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The Wonderful Weirdness of Death Stranding

The Wonderful Weirdness of Death Stranding

Death Stranding has quite the trailer, and Hideo Kojima’s subsequent interview with Wired proves even more intriguing. Especially after the heavy military theme of the Metal Gear Solid series, Death Stranding seems completely out of the blue. I mean, if you’ve played at least Metal Gear Solid 5 , you can see Kojima’s abstract and very profound themes permeating the entire game. In that respect, once Kojima was free of whatever restraints Konami placed on him, it seems less of a surprise that he’d create something more akin to an Indie game. But what does it all really mean? Some have said that the trailer is really an allegory for Kojima’s conflict with Konami. This might be true to a certain degree, but I think Kojima is trying very hard to move on from that controversy and let it be; to create something with no connection to any previous works ( Silent Hill or Metal Gear Solid ).

With that in mind, I found Kojima’s statement that “the story is about connections, what you call ‘strands’ in psychology – how people are connected” to be very fascinating. Especially with his mention of Kobo Abe’s The Rope, which if you’re like most and have never heard of it, there are some informative forum threads that explain a little about it. Before I delve deeper into this, I would like to mention that “strands” isn’t a psychological term. Psychology isn’t about how people are connected, that’s sociology and likely something along the lines of Six Degrees of Separation . Psychology is about the individual and how the individual responds to outside stimuli. However, let me mention that the Six Degrees of Separation theory is not upheld by concrete evidence conducted by any scientific field. It is the speculation of an artist, Frigyes Karinthy, not a psychologist or sociologist.

That said, let’s talk about The Rope. Here is a very abstract story, connected with quite a few other short stories by the same author. Human identity, perceived reality, and the fallacy of human existence are just a few of the themes Abe explores in the series of short stories The Rope belongs to. To insert such themes into a game makes Death Stranding sound like it’s going turn out more like Mountain or A Beginner’s Guide . But Kojima definitely knows what fan-service is (I’m looking at you, Quiet), so I imagine there will be enough stealth and gunning enemies down to satisfy the Metal Gear Solid fans.

But how does an existential crisis happen inside a combat heavy game? I don’t know, but I imagine if BioShock can do it more or less unintentionally, Death Stranding will be filled with it; all it takes is atmosphere, sound, and imagery. We’ve seen plenty of imagery in the trailer, though it didn’t make very much sense. I think the most significant, in context of Abe’s short stories, is the cord that at first connects Norman Reedus’ character to a baby so tiny it’s lucky to be alive. The cord and baby disappear and the shot opens to show all these sea creatures with cords too. But they are dead. If nothing else, this implies that the interconnectedness of people and creatures is tantamount to our survival. One cannot live without the other, as it might be.

The Wonderful Weirdness of Death Stranding

How Reedus is surviving on his own, as the baby is clearly gone and no longer inside him (I know, I thought male pregnancy was only for fanfiction, too), is yet to be seen. Perhaps he found a way to assemble his own identity outside of society’s network somehow. The network would be represented by the cords connecting all creatures. In turn, this would mean that the island Reedus’ character is on might be some sort of version of the Undead Asylum from the first Dark Souls game. By that, I mean a place where criminals and deviants are sent to be imprisoned or live out their days away from real society. Who knows!

This is my very brief analysis of what Kojima might have meant by his statement and so far, I’m sticking to it. Strands, interconnectedness, psychology, and one amazing Japanese author wrere all used for inspiration, thus the possibilities are endless. Kojima is making something very profound. I think we can all sense that, and I can’t wait to see more about this game.

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