Death Stranding, Empty Promises in Trailers, and Boundless Potential in Video Games
Games so often make promises they won’t keep, but Sony’s newest exclusive might actually be different
I love to think and write about video games that aren’t out yet. To me, it’s fascinating to take a few minutes of a reveal trailer (or whatever the publisher has chosen to show to the public) and look at the promise and opportunity of a new title. Typically, these tidbits show a game that promises something new, something interesting, something that will captivate players.
However, trailers and marketing often oversell what’s actually new or different about a game, and the final product may end up falling into the same design elements and tropes of other titles in its genre. This isn’t a bad thing — many of the best games in 2017 and 2018 worked on perfecting an existing formula rather than trying to create a new one. But, it means when something truly new comes along, it’s rare. That leads me to Death Stranding, Sony’s newest PS4 exclusive, which is due out in November and cloaked in a level of secrecy and mystery that borders on the absurd.
Death Stranding — or what I’ve seen of it so far — promises to actually be new and different, and says a lot about the games that aren’t. It has all the promise of a game we don’t know much about, and its cryptic marketing and beautiful visuals are all captivating. It may end up being simply another variation in the theme of third-person, open-world games that have dominated the industry recently, but it also might be something different, something truly unique.
Whatever the outcome is, this is a fascinating moment in time because of the wide range of possibilities.
Promise and Potential
I find video game trailers so interesting because they’re meant to show off a new title in just a few short minutes. They might highlight narrative, gameplay, or a mix of the two, but these short flashes have to convince people to make this purchase instead of turning to one of the hundreds of other options available. In other words, they have to show the audience why they invest time and energy here, instead of somewhere else.
Many studios release trailers that aren’t representative of what the final game will be like. Take 2018’s Far Cry 5, for example. Early trailers promised a deeply disturbing, fanatical cult as the central antagonist, hinting that there would be a myriad of connections to the real world in the narrative. When the game launched, its story wasn’t nearly as interesting, or terrifying, as many expected. The trailers were much more narratively ambitious than the game they advertised.
Personally, I love when I see a trailer for a game and then get to imagine what the final product will be like. Even if I build up completely unreasonable expectations in my head, the anticipation itself is still enjoyable. So even if Far Cry 5 was a deeply silly game with deeply serious trailers, I didn’t really mind.
Formulas and Homogeneity
No matter how interesting their trailers are, many video games follow roughly the same formula: especially as far as open-world, single-player titles go. There is a central narrative to follow, side quests to explore, abilities to upgrade, and items to collect. There may also be camps full of enemies to attack, towers or other high objects to climb, and interesting combat sequences to complete. Spider-Man, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Horizon Zero Dawn, and others have all followed and come close to perfecting this formula recently.
Often, these games end up being far more formulaic than their trailers would lead one to believe. Far Cry 5 hinted that it might take real narrative risks, but ended up being just another open-world shooter. Even Red Dead Redemption 2, a game rightly praised for a jaw-dropping plot and writing, fell into many of the same level design and mission structure choices that similar games used. I don’t say this to criticize either of these two titles (I enjoyed them both), but rather to say that games often are less innovative or new than their advertising suggests.
Many games follow this formula well, but suffer because they don’t differentiate themselves enough from their peers. This year’s Days Gone, for example, has been widely panned for following the open-world formula without adding anything meaningfully new. I enjoy Days Gone quite a bit, but it’s impossible to ignore the fact that it doesn’t really add anything to an existing catalog of titles.
Death Stranding
All of this comes back to Death Stranding, a game that released a new trailer (and release date announcement) on May 29. For clarity’s sake, I’ll include it here:
From this trailer, from everything else I’ve heard, read, or watched about Death Stranding, this game looks like nothing else I’ve ever seen. It’s a third-person, open-world game, but beyond that I still can’t figure out much about the game.
This all leads me to think that Death Stranding may be the rare game that promises something unique, something new, and actually fully delivers on that promise. If so, it may end up being a fantastic game, another critically-acclaimed title that adds to Sony’s trophy chest. It may also end up being disjointed and never reach its full potential. But, it’s incredibly compelling, and I can’t wait to see what the final product looks like.
Whether or not a game breaks new ground isn’t the same as whether or not it’s fun or worth playing. Spider-Man and Horizon Zero Dawn both drew heavily from previous games, but they both did so in interesting new ways. Conversely, a game isn’t automatically good because it establishes something new. I have no idea whether or not Death Stranding will be a commercial or critical success (though Sony’s recent history suggests it will be both).
Whenever I think about Death Stranding, I’m struck by how interesting it is and the promise that it holds. Because of the game’s cryptic (and effective) marketing, it’s hard to know anything else about it. But as we draw closer to November 8, I can’t wait to learn more about its secrets.
The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.
