Ever since its haunting reveal at E3 2016, we’ve laid eyes on four – count ’em, four – teaser trailers for Death Stranding, and we’re still no closer to understanding the minutia of Kojima Productions’ maiden title. Not that Hideo Kojima would have it any other way.
The latest arrived during Sony’s somewhat eclectic E3 showcase earlier this week, where we caught a sneak peek of Death Stranding gameplay running in real-time on Guerilla’s Decima engine – the same tech that powered Horizon Zero Dawn. But we’re a ways away from Thunderjaws and talk of the Old Ones.
Because while Aloy’s mystifying adventure finds beauty in the apocalypse (or post-post-apocalypse, as Guerrilla points out), Death Stranding is all about Sam ‘Porter’ Bridges, a delivery man who must journey across a vast, primordial landscape in order to “reunite the shattered world one step at a time.”
Or so says the official description for trailer #4, which is arguably the most revealing and indeed substantial one thus far, not least because it proves Death Stranding is much more than just some abstract, half-formed dream from the creative genius behind Metal Gear.
A Chiral Allergy?
Also, full disclosure: I have now had the pleasure of writing three speculative articles concerning Death Stranding for PlayStation LifeStyle (one’s here; and the other’s there) and I’m beginning to feel like Charlie Kelly ranting and raving about the Pepe Silvia conspiracy from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I even got a paper trail to prove it.
All that aside, let’s get into the weeds of what is arguably one of, if not the most intriguing PS4 exclusives currently in active development. We know Death Stranding to be a futuristic action game with survival elements, but the above trailer brought us closer to its moment-to-moment gameplay, its beautiful, Prometheus-like landscapes and the invisible netherworld that always appears to be within arm’s reach.
Monday’s E3 showreel also introduced two new, equally mysterious characters brought to life by French actress Léa Seydoux and Lindsay Wagner. The first is a delivery person of sorts, and works for a company called Fragile Express. Her sleek, black outfit (dat umbrella doe) is unique in that her retractable spikes react to any nearby creatures, similar to how Sam’s shoulder-mounted flower machine detects the shimmering beasts that inhabit this most desolate world before it’s too late.
He can’t see them, but he can sense ’em, and the initial dialogue infers that Sam’s “DOOMs level” means he has the extinction factor. Léa Seydoux’s unnamed character appears to be more advanced in this regard, as she’s knowledgable enough to know that a cryptobyte (?) a day keeps the Timefall away.
Introducing Seydoux and Wagner
Timefall, as the name suggests, is the term given to Death Stranding‘s precipitation, and deems that anyone (or anything) caught up in the rain ages rapidly – plants grow exponentially, only to wither and die in a matter of seconds, while exposed humans turn into crippled pensioners faster than they can say “Hideo Kojima.”
We see Timefall affect Sam’s outstretched hand as he reaches toward a personal photograph which, incidentally, looks to be a memory he shared with Lindsay Wagner’s mystery character. Upon closer inspection, the wrinkled photo appears to have been captured in the Oval Office, indicating that Wagner’s newcomer was once the President of the United States, or some other high-ranking official with access to Washington’s corridors of power.
This would explain why a sharp-dressed Wagner says, “You still don’t know who I am, do you?” to Norman Reedus’ baffled protagonist at the tail-end of trailer #4.
Now, here’s where things really get crazy. If Lindsay Wagner’s DS character really is (or was) the Commander-in-Chief, and Sam is actually a clone as previous trailers have inferred, could it be that she’s actually playing Sam’s mother? The original photo showed a much older version of her character, while the one standing on the ash-grey beach, next to the cetacean stranding, seems to be around the same age as our own Sam Bridges.
Life as an Energy Source?
And there’s that name again – Bridges. Assuming this theory is correct, and Lindsay Wagner’s figure and President Bridges are one and the same, then she could be in charge of the entire Bridges operation, one founded in the hope of united the cities of America. Or at least, those that remain.
Because with its bleak netherworld and elements of time travel (or should that be time distortion?), Death Stranding evidently takes place in a world under great environmental distress. Rumor has it that this can all be traced back to a nuclear explosion that ripped open a tear in time and space (“and then came the next explosion…”), thereby explaining why large chunks of the United States are missing from the Bridges logo, which features a spider’s web spanning outward from Washington D.C. Ground zero, perhaps?
Treading that fine line between life and death seems to be part of Sam’s vocation, then, and a brief radio transmission tells us that should he encounter a Chiral (the tentative name given to those inky-black apparitions), he’ll trigger a “voidout,” which is likely the spooky and surreal event that occurred during Death Stranding‘s TGA 2017 trailer, where we saw Sam come face-to-face with a giant, kaiju-like monster before being plunged into purgatory.
All of this aligns with Hideo Kojima’s previous comments about how his PS4 debut handles character death. It’s unconventional (surprise!), according to the seasoned dev, and it’s looking increasingly likely that each “voidout” leaves behind a giant, yawning crater, which, if true, may well dovetail with Kojima-san’s comments about Death Stranding‘s online elements.
Once There Was an Explosion
And that brings me to my final note from Death Stranding‘s fourth trailer. Though Kojima is yet to detail the game’s online component in great detail (again, surprise), leaving a crater behind every time you die draws comparison to Dark Souls, in which there are traces or at least echoes of other players scattered across this strange and desolate world.
It’s still a single-player experience, mind you, and it all centers around Sam “Porter” Bridges, who is not your typical hero. Or so says Kojima-san:
A typical hero is usually some sort of elite or someone with a military background. Sam is not. He is a working man of sorts — a hands-on professional. Someone with a skillset akin to a blue-collar worker. This is something you’ll intuitively understand once you play the game and control Sam. Herein lies our challenge, to create both a new form of gameplay and a hero that has never been done before.
Abstract, yet utterly mesmerizing. Familiar, yet totally alien. For better or worse, this is Hideo Kojima operating on his own accord, without fear of studio meddling or being forced to compromise in the name of red tape. Hell, as I mentioned before, one could even go so far as to claim that there is no title quite like Death Stranding currently in development.
And given Kojima’s tendency for quirkiness and style, not to mention his deft art of foreshadowing, Death Stranding‘s fourth teaser trailer has undoubtedly served up enough fodder to keep us speculating in the weeks and months to come.
Because at this rate, the only thing I truly know about Death Stranding is that I’ll buy it on day one.
Essential Reading:
- E3 2018: Recapping the Big Weekend of Announcements
- E3 2018: Just Cause 4 Preview – Fighting Fire With a Tornado
- E3 2018 Hands-On: Spyro Reignited Trilogy Lights the Fires Again
Death Stranding theories 12-21-17
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Death Stranding: A Hideo Kojima Game
Grab your tin foil hats and pop the kettle on, it's speculation time...
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A Nuclear (Cosmic?) Explosion Ripped Open An Interdimensional Portal
This appears to be one of the more plausible theories kicking around as it would explain why human beings like Sam (Reedus) are able to exist on the same plain as their alien neighbors. What’s more, the web-like logo for Bridges: United Cities of America contains a map of the States with a potentially alarming hole where Delaware, New Jersey and Washington D.C. ought to be.
This, coupled with the fact that the web-like pattern originates from said crater (portal?) lends credence to this potential plot point. Even the name itself may be a reference to an interdimensional bridge (again, portal?) that formed soon after the explosion that Sam refers to in the latest trailer – an explosion which will be our last.
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Humans Are the Last Remaining Energy Source
Even after only three trailers, it’s pretty clear that Hideo Kojima is gunning for hard sci-fi when it comes to Death Stranding – the far-future tech, the alien worlds…you name it. And one of the genre’s most common themes is the conservation of energy, whether it’s related to Earth’s dwindling resources or a whole new form of energy that’s uncovered far beyond our solar system.
Meanwhile, Death Stranding, with its allusion to interdimensional travel and black holes (see: the Dirac equation), may well take place on an alien world devoid of energy, or a far-future Earth ravaged by a nuclear explosion.
Out of luck and out of time, this theory supposes that Sam (and Guillermo del Toro’s character in the previous trailer) uses those high-tech baby chambers as a source of energy, as we see Sam’s four-pronged robot detector spring to life soon after he connects to the foetus via some form of man-made umbilical cord.
This Matrix-styled plot point is arguably one of the more plausible Death Stranding theories out there, as the idea of being tethered to life has become a recurring theme across all three trailers.
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Clones Are a Thing Now
Which brings us to cloning. Three years ago, soon after the release of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar – a mindfuck in its own right – Kojima tweeted out a photo of Cess Ivory's 21 Days (h/t Reddit), a story from a Yukinobu Hoshino's Stardust Memories anthology.
It chronicles the harrowing journey of a lone biologist who winds up stranded on an alien world. To make matters worse, the planet’s environment rapidly ages its inhabitants, leaving our protagonist with little choice but to raise a clone of herself until help arrives. Sound familiar?
That tenuous line between life and death has evidently been woven into the fabric of Death Stranding, what with all the babies being carried around by their carriers. But what if that bond is stronger? What if the babies are actually miniature clones of our characters?
Once Corpse Disposal Team 6 encounter those Lovecraftian monsters, one of the unnamed crew members tosses his baby (his CLONE?) to Norman Reedus’ Sam, before stabbing himself repeatedly, further proving that Death Stranding’s cosmic enemies are only interested in humans if they’re still alive and kicking.
The baby (or babies?) is crucial, then, and according to Hideo Kojima himself, that chirpy infant ”relates to game mechanics as well as the story as a whole.”
Couple this with Low Roar’s haunting “I’ll Keep Coming,” which played over Death Stranding’s baffling reveal trailer, and Kojima’s latest venture may well incorporate cloning (and perhaps time-travel?) into its narrative.
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Timefall and Accelerated Aging
This one is more of a tangible story clue than another theory from left-field. Because thanks to IGN, Hideo Kojima has offered up some new intel pertaining to Death Stranding’s third teaser, including a brief explanation of Timefall.
It’s the otherworldly rain that causes plants to wither and die, hence Sam’s decision to keep his hood up at all times, and if Death Stranding toys with time dilation and relativity – natural or otherwise – it would explain the decision to include this extract from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence:
“To see a world in a grain of sand. And heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand. And eternity in an hour.”
Either way, Death Stranding’s protagonist may possess some otherworldly power of his own, as Kojima teased to IGN:
"Most people in the game are aware of the rain -- and well, Norman is quite unique in this regard."
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A Totally New Form of Play
“Death will never pull you out of the game.”
That’s a quote from Kojima himself, who has since confirmed that the surreal underwater sequence seen in trailer #3 is the Death Stranding equivalent of a ‘game over’ screen. While here, players will be able to enjoy (endure?) an out-of-body experience, all the while exploring their surrounding environment in first-person.
"At that point, you're not dead or alive. It's the equivalent of that screen that says 'Continue?' and a counter ticking down towards zero.”
Kojima was one of the first developers to toy with the concept of breaking the fourth wall – be it switching controllers to overthrow Psycho Mantis or outsmarting the Colonel in Sons of Liberty. With Death Stranding, it seems the Japanese auteur is about to up the ante, and one need only look at the wristbands attached to Corpse Disposal Team 6.
Based on the trailer alone, they change color depending on the state of their owner (blue good, red bad), and may be the closest thing to a health meter in Death Stranding. There’s also a very good chance that the DualShock 4’s lightbar will reflect that fleeting morality, while some believe the handcuffs are a visual representation of the player’s control over the character, and will likewise change color depending on the in-game situation.
We are Homo Ludens, we are those who play.
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Birth. Life. Death.
Hideo Kojima has name-dropped Japanese writer and playwright Kobo Abe as a major influence on Death Stranding's story, which appears to revolve around Norman Reedus' character, Sam, being stranded between life and death – between one realm, and the next.
Perhaps Kojima's sci-fi oddity will tackle big existential themes come 20XX?
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The Five Deities
Last but not least, Death Stranding’s story appears to orbit around five spectral, god-like figures, who may turn out to be the de facto bosses.
Perhaps Death Stranding will incorporate a Dark Souls-esque system in which players trade clues and messages?
Then again, Mads Mikkelsen is a god of Danish cinema, but we’re not quite sure how that’ll filter into the story...
On a more serious note, the game itself has been described as an open-world title with action elements, while Kojima-san has mentioned multiplayer elements.
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Death Stranding 01
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