Death Stranding
Death Stranding is a triumphant hymn to the concept of loneliness and should absolutely be played by people.
Death Stranding was originally released in 2019 and I didn't have a platform that could run it or I'd have been there on day one and experiencing the game along with everyone else, and the game would have been entirely different for reasons that we'll get to. Then 2020 happened. And then 2021. And then 2022. And only now that we're in 2023 am I thinking that I'm in a place where I'm comfortable playing something that hits on so many of the themes that I've been working through that- I guess I've hit a point of hardening where I could handle it.
I can't talk straight about it and I can’t get it out of my head.
Let's get the standard bollocks out of the way, and also roll the disclaimer in front of any discussion about Hideo Kojima and his games. I love Hideo Kojima. When I was a kid I played Metal Gear Solid and I saw a Hind-D helicopter fly past the screen. The controller in my hand (I'd bought a Dual Shock 1 for this game because it said on the box it was compatible. You have no idea how long I saved up my money from odd jobs and shit for this) vibrated and shook with an intensity that grew and faded as the helicopter flew by. For me, it was like seeing a Corellian Cruiser flying away from a Star Destroyer that just kept going. That's what it was for me. It was the magical moment where I went 'oh, so that's what I want to do with the rest of my life.'
I can't be objective about Kojima games. He has more brilliant, outstanding and industry-defining ideas in a single game than many designers will have in their entire lives, and he has the resources, clout and pig-headed stubbornness to make them into a reality. He also has more questionable, bizarre and truly awful ideas to go along with them. The way his games treat women is never something to be especially happy with. The way that everything is over-explained in a way that either makes things less magical or, somehow, more confusing is often as frustrating as it is tragic. His fixation with celebrity means that he's increasingly on the verge of disappearing up his own arsehole for good.
But I love his games. I love how they make you feel; no one else is able to make the quiet moments feel like they're islands in a rolling sea. No one else can make tiresome drudgery into something that you can just bask in. His creativity matches your creativity - when you think 'I bet this will do this if I do this with this other thing' and he's already thought of it. I love the stories that they tell, and how there's nothing else that really even attempts to come close. I love these fucking games.
In early 2023 I noticed that there was an ache in my right hand. I woke up one morning and my index finger, middle finger and thumb had started to tingle. I figured it would go away on its own and over the course of the week I became more wrong. My other hand started to hurt and it spread across my fingers until it was a constant, buzzing tingle that felt like my bones were itching. I went to the doctors about it, finally, and they did some tests. They found something unusual about my liver so we did a bunch of tests and over the course of two months I had eight blood tests.
I'm still waiting on the results of one of those tests but, so far, so good. It's just an elevated level of something. I went back to the doctor and asked 'yeah but what does the fact that my liver appears to be mostly fine have to do with the pain in my hands?' and they just kind of blinked and recognition dawned that there was something that we were all meant to be focusing on, but they'd gotten so distracted by this other thing that it became the only thing they could think about.
A lack of communication, a lack of understanding and a focus on things that seemed like they mattered but didn't. Turns out it's carpal tunnel syndrome and it's manageable if I take medication and wear splints while I sleep. I played Death Stranding during this period and I could really only do it for an hour and a bit at a time. Some nights it was sitting down to watch a movie, some nights it was sitting down to dodge some enemies, and other times it was working in the Social Strand System.
Death Stranding is a 2019 third person action game from Kojima Productions, designed by visionary game developer Hideo Kojima. In it, the player takes on the role of Sam 'Porter' Bridges (played by Norman Redus), the Man Who Delivers. Sam is tasked with delivering cargo through the wasteland of what's left of the United States of America, to bring the recipients of that cargo onto the Chiral Network, a futuristic system that allows for massive data transfers instantly.
Standing in his way are a variety of enemies, including the other-worldly BT's, the delivery obsessed MULES, the mysterious Cliff Unger (played by Mads Mikkelsen) and the destructive Higgs (played by Troy Baker). Throughout his journey he is aided by Fragile (played by Lea Seydoux), Heartman (played by Nicolas Winding Refn and Darren Jacobs), Deadman (played by Guillermo del Toro, Jesse Corti, and Justin Leeper) and Die-Hardman (played by Tommie Earl Jenkins).
He's also aided by the player, and every other player in the world, simultaneously.
From a visual standpoint, the game is stunning. America has been destroyed by dozens of events called Void-Outs which is what happens when a corpse is left to undergo Necrosis. This allows the person who died Beach to bleed into our reality, triggering a Void-Out. Anyone caught in a Void-Out is killed and taken to a Beach. The Beach (or Beaches) are a point between life and death, between our world and the world of the afterlife. The Egyptian belief of the Ha, Ka Sah, Khet, Ren, Ib, Shut and Sekhem are vital concepts in the world of this game. The body - the Ka - and the soul - the Ha - are especially important.
Objects from Iceland were photoscanned by the team at Kojima Productions in order to capture incredibly life-like representations of objects that have been scattered around the sizable landmass that Death Stranding takes place on. From a development perspective, it's difficult to believe that this was all placed by hand but there are routes and placements that give the impression that things must have been lovingly handcrafted. The switch that takes place between biomes (alloy wastelands, oxidised deserts, Pacific northwest woodlands, and arctic tundra) happen in a smooth and believable way in some places and in obvious, sharp, and game-y ways in others.
The game has an appreciation for rugged nature, naturalistic camera movement and the beauty of simple tundra that's quite unlike anything I've ever seen before. These vast swathes of land stretch on for miles are capped in the distance by hills and mountains that invite you to explore them. Beautiful, volumetric clouds fill the sky threatening deadly Timefall Rain (rain that, when it hits something, causes that thing to age rapidly).
Deeply alien artefacts are scattered throughout the world, seemingly at random. Crypto-bite coral, chiral-crystal filled mirrored hand-growths push through the soil here and there. That self-same beautiful sky is filled with potential and portents. Rain clouds that gather and begin to disgorge their streams of Timefall onto you, your cargo and your structures will only ever degrade you. You can see where there are Timefall storms by looking for rainbows that have inverted, curving upwards into the sky.
Chiral means to be symmetrical in such a way that the structure and its mirror image are not superimposable. Place your hands together with your palms touching - your hands are symmetrical. Now place your hands on top of each other with your palm touching the back of your hand. They’re not symmetrical. Your hands are Chiral.
The characters and animations in the game are second to none. I am sure in the near future someone will come up with a new subsurface scattering shader that allows for light and skin and hair to have a more convincing interplay. I am sure that it won’t be long before clothing and fabric technology in games will reach a point where everything can be physically driven by the motion of the models that they’re attached to in an entirely believable way where there are no issues of objects intersecting. But I think it’s going to be a very long time before a game captures the light in the eye, the look of fear, the glisten of a lip the way Death Stranding does.
It wants you to see the performances that have been captured, and it wants you to know that the actors aren’t lazily phoning it in. People believed in this, and you should too.
Sam is tasked by the President of the United States - a woman dying of a mysterious illness - to reunite America, and make it whole again. Ever since the void outs came along and started to destroy things people have retreated into their cities and homes. Terrible events have driven people into bunkers and-
[b]Death Stranding[b] was originally released in 2019 and I didn't have a platform that could run it or I'd have been there on day one and experiencing the game along with everyone else, and the game would have been entirely different for reasons that we'll get to. Then 2020 happened. And then 2021. And then 2022.
I remember very pointed conversations in 2019; What the fuck was Kojima doing now? A game where the player is the only person outside in an entire country? A game where time stopped making sense in any way that mattered, where it was always day until it wasn’t. A game where you could stop and then the next moment everything about you would be old, dying, dried out and left to rot. A game where you’d only be able to connect with people through screens, a world too afraid of what had happened - and what was coming - to keep fighting. One where delivery people were going to save us all, or something, and there were invisible monsters that could drag you down into pits of desperation if given half a chance and the only thing that could possibly save you was your connection with each other. Where there’s a faction of enemies that are so driven by literal on screen Likes that they can’t stop themselves from trying to steal your cargo so they can have it and keep it and let it continue to generate Likes for them forever like they’re fucking obsessed with checking their twitter notification pages as one of the first things they do, even thought they fucking hate twitter and wish it would fizzle out so we could all be free.
Prophetic shit, man. Here’s hoping his next game is one where things turn out alright.
The music in Death Stranding was created by Ludvig Forssell, Chvrches and Low Roar. I want to talk about the Low Roar tracks most of all. Chvrches and Ludvig Forssell produce some great work but it’s the Low Roar stuff that’s entered a rotation for me. Low Road is a musical project by Icelandic artist Ryan Karazija. He brought a watery, sad voice to the soundtrack, low melodic guitars and electronic crackling that brings an alien tone to the whole affair. More than that, it’s the way that the music is timed with the gameplay.
There are moments in Death Stranding where, if you play it (and I hope you do), you’ll want to stop playing it because it’s getting really desperate. See, when you go places and deliver things, the things that you’re delivering can either be carried on Sam’s back or placed on a vehicle such as a trike or van. Vans and Trikes suffer when going off road and are especially bad when going through BT infested territory; they’re loud, big and slow. Sam can be small, fast and quiet.
So you load your cargo onto Sam and suddenly Sam is now having to work on his balance. When you move in a direction - if Sam is topheavy because of his cargo - you’ll be shown a prompt to press a button to regain your balance. This drains Sam’s stamina. Falling over drains the health of the impact tape on the packaging of your cargo. Once the container is broken, the cargo itself begins to take damage. Timefall weakens everything. The further you walk, the more damage your boots take, so you’ll need to bring other pairs.
There’s other stuff you can do to help mitigate this all, such as using a hovering delivery cart but that comes later and has really limited usefulness apart from as a skateboard where it’s like taking your life into your own hands.
Anyway, you have a shitload of cargo on your back and you’re trudging up hills, over mountains, over rocks and more in the hope that you’ll make your way to the destination that you’ve set yourself. Maybe you stop by another customer and get something to take with you on the way so you can get some more likes. Did I mention there are Likes in the game? Literal thumbs-up emoji that appear on the screen and count towards some total that means something that we’ll come to.
Sam falls, things collapse off you, they break. You get hit by a BT and dragged through tar and then have to fight something by throwing grenades that are filled with an enzyme from your piss, shit and blood at those things-
Okay, so BT’s are invisible for the most part and when you get near them your BB-
Okay, so your BB is a Bridge Baby. It’s a Bridge to the Beach, a baby born of a Stillmother, which is a woman that’s in a coma. They’re kept in a jar that functions as a womb and they can see out of it, but because they’re a baby they can’t really tell that anything serious has changed. When Sam falls, BB cries and screams and wails. When BB gets scared, BB cries and screams and yells. When you surf on a hoverboard cart thing, BB laughs and gurgles. When you take a moment in a hotspring, BB floats around in its jar and swims and has fun. When you soothe BB by rocking and cooing and hugging them they eventually stop crying and your bond with them grows.
The process behind making a BB is monstrous and must not be allowed to continue. These are babies, harvested from the wombs of still living mothers that are kept between life and death so their Ha and Ka can not move onto the beach.
Okay, so BT’s are invisible for the most part but when you get near them your BB will begin to cry. It can sense where BT’s are all the time and it’ll begin to point your five spurred, glowing orange umbrella arm at the nearest Beached Thing. The umbrella will point and then it’ll start to open and close like five fingers making a duck. Then, when a BT gets really close, it’ll start to spin faster depending on how close something is. You can hold your breath. BB will hold its breath too. BB will save you, and you will save BB. BT’s that aren’t ‘fully’ on our world are invisible, BT’s that are on our world are much more visible and often take very strange forms.
BB is equipment, though and there’s a limited timer on it. They’ve been in service for a long time and they’re going to have to be destroyed.
Anyway, Sam falls, things collapse off you, they break. You get hit by a BT and dragged through tar and then have to fight something by throwing grenades that are filled with an enzyme from your piss, shit and blood at those things. See, while you’re going around you’re eating and drinking, and when you get to a location that’s on the Chiral Network (the thing you have to build to make America whole again) you can go into a private room. Private rooms let you shower, piss, shit, sleep, customise your gear, play with BB, look at action figures and watch Norman Reedus prat around in a mirror.
Sam is what’s called a Repatriate. When he gets caught in a void out he doesn’t die. He goes to the beach and then leaves after a while, returning to his body. Because he’s somewhere between life and death, fluids that have been inside him for a long time are invested with this repatriated nature.
Anyway, the music. All this shit’ll be going wrong. You’ll be dragged through the mud, have to get into a fight, your BB will be screaming and you’ll want to turn it off and just be done. But you can’t, because you’re Sam Porter Bridges, the Man Who Delivers. You have to make the delivery for reasons that I’ll get to in a second. You climb a mountain, stamina bar draining fast with each step until Sam needs to collapse and rest and then right as you’re about to hit the power button and bail, a song starts to play.
Perfectly placed. Perfectly picked. Perfectly pitched.
A song that tells you that the designer knew that this bit was going to be hard, and that this bit was going to test you to the very limit. They knew that this was going to be something that you wanted to back away from and the music dares you to keep going, to see what’s around the next turn and re-establish the Chiral network and forge the strands into a knot.
It’s so easy to get distracted by things that you think are important, you know? Things that feel like they’re going to be a big deal but just become part of the background scenery, filling a part of a story that is about something that’s impacting you a lot more.
I haven’t talked about the bit of Death Stranding that has stuck with me the absolute most. The first time I saw the thumb emoji for a Like appear in the bottom right of the screen it was from a storyline character in the middle of a tutorial. I delivered them a thing and the delivery wrap up screen said how far I’d walked, how long it had taken me to walk that distance, the deviation from the best possible route, and the condition of the cargo. It gave me a rank based on my performance. I got Likes in different categories which made a star on my profile change shape, which levelled other things up, which let me do things better and faster than before.
See, Cities in Death Stranding aren’t called Cities anymore. Chicago isn’t Chicago. San Francisco isn’t San Francisco. They’re West Knot City. North East Knot City.
Cities are Knots.
Collections of Strands that have become so tangled up with each other that they’re knots. When you climb a rope, you can just climb using a single strand of that rope, but it’s a lot easier if there are knots there. When you want to connect things, you tie it into a rope. The stick and the rope were the first human inventions, really. The stick gave us fire, allowed us to fight, and the rope allowed a stick to become better tools, and tools allowed us to become human.
As I left the first Knot City and started my journey to take the President’s body up to an incinerator I saw something very strange.
Holograms of mushrooms, scattered around a postbox that came up out of the ground. The pile of mushrooms had a thumbs up icon next to it (PRESS B TO LIKE!) and a gamertag beside it of the player that had put it there. The postbox had the exact same setup, but a significantly higher number of Likes. Then I noticed that there were holographic signs dotted around the place.
KEEP GOING! YOU’RE ALMOST THERE! BT’S AHEAD! MULE AREA, KEEP OUT! CHECK ABOVE FOR A SURPRISE!
Signs that, when you passed through them, you automatically gave a like to the person that put it there. Signs that, when you passed through them, boosted your bond with BB, raised your stamina or made Sam say something about how he wanted to keep going. I travelled north and found a motorcycle that had a player's name next to it but… this is a single player game. You’re never going to meet another one of the players, so I hopped on the bike and started to drive it.
I got a like from that player as they’d been notified I was using something they’d left for another player.
Death Stranding was originally released in 2019 and I didn't have a platform that could run it or I'd have been there on day one and experiencing the game along with everyone else, and the game would have been entirely different for reasons that we've gotten to.
When it was first released it was all about the pioneering adventure of it. See, when you move through the world of the game you cross over between areas that are on the Chiral network (ie. have the connection to the world around them) and areas that are off the Chiral network. Areas that are off the network are entirely as the game developers created them; natural rock formations, green grass, waterfalls and rivers. Areas that are on the network, however, have the structures that have been created by the community of players playing the game.
Ladders over rivers and up mountains. Ropes down the sides of cliffs and up steep hills. Bikes and trucks that have been placed in public garages. Weapons left in public lockers, battery recharge towers, post boxes, timefall shelters, ziplines and even freeways that you can build with the aid of other players. You log off at the end of your play session and then you log on the next day and you get a pile of notifications from people that have gone out of their way to Like the objects that you made, or that you contributed to.
It’s passive, too. Routes that people walk along a lot will change in game; the grass will flatten, rocks will be pushed aside and eventually you’ll find that you can follow footpaths around the environment. These are easier to travel, save you stamina and are proven to be safe by virtue of the number of people that travel them.
Eventually you begin to take construction materials with you on trips, so when you reach the top of a godforsaken mountain you can drop a zipline tower and let someone blast right down it after you do as a reward for all their hard work.
You build the game.
You, and the strands generated by the other players you’ll never meet, never see, never know or think about again. Those strands will stay with you. Random acts of kindness and empathy.
Everyone had that moment climbing the hill, where they wanted to turn it off and the music came in. Everyone struggled and crawled through the forest on the way to the wind farm. Everyone got dragged through the tar. Everyone soothed BB. Everyone’s boots fell apart. Everyone got hit by a MULE and lost their cargo. Everyone stood on the Beach and there’s no other game like it.
There’s nothing like it and I can’t get it out of my head.
You’re alone. You’re alone in the world of Death Stranding, isolated and surrounded by a world that just wants to degrade you. It wants to break your gear, ruin your equipment, drag you through the mud and hurt you with invisible monsters. It wants to distract you, to make you wander off the path to your goal. It wants to fucking ruin and the only defence you have on your own is other people that have been there before and can help bring you out of the nightmare you’re lost in.
Death Stranding is a hymn to the concept of triumph in the face of loneliness and should absolutely be played by people.
