At Sony’s Tokyo Game Show conference Hideo Kojima announced new, cryptic details about Death Stranding.
Hot off the typically nonsensical plot of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, his final game for Konami, Kojima describes Death Stranding less in specifics and more in grandiose gestures. Still, the plot — what we know if it — does sound intriguing. “Whales and dolphins sometimes conduct mass strandings. If they live it’s live stranding, if they’re dead, it’s death stranding,” Kojima told the TGS audience in video provided by IGN. “This title refers to something from another world, stranded in our world.” Yes! Aliens.
Kojima is playing with multiple readings of “strand” with Death Stranding, using the title to also allude to new gameplay components and thematic concerns. “Strand, in psychological terms, means twisted thread and bonds. This title, the theme is to connect,” he said.
Kojima quoted from Japanese writer Kōbō Abe’s short story, “Rope,” reading aloud a passage central to Death Stranding:
“Mankind first invented a club or rod. It’s a tool invented to keep threats away. And then the men invented rope to keep and catch valuable things.”
While Kojima has previously mentioned this passage in relation to Death Stranding ’s thematic content, at the TGS conference he connected it to the revolutionary co-op gameplay planned for the game. “In Death Stranding I want to propose a next step, a future of games. Here I am to offer a game where players are connected by a strand or rope-like element. Of course, clubs will still be used for battle, but at the end of the day I want to offer an action game where people get connected by different elements than just clubs.”
How Death Stranding will advance multiplayer beyond the Punch and Judy show we’ve come to expect from action gaming is unknown. Much of his speech, perhaps confused even more by translation, stuck to lofty ideals. There was nary a mention of Norman Reedus.
But Kojima did offer some specifics. “Genre is action and it’s an open-world with a degree of freedom and you can enjoy the story at the same time. And there are online elements,” he said. “For Death Stranding we plan to accommodate 4K and HDR so you can enjoy vivid and real images.”
Aliens, co-op, open-world, Hideo Kojima. Do you need to know anything else about Death Stranding?
