Ask anyone what exactly Death Stranding is about, and you'll find yourself hard pressed to get an answer. Well, anyone but Hideo Kojima that is. Kojima recently took some time to write out a feature article over on Rolling Stone, and it's quite a fascinating read into his mind. While most of it isn't actually about Death Stranding, he does talk about being inspired by films like Dunkirk and The Great Escape and how the victory condition in those stories wasn't defeating an enemy but preserving life.
Kojima also references his work on the Metal Gear franchise, and how he tried to get around the idea of direct conflict by introducing "the original stealth game: Metal Gear." He says he is trying to apply similar principles to Death Stranding, as the game is intended to be a different sort of war game.
He said:
"We are ready for a game not based on competition, but on the rope that will bring good to the player and make connections. We don't need a game about dividing players between winners and losers, but about creating connections at a different level. My current project, Death Stranding, aims to fulfill this goal."
Details on what exactly the game continues to evade the light of day, but Kojima correlates an excerpt from Kobo Abe's novel The Rope.
It goes:
"The rope and the stick are two of humankind's oldest tools. The stick to keep evil at a bay, the rope to bring that which is good closer, both were the first friends conceived by humankind. The rope and stick were wherever humankind was to be found."
Kojima's point is that game's predominantly put "sticks" in the hands of players to define a game's objective, usually meaning combat, action, and death. Death Stranding, however, will be built around the idea of using the "rope" to bring people together. Whether he's talking about the game's online component or single-player story mode remains to be seen, but it does sound like killing is but only an option in the game.
Death Stranding is described as an Open-World Action game, so that would seem to insinuate that killing exists in some form, it just may not be that the rules of the game force the player to do so.
Either way, Death Stranding is still as confusing as it was before, but it certainly sounds like that at the very least, we can expect something truly original from Mr. Kojima.
Source: [Rolling Stone]
