Death Stranding is quickly becoming one of the most highly anticipated titles in recent
years.
Not only is it the latest from mastermind Hideo Kojima, but every single bit of information,
including the trailers and the recent gameplay footage that debuted at E3 2018, has been
shrouded in mystery.
People have been scratching their heads as to what it all means.
So today, we’re outlining what we know about Death Stranding to give you a better idea
of what the game will be about, from its characters to its plot, to what you should expect.
THE NAME Death Stranding is the technical term for
when a whale is beached.
Considering the talk of how the game’s emphasis on life and death.
Kojima has stated that “In arcade games, you have this notion of dying, putting another
quarter I, and coming back.
That hasn’t changed in the 35 years that I’ve been making games.
In this game, life and death will be part of that, but I want to give a different twist
to that notion.”
THE OTHER TRAILERS Before we dive into what happened in the previous
trailers, let’s briefly dive into what we learned from last year’s trailer.
While it wasn’t a new reveal, Kojima was present at the event and gave further insight
on the game, which he stated is going to be something we haven’t seen before on all
fronts.
I quote, “For Death Stranding, I started explaining a year ago to the team what I wanted
to make.
No one got it!
Because I was trying to make something new and something different.
So for me, I personally think that if people are opposed to you, then you’re on the right
track.
That’s game making for me.”
This trailer opened up with a William Blake quote from Auguries of Innocence.
It opens on a beach, and we begin to see handprints impress themselves on the sand, which leads
up to the reveal of a naked Norman Reedus and a baby attached to an umbilical cord.
Reedus picks the baby up, holding it and crying, only for it to disappear and for tiny handprints
to appear on his skin.
His body is also covered in what appears to be dirt, with the shadows of handprints left
covering his body, revealing a scar on his stomach.
He then looks out over the shoreline, which reveals a bunch of beached whales, who have
similar black umbilical cords attached to their bodies, and five figures floating in
the sky.
The second trailer featuring Guillermo Del Toro with a scar across his forehead, hiding
while he watches a military force march forward.
Del Toro has a logo pinned to his jacket that reads Bridges.
He’s also carrying around a fetus in a synthetic womb.
A soldier, who reveals himself to be Mads Mikkelsen, is then shown walking through an
underground tunnel, with umbilical cords attached to his body, connecting to a group of other
soldiers who are revealed to be skeletons.
He sets them loose, the cords releasing from their bodies.
And lastly, the third trailer, is narrated by Reedus and features him waking up on the
ground next nearby two other workers, who have the bridges logo on their jackets.
One of them is stuck in a vehicle.
This is when the invisible creature makes an appearance, and for the first time, we
see it as threatening – all three men hush themselves, trying to stay quiet so that they
won’t be detected.
A windmill-esque piece of tech attacked to one of their suits twirls when it is nearby
– it moves in the direction of the creatures whereabouts.
It leaves, and we see a body, wrapped up in a material cocoon, start to shake, and is
absorbed by the ground, with its face disintegrating into the air.
The creature then returns, and the man beneath the vehicle is pulled away after altering
the creature by screaming in pain.
He’s sucked into the ground, and we see black muddy hands pull him away into the distance.
A new character then appears, landing on top of the ship, puts a finger on his masked lips,
and then the camera reveals the other worker is carrying a baby in a synthetic womb.
The creature returns and comes for the other worker, the masked one disappears, and the
worker tosses the womb to Reedus as the other worker tries to kill himself.
He fails, and he’s sucked up into the sky as Reedus picks up the baby.
A giant is then revealed to be standing over them.
We then cut, and Reedus is in the water, and a fetus is revealed to me inside of him – yes,
its odd – the camera then comes out of his mouth to reveal him back up on the beach with
a tear dropping from his eye.
If all of that managed to make any sense, the E3 2018 trailer got more confusing.
It starts off with the similar shot of the fetus, and reveals Reedus’ name – Sam
Porter Bridges, the man who delivers.
The beginning of the trailer features Reedus having a discussion with a woman, and she
asks him to work for her, and he declines.
She also asks if he can see ‘them’ to which he answers he can detect them – clearly
insinuating the invisible creatures.
When then get presumably gameplay of Reedus traversing across landscapes with packages
marked with the Bridges logo.
At one point, one of those packages looks like a wrapped up body.
We also see that he’s carrying the synthetic womb on his front.
We also get a few shots that focus on how beat up his feet are.
Next we have another trailer, with Reedus, now joined by Lea Seydoux, inside a cave where
an invisible creature lurks.
It leaves, and we see the figures hovering up in the clouds again.
The next footage we see features Sam caught inside a building while it rains.
Over a radio, Sam communicates with someone who asks him what his status is, and comments
that if he gets eaten, he’ll come back, but the entire area will become a crater.
Sam says he has an idea, connects a wire into somewhere, causing the synthetic womb to turn
‘on’, revealing the fetus.
His light warning contraption begins to flash, and we see a bunch of figures appear in the
sky, connected with black floating bits that look like umbilical cords.
It cuts into gameplay footage, of Sam, crouched, slowly moving away, but he then gets caught
and is dragged into a black tar pit that emerges from the ground beneath him.
The title card appears, and then Seydoux narrates “a cryptobiotic a day keeps the time fall
away”, and reveals her eating one of the bug-esque creatures we saw floating in the
water in the earlier trailers.
It then cuts to a woman on the beach, turning around.
SO WHAT DO WE KNOW?
Not much, but there is a lot to go off of.
Kojima has stated that the game’s story is about connections, “what you call strands
in psychology – how people are connected.”
Based on this last trailer, and the ones with Mikkelsen, it seems that these black umbilical
cords play into that connection concept.
Sam also keeps holding up a photograph in the trailer, with seemingly his daughters
face faded out.
From what we can see, she shares a resemble Seydoux.
Death is not the end – characters who are consumed by the creature come back to life,
but at what cost?
Clearly, this is a world in turmoil, based on the military aspect featured in the second
trailer.
Tech has been created to help avoid being consumed.
Were these invisible creatures once human, based on that first trailer with the baby
disappearing?
And what importance does that child have?
Is it safe to speculate that the child we saw in Del Toro’s arms in the second trailer
is the same one that Sam carries around with him now?
Is the child part of a delivery?
And if that’s the case, is it possible that regular birth is no longer possible, hence
the importance of keeping the fetus alive and away from being consumed?
Well, Kojima has revealed that Timefall is the rain – the rain has the ability to manipulate
time, and as soon as it touches the surface, it has the ability to make plants grow, make
the human body age with rapid speed, all within a matter of seconds.
And when time fall occurs, that’s when the invisible creatures appear.
The invisible creatures are clearly threatening, they use sound to detect where humans are,
and people are in danger of being “eaten” by them, and when that happens, the entire
area is demolished, or rather, turned into a crater.
So clearly, environments are devastated when this process occurs, assuming that the process
is the same one we saw occur in the third trailer.
And what are those figures we keep seeing hanging in the sky?
They are seemingly a result of the creature’s presence but do not seem threatening themselves.
They’ve appeared as give figures spread out, and seem more ethereal than the bodies
made up of black bits and umbilical cords that appeared in the sky in the gameplay footage
when Sam got too close to the creature.
Are those previous victims?
People who can’t come back?
So many questions, but not many answers!
Could it be some sort of extraterrestrial force that has affected Earth?
And that photograph that Sam is carrying around is from life before they arrived?
Who knows.
What are your thoughts on Death Stranding?
Do you have any theories about the game you think we should know?
Give us a shout in those comments below!
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