“This is illegal, right? I don’t think I should have this. In fact, you know what, don’t publish this,” says Mark Tally, who was holding his new copy of Death Stranding during his exclusive Nerfwire interview. “I ordered a game. I mean, I went out and bought a USB CD reader just so I could install the thing. Isn’t acid expensive? This seems like a lot of acid. Please get out of my house right now.”

Mark, who is most likely still in possession of a schedule 1 psychedelic, was not alone in his shock to discover a very different game interface upon receiving his physical copy of Hideo Kojima’s new brainchild Death Stranding. While many fans of Kojima’s past works have panned what Kojima Productions is calling an “alternate reality experience, man,” there are several fans we interviewed who loved the risk that the studio took.

“This blows the lid off of AR, honestly,” says Cynthia Barlow, who we found in the woods behind our office building. “Pokemon Go is just an embarrassment compared to what they’ve managed to pull off here. I’m just at a part of the game now where all of the trees are Norman Reedus, but I’m also the trees because I’m part of the universe, so I’m also Norman Reedus. There’s a peacock interviewing me and the dialogue options are incredible, it’s like I can say whatever I want. Haven’t seen any throat babies, though. What the fuck was that about? Seriously.”

The game is obviously controversial, currently ranking at 57 on Metacritic, with some reviewers claiming the title is “reinventing the wheel,” and “clearly a large-scale drug trafficking operation.” Strangely, many gamers are choosing not to weigh in at all. Many journalists are having trouble finding anyone who will openly admit to owning the game despite its massive 44 million dollar opening week. Many gamers who do elect to have an interview often ask that their names not be published, as was the case with our own Mark Edward Tally, son of Edward and Monica Tally, whose Facebook account is available here.

“I tried to return it at Best Buy, but the guy just said there had to be a CD in the box. What was I supposed to do, explain it to him? I don’t want to go to jail. Please,” claims Tally, whom we would again like to confirm is in possession of 500 micrograms of LSD at his home on East Grafton Street in Laramie, Wyoming. “You guys are with the media, right? Can’t you tell the president or something? I don’t want to go to jail. I didn’t even play Silent Hill, I just wanted to see what was up with the baby in the trailer. It was in some kind of pod or something?”

It seems that Kojima Productions took a risk with Death Stranding, and only time will tell if that risk will pay off. Nerfwire’s official review of Death Stranding will be released later in the week or as soon as we post bail.