Another Trip to the Beach

When it comes to game auteurs, I’ve always held Hideo Kojima in high esteem. His work always seems to invite you into this home he’s created, share a joke, and send you on your way just a little bit changed from how you were before. In that respect, there’s little to find fault within Death Stranding 2. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game and will continue to be a customer of his for life.

A sequel is always an interesting proposition when it comes to Kojima. He’s made plenty with the Metal Gear Solid series, but they’ve never felt like a simple retread of what came before. There are always new gameplay mechanics to be explored and themes to ponder. I’ll try to look at those here.

Should We Have Connected?

If you’re unfamiliar with the original game, the core gameplay loop remains the same: deliver cargo from one place to another, occasionally fighting supernatural beings known as Beached Things, or BTs. The main loop remains the same, but the game’s tagline always stuck in the back of my mind like a bur. Should we have connected?

There’s a swath of conveniences in the game which almost seem to undermine the core loop of delivering packages over long distances of rough terrain. The crowd-sourced roads return, but there’s also monorails which allow you to transport obscene amounts of cargo across long distances. You’re also able to teleport across the map using a variety of means including a network of teleporting hot springs. The game as a whole wants to amp up the amount of cargo you’re moving and encourage further player interaction.

Like the first game, you’re missing a large portion of the game if you play offline. Other porters will leave behind equipment, structures, and signs throughout the world for you to use. I might be imagining things, but during my travels it felt like there was so much more around left for me to play with.

It’s a great example of gameplay mimicking theme. The connections you’re trying to forge across Mexico and Australia are the same connections you’re establishing with other players. You’ll start to see repeat usernames that all have bonds of their own which can be strengthened. Players will upgrade structures you’ve built, and you can do the same to theirs. It all ties back to the core theme of the Death Stranding; reconnecting after a cataclysmic event which splintered the world.

I just had one issue with this theme. The tagline of the game, should we have connected, doesn’t really get explored in the game save for a few moments of waxing philosophical towards the end.

Based on most of what I saw throughout the game’s roughly 40 hours of playtime, the answer was yes, of course! I only really had that thought questioned towards the end of the story, after lengthy exposition. This thought never ally gets explored in gameplay. Connection with other porters made my life substantially easier. Why wouldn’t I want to connect?

It can be difficult at times to get a read on what Kojima is trying to say with his projects. Even the actors have said as much in interviews. There’s so much in every ten-minute cutscene that could be spun off and looked at under a microscope. A character similar in appearance to Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid plays a large role, for example. I’m honestly surprised Konami didn’t sue Kojima over the resemblance.

But what was meant by having a Solid Snake lookalike in the game? Fan service? Connecting this game to his other projects?

So much of this game left me scratching my head but enjoying every minute of it. There are moments of levity, horror, action, and introspection all wound together. All that coupled with an excellent soundtrack highlighting moments of peace and package retrieval.

There were so many times where I, sitting in my truck and lassoing up misplaced packages by the dozen, felt a sense of contentment looking at all these items that had to be delivered all over the continent. It gave me a small sense of happiness to finally make it across mountains and rivers to give someone their order of old magazines and vinyl records.

There’s so much more to uncover in the game, too. Immediately after the credits rolled, I jumped back in to find a few more packages which needed to be delivered to people I hadn’t met or heard of before. Even after beating it I’ve seen clips of events I didn’t know could happen in the game. Little easter eggs are another flourish of his which has persisted over the decades.

I’d love to be in the writer’s room with Hideo Kojima, listening in on how he tweaks things and adds little elements that make a scene so much more entrancing. I can’t think of any other creator out there who takes such high-budget risks. Too often these days games with a lot of money are made with the largest possible market in mind, dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, and stuffed to the gills with micro-transactions. Death Stranding 2 does none of these things, instead opting to be a complete package at launch. We need more of this in the industry.

So, all of this to say, should you play Death Stranding 2? It’s a tough question to answer. On the one hand, I loved so much of it. I left the game with immense satisfaction when everything was done. More than once I realized my mouth had been hanging open during a cutscene. On the other, I can totally understand if his style is too much for someone. If you’ve played the first Death Stranding, though, this is a no-brainer.

Kojima has two games currently in the pipeline. One is a survival horror game featuring episodic gameplay and several “guest” directors, whatever that means in the context of a video game. I can’t say I’ve heard of a game doing something like that before. The other is a return to stealth action. I’m definitely going to be covering those games when they come out. If they’re even half as good as what was on display here, I’m sure it’ll be a trip.