach is the limbo between life and death, past and future, where our hopes strand! No death, no hopes! It’s the thought of death that gives meaning to life. You can be dead even when living, if you have no hopes! Sam is dead and alive at the same time, he cannot stand human contact, he believes people, society and community no more, he have hopes no more. Even Heartman (Nicolas Winding Refn) continuosly dies and re-lives; his heritage, his family is there no more. By the way you have to live with up and down of life and history, you have always to fight for staying alive, unite, for building community. Maybe you cannot avoid catastrophes, wars or death of loved ones, but you’ve never to lose the hope for rising again. “Fragile we are” Sting says in his famous song released in 1987. We age from one day to the next, that’s the reason why we need to be unite! That’s the symbolic role of Fragile (Lea Seydoux). The ground vegetation continuously grows and dies under the timefall rain. That’s the best visual metaphor in DS; it represents the ferment of life, convective motion of life and death, alternation of order and chaos, organization and entropy! Good “physics of life” here! Bravo Hideo! Three thumbs up! 🙂 🙂 🙂

You see? DS is about reborn! Just as Kojima is reborn after quitting Konami! 😉 We can find other personal elements in DS, e.g. relationship with his mother; mother is bearer of life and death at the same time; mothers love is good, but it can be suffocating! In order to be really alive, adult and indipendent, you have to cut the “umbilical chord” linking you to your mother! Just as Kojima cut relationships with Konami! Yes, Kojima at the age of 56 is thinking about his life, his past and his future! And DS is the link!

Someone is asking: are you sure all this is in DS? Dear gamer, I can understand your difficulty. With the exception of the powerful beginning, the whole story is not so convincing, it’s confused, vague, too diluted, sometime distorted just for supporting useless challenges. Not so much pathos. The pacifist message about “ropes and sticks” is not so well expressed, I think that most of players won’t notice it. It’s true that Kojima introduces an innovative not violent main mechanic; but it’s also true that half game is centered around shoot and fight mechanics and weapons have a major and offensive role. DS is suspended between love and hate for weapons just as MGS is suspended between love and hate for war! By the way it’s true that it’s a not-violent game; violence never emerges, it’s moderate, not highlighted; no speculation about low instincts, it’s a constructive, positive experience. Visions, metaphors and symbols are very good, the best features of Kojima’s art; but it’s not so easy to decipher the message about life and death! Reading a lot of in-game documents helps to understand but it’s boring. Story and dialogues don’t help, they are good, but seem a bit improvised, quick, confused and contradictory! The whole situation sounds a bit weird: you have to re-connect America, and who do you call? Ghostbusters… Ehm, no sorry, joking! Army? Soldiers? No, just one postman!!! You have to re-connect America through delivery facilities!!! Why no military facilities? Even characters sometime do irrational choices and actions and says uncoherent words just for justifying forced narrative situations and challenges.

Characters are forgettable. Sam/Reedus is dull! Just one actress convinced me: Lindsay Wagner. Good choice, Hideo! One of the best interpretation of her carrier! The digitally rejuvenated Bionic Woman in red dress and high heels is so marvellous and iconic! 🙂

I’m not saying that story is bad, I’m saying that it’s not so good, not the best.

In the end you have tons of long cinematic cut scenes; good cinema here, but not so powerful as in the beginning. No alternation of cut scenes and challenges. Nevertheless Kojima tries to experiment interactive narration in few ending short scenes. Surprise! No challenges, you have to do few specific actions for moving story forward. Result is not bad, quite good, with ups and downs. Hideo could do it better. You see? Kojima dares to experiment just in the end, while credits are scrolling down; another compromise. I would have liked to see more courage and more interactive narration throughout the game. However, I appreciate the attempt from an old school developer. Thumb up! 🙂

Conclusions

Despite my severe critics and several thumbs down, the overall experience is good. DS is not a masterpiece, but it’s still a good game, different from usual mainstream ones. Globally I had good time while playing DS, I liked the experience, more than RDR2 for example. I’ll keep good memories. Who says it’s a bad game, he is wrong! DS has a charm of its own, creative mind of Kojima has something to say yet. Delivering mechanics are not new, but Kojima makes an innovative use of them, that’s very good! There are a lot of different challenges and mechanics. There are clear compromises with market, but at the same time it’s not the usual mainstream product. It comes with beautiful visions and interesting contents about society and life, even if not well expressed. DS could positively influence market and industry, we’ll see. Well, not so powerful as expected, but it could still positively influence young developers, we’ll see. It’s not a game so simple to review, there is a lot of contradictory stuff in DS! I can understand why critics are divided. DS is suspended between mainstream and indie, adolescence and adulthood, love and hate for weapons, Cinema and Video Games, narration and challenges, commerce and art, past and future, life and death.

Rating: 83/100

L.F.