Death Stranding: A game oscillating between R.W. Emerson’s dream and Lovecraftian Nightmare.

Can games be considered as Art? With Death Stranding, Hideo Kojima confidently asserts that they should be.

Have you ever stared at a postmodern painting, wondering how it can be called an art? Then, with a sudden tinge in your head, your mind matched patterns with experience, connected abstract images with meaning, and revealed a unique beauty significant only for you. A cunning grin formed in your countenance as you appreciated the art. Well, it could have never happened if you didn’t give the piece enough time. If you didn’t leer at it until it reached your soul. Similarly, if you just blended with the negative wave toward the Death Stranding, you missed a life-time experience.

DS was lifted to an immeasurable hype even before it was released. Slogan’s about genius Kojima were everywhere; nevertheless, a cloud of doom slowly formed above the game predicting uplifted expectations plunging to the ground in Ex-grenade explosions. Saddened by people complaining about its gameplay, completely neglecting its small precious components, I decided to write a blog to explain why I think it’s really good and, if I can, convince you to dive into it or to give it another try.

Without further ado, let’s turn to the game. Have you ever wished to halt the world and wander in solitude through the nature pondering about the universe and yourself? That’s what Hideo Kojima’s new game allows you to do. The long journeys — hated by some — are the pivotal element of the game. No, it’s not a walking simulator. It’s like a painting that opens to you after investing time. It submerges the player into a meditative trans, opening an opportunity to reflect on oneself while venturing further and further on, until things get wild. By the end, your heart palpitates in unison with the protagonist, hurrying to save someone, so people finally leave you alone.

Enjoying sweet solitude while dealing with people’s existential crises sounds pretty good, but to which genre it belongs? By some, it’s entitled as action-adventure… sweet summer children. Some rumors claimed that similar to Kojima’s MGS, it’s a new genre. I’d disagree with both. I call it a quasi-RPG. I swear, I am not trying to sound fancy. DS did alleviate RPG’s default mechanics and build the game around them.

Let’s list them down.

• Hiking all over the place. Well-known RPGs like Skyrim and Witcher do force the player to walk over the entire map pursuing main quests. Though, DS accentuates on it much more. While in other games the journeys can be considered as intervals between the main gameplay, here they themselves present a challenge.
• Looting. If you haven’t struggled squeezing a new item into your stocked bag, then you saved hours of dragging your overburdened character to the nearest town, refusing to drop anything. You also never experienced the cunning glitter of a new item that you really-really want to pick-up, but know better to refrain. DS does focus on this more than average RPG as well, to the point you need to balance yourself not to roll down the hill.
• Hero saving the world. Although it’s not a mechanic, I included it to draw lines toward DS being an RPG. There we often meet a protagonist with an immense weight on their shoulders, only by the efforts of the hero the darkness creeping unto world can be fought back. Bonus points for Sam who wholeheartedly doesn’t want to be the one.
• Building. I’ll come back to this when speaking about Dynamics, but the game not only allows some degree of creative freedom, it makes building part of a larger social element. (Only if content creators could make such Like factories.)
• Driving (RPG’s Horse-riding) through tough terrain. If you nervously laughed at yourself hitting another tree with a horse, then you’d have flashbacks when utilizing transports. Well, sometimes just rolling down the hill seems a better option.
• Equipment. While this also is better to leave for dynamics, I’ll quickly compare it with Witcher. It’s similar to preparation before a boss fight. The player has to make sure they have all the right potions and oils. Equipment in DS can make your life easier; nonetheless, it can become the extra weight that slows you down. An exoskeleton can be a perfect speed boost… until its battery runs out turning it into heavy metal junk.
• Combat, Shooting, Stealth. In my opinion, these elements received much less attention than some would wish. They were there just to spice up the journey and offer occasional deviations from the hero’s solitude. Still, I have to admit, the weaponization of bodily fluids receives novelty points.
• Baby-care. Yeap, as you know, you have a baby attached to yourself. So maybe you’ll give another thought before jumping off the cliff to cut down your jour — oh you jumped anyway. To be more serious, it adds up both emotional element and makes the player a little more responsible. Calming down BB amid fight is always fun, right?
• Everything else. I am pretty sure I missed a tone, but the brilliance of DS is its thoughtful elements. If we look closer, almost everything has a purpose and facilitates the player’s immersion, while the Lore neatly justifies usage of everything.

Wrapping up Mechanics, let’s skip dynamics and go right into Aesthetics, after all, that’s what makes the game worthy of a pedestal.

While Aesthetics is important, it seldom becomes the focus of the game. In the case of DS, everything is built around Aesthetics. The world is a total masterpiece by itself. The game drags you into mind-blowing places where you can’t help but goggle at delightful sights. The mountains. The snow and its satisfying crust. You are in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s dream which can quickly transform into a Lovecraftian nightmare. As if the scenery wasn’t nailed, at times, music hits on you bringing a total bliss. Compositions created years before the game, feel natural and nostalgic. They elate player’s solitude and guide them into a meditative trans of thinking about the world while jostling through the world. And then, when you finally arrive at the destination, you are presented with dazzling story elements and brilliant acting, all together spiced up with Japanese anime. (*Spoiler* I can’t describe Higgs leaking Sam with a word combination without bringing in “anime.”)

I don’t think I can recall any other game which approaches DS with their Aesthetic components. It does take a while to kick in with its every colors, but believe me, it’s worth it. Maybe not during one game session — like many streamers did — but in a few days or a week. You need the time to feel in the skin of Sam.

Before moving on, let’s mention the innovative shower design. I mean toilet inside a shower, that’s probably something we gonna see in the coming years. ( If not already.)

Now Game… drum roll… D-d-dynamics. People unaware of MDA design principles don’t quite realize that Dynamics is the main source of their hatred toward the game, but let’s break it down. Dynamic deals with the game world, how it reacts to player’s actions, the main game loops, and so on. Em, loops, does it ring the bell. Going somewhere, taking something, going somewhere else. “Am I stuck into a doomed cycle?” It will seem so if you try to rash the game.

The main game loop consists of taking and delivering orders, with occasional fights amid the road. Some refuse to notice, but the game has a good progression. As I already mentioned, it gradually presents new equipment which can make your life both easier and miserable. (If you don’t imagine how it can be done, just ride the bike on the rough terrain and feel the frustration of progressing slower than on foot.) Nevertheless, if you are more of a shooter person, a one who prefers fast-paced battle royals, you might find yourself in a quagmire, with tons of cargo pulling you down while you just want to go around and kill things. Well, if you ever played Kojima’s games, you know that it’s not the best way to deal with things. For example, chasing action you won’t notice the precious pearls of communication. DS introduced an intriguing multiplayer, which consists of helping others in advance. Even if you say you don’t care about likes, when you find a ladder that saved a dozen of your nerve cells, you just burst with the desire to help someone as well. Besides, there’s always the joy of shouting “I’m Sam” and hearing “Me too!” Furthermore, finding someone’s cargo and perusing its story, personalizes everyone’s journey. “99% container damage? This dude must’ve seen things. Beach Things.” Speaking of which, if BT’s got you, don’t hurry to load a save game but live with the consequences. The friendly crater on the map will always remind you about previous cuddles with BT’s. ❤

To sum up, I strongly believe DS is one of the best games of the year. It introduced many innovative elements, and let’s be honest, these days very few games take that risky road. (Let’s just make a new multiplayer, people just want to shoot things while shouting at each other *exaggeration intended*) DS isn’t perfect, it has some annoying elements as divine music being suddenly interrupted or a small cut-scene halting your truck’s speed, making you question about wonderous physics. Nonetheless, DS not only tells you a story but makes you feel a part of it. Put away your skepticism and hatred, and open your heart to the unforgettable experience it’s gonna deliver.

p.s. MDA (Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics) principles are one of the accepted ways in the world of game research. There’s a nice paper about it named: MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research.[1] Also, since the paper, there are many others speaking about it as well.

[1]Hunicke, Robin, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek. “MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research.” Proceedings of the AAAI Workshop on Challenges in Game AI. Vol. 4. №1. 2004.