Death Stranding Review

Through the Metal Gear Solid series, Hideo Kojima achieved a reputation in the industry for his stories being uniquely told in the medium. Being influenced primarily by the films he watched since childhood, Kojima's games are largely comprised of movie tropes that all come together with a certain charm that you either love or hate, and it was this notoriety that surrounded Death Stranding from the moment Kojima left Konami and founded his own game studio. Everyone was curious to what game he would make now that it wasn't a Metal Gear game, something that the trailers for the game heavily leaned into by being intentionally vague concerning what the game was actually about, guessing and theorising was all people had until the game actually released.

Luckily, between the game releasing and me actually playing it, I managed to avoid any spoilers and went into Death Stranding knowing nothing about it. My expectations were tempered by hearing mixed things about it, this isn't unusual for a Kojima game since half of the mainline Metal Gear Solid games are controversial amongst the fanbase; so how does Death Stranding hold up comparatively?

Well, the story is a similar affair to other Kojima games, overall being a twisting and long-winded plot with a lot of intrigue built up throughout, all to be answered during the finale. The game follows Sam Porter Bridges, a porter who has become famous for his ability to deliver packages. He is tasked with trekking westward across America to connect all the separated cities under one network, and it is through this task that the main method of the game's progression is done. As Sam journeys to different cities, shelters and distribution centres in his journey west, he meets various key characters after whom each chapter is named and the chapters usually revolves around. Through each character's arc more is revealed about the nature of the "Death Stranding", an apocalyptic event that mixed the worlds of the living and the dead.

This varies between characters, as some like Fragile, Higgs, and Amelie see development outside of their respective chapters, however I did enjoy this way of showing the characters and how they were each connected to the afterlife. Each one ties into the themes of death and connectivity differently, as they all ultimately won me over with their unique personalities and quirks; I'd go as far as to say the characters are the strongest part of Death Stranding's story, as a lot of the rest of the plot is filled with a hell of a lot of explaining.

Obviously, creating a world with rules that are different to our own requires explanations as to how it all works, the detailed ins-and-outs of the cogs that make up the machine. This is something Kojima is no stranger to, in fact some might say he's notorious for it with the Metal Gear series going to great lengths to explain everything. Death Stranding is similar, in fact you can argue that it's worse given the fact that the fundamental rules of the world differ from reality and characters are constantly throwing concepts at you to try and show how it all works.

The death stranding, beaches, people's "ha" and "ka", timefall, chiralium, all of these and more are explained to the player over and over again trying to help make sense of it all, not just in cutscenes but also in the game's "interviews" which are big walls of text with the goal of world building. Believe me, if you were at all confused about any of the world's rules going into the game, it makes sure you're not confused about a single aspect by the time you're done; this can all be a bit much and I wouldn't berate anyone who has to look things up as they go just to keep up.

So the story is a mixed bag, ultimately I enjoyed it and felt that the payoff at the end was satisfying, but it was definitely overcomplicated at points, seemingly intentionally sometimes to prevent you from working out what was happening until right at the end. However, it was not the story that kept me hooked on the game, it was actually the gameplay itself that I absolutely adored. Shocking, I know.

Death Stranding is an example of the kind of open world design I absolutely love, one that follows a simple set of rules that can combine in different ways to present unique obstacles for the player to overcome. As a porter, you're tasked with delivering goods across unstable terrain, be it over hills, across rivers, up mountains, you are constantly faced with natural obstacles that you either have to find ways around or use your tools to get through. On top of this, certain deliveries have to be treated in a specific manner - some you have to carry by hand, keep flat, deliver within a certain time, or make sure they take no damage whatsoever - combine these elements and each delivery feels unique, as your options for traversal change depending on your cargo. For example, you can't use ladders or ropes if you are carrying cargo by hand, and using floating carriers tethered behind you makes climbing steep hills more of a risk since too much tension can disconnect the carriers.

Every delivery in Death Stranding is full of choices for how you'll reach your objective, and that's before you throw in dangers like the MULEs whose bases are dotted around the map amd will attack you in an attempt to steal your cargo, or the BTs that show up in excessive timefall and will try to capture you, spawning a huge creature that you'll either have to fight or escape if you get caught. I quite liked the combat in the game, while it can be a little sluggish, I felt it was intentional since Sam isn't a trained combat veteran unlike the protagonists of previous Kojima games, he's a delivery guy, so his wide swinging punches make sense. Encounters with MULEs are frantic bouts for survival, and I loved the mechanic where taking down a MULE carrying cargo would let you grab that cargo in mid-air, and then use it as a weapon against the backup coming to attack you which is immensely satisfying as a hit using cargo is a one hit K/O.

Guns are also in the game but aren't really a focal point of gameplay. Since corpses left too long result in catastrophic explosions in-universe, killing enemies isn't the best way to deal with them. It's a different story with BTs though, as they're weak against Sam's bodily fluids which are helpfully collected and turned into grenades and bullets as you progress through the game. Gunplay is pretty standard, the most unique part about it here is that any guns carried are treated as cargo, so you need to set apart room for them if you think you'll need them.

All this isn't even to mention the multiplayer systems where, once you connect an area to the chiral network, items placed down by other players show up in your game for you to use. Most of the time you'll be the only person actually out and around for miles, however seeing a structure someone left behind gives that feeling that you're not alone out there. This is compounded by the likes system, where you can give likes to other players' structures and signs and recieve them for the things you put down or contributed to. It's a simple yet effective way of making it feel like there's an ecosystem of porters helping each other out, which ties in closely with the message of connectedness that is crucial to the narrative.

Most of of Death Stranding's flaws are in its story and world, and even then that's largely due to there being a lot of rules that need explaining. In the end, I think it all comes together to make a compelling narrative, there's just the hurdle of understanding how it all works to overcome before you can enjoy it. Fortunately, the gameplay loop was enjoyable enough that I ultimately didn't mind going through all the information dumps, and I felt the balance between gameplay and cutscenes was well done to the point where I never got too tired of either, even at the gargantuan final sequence which does take roughly two hours (although it is broken up by interactive segments at least). Just like all his games before, Death Stranding has that unique Kojima charm that makes it endearing or annoying based on your personal preference, but personally I loved every second of it.