A new trailer for Death Stranding just dropped and I still have no FREAKING idea what this
game is about…
And I don’t think many other people do either.
The amazing thing about this is that we’re all still incredibly excited about this game.
And this is what I find particularly fascinating about it.
Hideo Kojima is no doubt a powerhouse in this industry.
His name attached to a title can be the difference between success and failure for a game teetering
on the edge.
But is this all that’s going on?
Is Death Stranding only being hyped because of the creative director who’s behind it?
Well I’ve got some ideas, so let’s jump in.
As always, I love reading your comments as well, so make sure to leave your thoughts
on this below.
ACT 1 – Keep Your Enemies Closer To understand why people are so excited by
anything that Kojima does, we need to understand who Hideo Kojima is, and what he represents.
Kojima’s career in the industry is long and illustrious.
He initially wanted to make movies but found himself fascinated by the video game industry
and medium in the mid 1980’s, which led to repeated attempts to get into the industry
without much success.
However, after a few years of trying, Kojima was able to get into Konami, a large software
development company, as a designer within the home computer division.
Kojima, at the time, was frustrated by this because he felt that these systems were too
constricting and wouldn’t allow him to make the games that he want to make, but alas,
he kept his head down and worked away, eventually being placed in charge of a game titled Metal
Gear after another designer dropped the project.
Kojima worked his butt off and established Metal Gear as a classic game in addition to
one of the first games ever that prioritized an avoidance of combat and confrontation over
direct combat.
As the decades went by, he continued working on games such as snatcher, and multiple games
within the Metal Gear series, which slowly grew into an industry monolith.
But everything grew to a head in 2011 when he was promoted to Executive Vice President
and Corporate Officer for Konami Digital Entertainment.
And then, in 2012, Kojima stated that he was interested in making a game in the Silent
Hills universe.
Soon after this, Konami gave him approval and the rights, and Kojima began work on the
game.
Eventually releasing PT as a “playable teaser” for the game in August of 2014, but the demo
was removed abruptly in April of 2015 and the Silent Hills game was cancelled without
much of an explanation (by the way I made a video discussing the recent remake, and
if you want to see it I’ll link it in the description).
It’s still fairly unclear what exactly happened.
Whatever it was, it was not amicable.
Metal Gear Solid V won multiple awards at the Game Awards in 2015, but Kojima, the game’s
director, was not allowed by Konami to attend.
Several versions of this whole tale have circulated, by some accounts, Kojima realized that he
did not need Konami anymore to be successful in the industry, told them this and that he
was planning on leaving, and like a bitter ex-girlfriend decided to make the break up
as public and dramatic as possible.
Another version of events is that Kojima voiced his frustrations with the way that Konami
treated their employees and managers, which resulted in more strict and negative treatment,
at which point Kojima decided to leave and Konami, feeling betrayed by the very man they
had created, decided to kick and scream all the way down.
Regardless of what actually happened, I would argue it doesn’t matter what the true story
is.
As the old saying goes: perception is more powerful than reality, and here, it stands
true.
No matter the reason behind the split, Kojima was looked at as the victim of a greedy and
megalomaniacal corporation which allowed a simple separation due to creative differences
result in a years long display of bitterness and immaturity.
Even if Kojima were Satan himself, Konami still handled the situation so bafflingly
poorly that they would have lost the PR battle against the prince of darkness.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it seems to me that Konami was in fact in the wrong and Kojima
was right to want to leave, but the point stands that Konami handled this in the worst
possible way which made them the villain and made Kojima the martyr.
ACT 2 – The Martyr’s Life For Me Now that he was separated from the corporate
behemoth, Kojima was able to start looking for his own path.
He was able to legally separate Kojima Productions from Konami Publishing thanks to some legal
loopholes which made the studio, as an entity incomplete without Kojima at the helm, which
makes sense because, you know, it wouldn’t make sense to have Kojima Productions run
by anyone other than Kojima…
And so, with his studio now separate and having signed a new exclusivity deal with Sony, Kojima
began work on his come-back title: Death Stranding.
By the way, the term Come-back title is not mine.
This has been circulated by IGN, Gamespot, and many others including a lot of YouTubers.
How is this a comeback title?
He just made MGS5 which was very successful.
This is only a comeback insofar as Death Stranding represents a middle-finger to the evil and
villainous corporation that is Konami.
It’s as much as a comeback as Kim Kardashian had.
*Parks and Recreation Blooper Real Clip* This processed involved Kojima travelling the world,
going to multiple different studios to research and license a new game engine to be used in
Death Stranding.
They visited a plethora of Sony exclusive studios, eventually travelling to Guerilla
Games, the studio behind Horizon Zero Dawn.
And, famously, upon arrival, the Guerrilla Game’s staff didn’t force Kojima to sit
in a room while they went through a stat sheet and explained what percentage of the game’s
sales they would want to take.
Instead, they handed Kojima a small wooden box, inside it?
A thumb drive with the Decima Engine’s code in it.
It was a sign of unity between two creative entities who had never worked together, had
no reason to be so kind to one another, yet, were.
This has only furthered the narrative that Kojima was a Martyr for the industry and that
all of these great studios were helping him any way that they could.
He became a gaming Saint who deserved any and all support and assistance.
And again, this isn’t to say that he doesn’t deserve this, in my opinion he does, he’s
a brilliant developer and without a doubt one of the most important in our time.
But the point still stands: perception is more powerful than reality.
ACT 3 – Redemption Kojima’s work on Death Stranding has been
largely shrouded in mystery.
No one really knows what the game is or how it works.
Is it an action game or stealth focused?
Is it a walking simulator or something more fast paced with a lot of cut scenes?
No one really knows, yet the hype is through the roof.
Kojima Productions just revealed a new trailer for the game and it has left many of us more
excited than we expected to be, including myself.
And this is what triggered the creation of this video, the fact that I’m so excited
for Death Stranding without having any idea of what it even is has left me baffled.
I mean, I’ve almost complete my bachelor’s degree in Corporate Finance, I make videos
on video games all day, all week, all year, and at this point I’m pretty good at deciphering
what’s going on behind the curtain.
And to be honest, Death Stranding seems like a unique phenomenon.
It’s primarily being sold on its mystique and the fact that it’s Kojima’s comeback
game (or at least it’s perceived that way), but that’s about it.
Sure the game is pretty, but what we’ve seen is no where near as clear a showcase
of what game we are going to receive in November as the trailer for Horizon Zero Dawn for example,
or Days Gone’s E3 presentation.
Those gave players a clear idea of what they were going to be doing in the game and why
they should be excited.
But Death Stranding’s trailers leave us all more confused than when we first heard
of the game, yet we’re more excited than ever.
It’s a fascinating example of the power of a man’s name and the potency of mystery.
I can’t wait to play Death Stranding, and it’s not in spite of but rather because
of the game’s mystique.
Thank you so much for watching.
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If you have any thoughts you’d like to contribute to the discussion, please leave them in the
comments and I’ll respond if I’m able.
Thank you again, I love you all, and I’ll see you in the next video.