How Death Stranding subverted my expectations

Death Stranding is such a unique game, it blends multiple genres together . It’s impossible to define it using the traditional videogame terms.

Death Stranding has you walking around delivering packages and parcels in a series of fetch quests in an empty post apocalyptic world. All while being interrupted occasionally by ghosts and visually spectacular boss fights. And to top it all off, you have to constantly manage both the cargo on your back and carefully watching your every step.

The Fanbase Divided

Upon release, The game divided the gaming community into two:

• one side found that it’s boring and that it’s glorifying walking simulators, something that they believe have plagued the gaming industry for a while. They criticize any game that doesn’t feature 100% game play and they loathe cutscenes. But the thing they hate the most are those sections where you’re forced to control the character while he chats for hours with another character (Looking at you, God Of War)
• While the other side praises the game, and you can genuinely see their excitement and their passion towards it. Some of them even consider it to be the perfect game devoid of any flaws.

I’m one of the people that loved it. While I consider it to be the perfect game for me, I recognize that it has its flaws.

A Typical Day For Sam Bridges

First, I’d like you to imagine the following:

You are assigned a package to deliver from a cosplayer who is hiding Conan O’Brien in their basement (Yes, you read that right). You’ve got your boots on, your strap your backpack on, you set your destination, and you’re ready to go.

You keep walking towards your destination when you suddenly come across a deep river that overlooks a waterfall. It looks like the river will absolutely wreck you if you try to cross it. You naturally pull out a ladder and set it on some of the rocks in an attempt to cross the river without getting wet and tiring yourself out.

You slowly take a few steps on the ladder. Right before you reach the first rock, you trip, fall into the water, you bump around and flail your arms like a crazed fowl trying but failing to get out. Suddenly, you reach the edge of the waterfall and fall off it.

GAME OVER

Is what most games would present you with at this moment, but not Death Stranding. As your fellow porters would say, “Keep on keeping on!”

You’re now knee deep in water at the base of the waterfall, your equipment’s all scattered, the packages are fractured and damaged, and Sam is out of breath.

You pick yourself up; you take a sip of Monster Energy from your trusty canteen (Yes, really) and you spend a few minutes planning how to climb out of the mess you got yourself into.

If you have enough ladders with you, it’s an easy task. If not, then you’re going to have to be creative.

Multiple Solutions For Each Problem

You’ve got two options, you can either use your many ladders (Which you’re never able to carry more than two since they’re one of the heaviest tools in the game) and climb the extremely rocky and bumpy hill. Your other option would be to cross the waters by carefully placing your ladders on the rocks, where you’ll find on the other side a much easier to climb hill that doesn’t require the use of ladders.

That’s the beauty of Death Stranding; it gave me something I never knew I wanted. It seamlessly combines the challenge of traversal with “environmental puzzles” that are so subtle; calling them a puzzle would be an understatement.

A Combination of Traversal and Environmental Puzzles

When other games try to direct your movement by painting climbable ledges with whatever their color of choice is. Death Stranding forces you to scan the environment yourself. It literally throws you off the edge of a cliff and expects you to climb back up, and it is exhilarating.

Such moments were so precious during my playthrough that I still recall them now almost a year after the game was out on the PS4.

They’re a perfect simulation of what someone like Sam (the game’s lovable protagonist, played by Norman Reedus) would do, when stuck in a similar situation.

It’s So Much More Than What It Seems At First

I went into this game expecting it to be a walking\postal service simulator game, something I can relax to after a hard day’s work, a game where I can just get lost in the astonishing visuals and deliver packages peacefully, but it’s not like that at all.

What I found instead was so much engaging than a walking simulator. there are many aspects that make this game sweeter than chocolate, the fact that there’s a snowy mountain in the background, it’s big and far, but the game forces you to climb it.

It can be defined by its ability to give you ultimate freedom in going and climbing wherever you want.

No Mountain Big Enough

Sure, many games let you climb mountains and hills, but in death stranding, traversal is an engaging mechanic, it’s not as simple as pulling the left stick forward. Descending the snowy mountain that I’ve spent the last three hours trekking across gave me a certain sense of accomplishment that I’ve never had before in a videogame.

Death Stranding aims to frustrates you, it pushes your limits to see what you’re capable of, it constantly subverts your expectations, and I love it.

Some people were excited about playing a new walking simulator game (myself included), games like What remains of Edith Finch and Firewatch. A game that will engross us in its characters and in its story rather than its gameplay.

Unfortunately, it somewhat fails at that, mainly because of Kojima’s penchant for melodramatic cut scenes. Instead, what they got was a challenging game that constantly bogs them down and frustrates them.

There’s a million things to keep an eye out for on your journeys. A health meter, a stamina bar, a weight indicator — you are constantly over encumbered, even your shoes gets worn out over time. Not to mention the constant presence of BTs whose only purpose of existence is to hold you back from completing your delivery.

Not Your Typical Kojima Game

On the other hand, the hardcore Kojima fans were expecting a successor to Metal Gear Solid, a game that would have mechanics that are deep, complex and engrossing. Yet, what they got instead was a simple walking simulator.

They dismissed the game because of their own expectations, not realizing that Death Stranding is MGS’s soulmate, failing to realize that they both play in a similar manner and offer a similar experience to what they wanted.

This is why I wholeheartedly agree that Death Stranding is Hideo Kojima’s Magnum Opus. It shows that he is perfectly capable of creating a new genre, of revolutionizing the gaming industry. It’s truly an amazing experience. Even after a year of its release, I’m still in awe of it.

If you haven’t picked it up yet, make sure you do. If anything you read about it in this article intrigued you, then you owe it to yourself to experience it.

Did you like Death Stranding? Did you hate it? Share with us in the comments below.

Check out our reviews, feel free to also follow us on Instagram. We also recommend that you check out our Top 10 Horror Games of The Generation.