Hello everyone and welcome to another The Love of Gaming blog post!
Today I'd like to talk about Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding. The new trailer that dropped last week has created a buzz and too right, watching Porter's death and rebirth in the trailer was a pretty exciting experience. When you watch an eight minute trailer that features no gameplay, you might think you'll be bored to tears but Kojima certainly subverted my expectations.
I wasn't too excited at the game's announcement trailer, it wasn't anything to write home about. Pretty texture, nude Norman Reedus cuddling a baby, it was artsy and pretentious. Then came the next trailer that was pretty different from the first. Light on details or so it seems, but when you watch the second trailer after seeing latest trailer, things seem to add up.
So firstly my thoughts:
I think that Mads Mikkelson's character from the second trailer, is the same character in the third trailer that descends onto the overturned truck. The physique is similar sure, but it's that hand gesture. It's similar to the one soldiers give when they signal to move forward but it's very particular in how he gestures his hand.
Watch the two segments together and it's pretty clear this is the same gesture. Mads uses it to direct his undead soldiers in the second trailer and it looks like the character in the third trailer, is directing the creatures to attack Porter and his team mate.Babies are a symbol of life, so in a game called Death Stranding they're obviously the opposite of the game's antagonists. It's pretty clear that the Baby or babies, are the target of Death Stranding creatures for whatever reasons.
The baby we see in the trailers seems to have a greater sense of intelligence or knowing and that's not just because it can give a thumbs up. There is something about the way they've been portrayed and move in their incubators that gives me the sense these babies have higher levels of intelligence.
The name Death Stranding is quite literal, the third trailer shows us that there are strands of basically death, attached to the large ethereal beings. I get the feeling that those beings exist in a sort of parallel dimension, with the ability to effect our own. This is mainly because when Porter is attacked, his team mate and all the other bodies are lifted into the air by the strands, however when we see Porter revive and he vomits up the black liquid, the black little beetles crawl up the now invisible strands.
Whilst speaking about the beings we see, I was interested in the corpse that Porter approaches in the beginning of the third trailer. He seems to check it, he doesn't look concerned or upset. He looks a little out of his depth, but then how much he knows about everything is questionable. He remembered first to hold their breath after all, when the invisible beings appeared.
Anywho, this body had a golden skull face. I don't think that was the color of the body wrap and also if you link the body disappearing into the black water, it also matches up with the appearance of the colossal Ethereal being.
You see, my current theory is that those beings can possess people and things. Mads' character is just one of these possessed humans. In the second trailer we see he has the black liquid dripping down his face and body.
I'm think that a possessed person was killed and then wrapped in that protective wrap to try and protect it from the black liquid and lock in the being. However, if the black liquid is somehow able to breach the wrap the being encased in the possessed person can escape. This leads to my second theory, I believe that Porter and his team were attempting to flee from someone or somewhere. They were armed, they had the baby and this body. They're soon surrounded, which matches an ambush rather than a random encounter and lastly, when you see the Colossal being drag up the corpses and debris there are quite a few soldiers lifted up into the sky. Perhaps part of the initial response team chasing Porter and co.
The last section of the trailer where Porter looks into the sky, we can see the silhouettes of several people. I think these are the ethereal beings in their possessed hosts bodies. They're now much smaller than we saw initially but are surrounding the crater much like the beings were surrounding Porter.
Perhaps the possessed soldier we saw descend is actually the colossal Ethereal being?
So those are my thoughts on what I've seen from the trailer and what I think is going on but what are we to expect from Death Stranding? Here are my hopes:
A timely release! It'll be a shame if Death Stranding enters development hell. So far, everything looks good. Kojima has been positive and the Sony execs say there is quite a chunk of game to play, so I imagine things are coming along nicely.
I'm hoping the multiplayer won't be wasted development time. Quite a few games try to improve their player base or long term revenue by tagging on multiplayer elements. The problem is, not every game needs a multiplayer.
It's often noticeable when a developer has spent precious time and money on adding things to their game it just didn't need and totally detracts from the core game.
I'm also hoping that Kojima makes good on his word. Death Stranding has a persistent death mechanic. Every time Porter dies he can revive, instead of having a game over screen you get to swim in first person and collect items and whatnot before being reborn. However, when you do come back enemies are supposed to remember that you died.
I think that's a pretty interesting mechanic that could tie into some interesting side missions or random world events, similar to the Shadow of Mordor game.
So those are my current hopes, they're aren't many but then again there is still a lot we haven't seen of Death Stranding, so I'm playing my cards close to my chest but I do have a few fears and these are:
Too big an open world. Some developers are great at open world games. Look at Rockstar's GTA5. Huge open world, absolutely massive. But it is chock full of content, even back when I played it before all the updates. There were so many random events, places to go, interesting characters and well the list just goes on.
On the other end of the spectrum is say, Final Fantasy 15. Huge world, massive world. Not that many interesting places to go, no real random events other than battles, but they don't really count.
So these are my fears for Death Stranding. I would hate to see some massive, pretty looking dystopian landscape that's barren of any actual interesting events and locations, outside of the main story.
Another of my fears is stealth. Kojima as we all know is famous for directing the so called grand father of stealth games; Metal Gear Solid. So it seems naturally that stealth would be a big part of his next game, especially as the adversaries we've seen so far look exceptionally deadly and powerful and Porter looks well... Squishy.
But I really hope it's not just a stealth game. Kojima criticised most games, that they only gives players tools to kill, rather than tools to survive and explore. He intends to balance out these mechanics and you know, that sounds great. There's two games that mix combat, stealth and exploration and does a damn good job at it and that's the last two Tomb Raider games.
Lara Croft has more in common with The Predator than Indiana Jones. When you play Tomb Raider, being in stealth isn't because you're too weak to confront a group of enemies. It's about picking them off one by one, like a hunter. You get to do things with style and grace and it's a great feeling! I remember playing Rise of the Tomb Raider and completing a whole section in stealth, but I killed every soldier and barely stopped moving. It was a great feeling.
My concern is that Death Stranding will use stealth to enfeeble the player. You can't take out this horde of undead soldiers because all you have is a wrench or something silly like that.
It's unfortunate the last game I played of Kojima's was Ground Zeroes and I absolutely detested the stealth in that game. Horrible camera, convoluted controls and as soon as one soldier spots you everyone, their mom and their blind dog knows exactly where you are.
There are so many annoying mechanics in stealth games and so many games tag stealth gameplay onto their game. For some reason it's a really common thing to do in gaming and I'm personally getting tired of sneaking in every other game.
So that pretty much wraps up my concerns. Death Stranding is slated for late 2018 release or early 2019. I think that's a pretty optimistic release date and I'd hedge my bets that it's going to be late 2019, as long as the game avoids development hell.
As always I hope you enjoyed reading this article and if you did, please feel free to comment, +1 and follow!
Have a good week everybody and see you again!
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