Death Stranding - New Kojima game

Eshelmen

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Feb 3, 2004
Messages
6,566
Featuring Norman Reedus.

Honestly, this trailer is really odd.

But I'm assuming this is Kojimas own version of Silent Hill? :p

Thoughts?

 
Last edited:
ok. Kojima has free reign now. its going to be ummm interesting........
 
least it's not a pachinko game...will this be a spiritual successor to P.T.?
 
least it's not a pachinko game...will this be a spiritual successor to P.T.?

That is what I'm hoping. PT was the first time I felt something NEW in Survival Horror since I played Silent Hill 2.
 
The vibe I got from the trailer is that it has to do with evolution. That's my take with the apparitions roaming around, the mounds of dead sea life, and the 5 floating humanoid figures. I am definitely interested in seeing what kind of game it turns out to be.
 
The vibe I got from the trailer is that it has to do with evolution. That's my take with the apparitions roaming around, the mounds of dead sea life, and the 5 floating humanoid figures. I am definitely interested in seeing what kind of game it turns out to be.

Here is what Kojima said directly about the game, and really all we have to go by right now:

"Keighley also asked him what type of game this is going to be. “I can’t answer that quite yet, but it will have a lot of action elements. I believe there’s a lot of players out there that are enjoying action games, and those players should be able to play it very naturally.” Kojima explained. “And after two, three hours, four hours of playing it, that they will get the feeling that it’s something completely different from what they’re used to, from what they’ve been playing so far.”"


"What does the name Death Stranding mean? “So you call it ‘mass stranding’ when you have a lot of whales or dolphins stranded to the beach.” Kojima explained. “When they’re alive, it’s called a ‘life stranding’, and when they’re dead and they’re stranded they call it ‘death stranding’. So this means that something from some world comes and is stranded, that’s what it means.”

I personally thought that trailer was the highlight of E3 to me so far and I doubt will be beat. I love Kojima's work so much, and I have watched that trailer probably like 10 times now. It is so incredibly cryptic and surreal-feeling. I can't wait to learn more as time goes on. Some people have found a side profile of Reedus from the trailer on kojimaproductions.jp and found math equations on the things around his neck which are apparently The Schwartzchild Radius and The Dirac Equation which have have to do with quantum mechanics.

dou8f8m8pors3nrupyya.jpg
 
Here is what Kojima said directly about the game, and really all we have to go by right now:

"Keighley also asked him what type of game this is going to be. “I can’t answer that quite yet, but it will have a lot of action elements. I believe there’s a lot of players out there that are enjoying action games, and those players should be able to play it very naturally.” Kojima explained. “And after two, three hours, four hours of playing it, that they will get the feeling that it’s something completely different from what they’re used to, from what they’ve been playing so far.”"


"What does the name Death Stranding mean? “So you call it ‘mass stranding’ when you have a lot of whales or dolphins stranded to the beach.” Kojima explained. “When they’re alive, it’s called a ‘life stranding’, and when they’re dead and they’re stranded they call it ‘death stranding’. So this means that something from some world comes and is stranded, that’s what it means.”

I personally thought that trailer was the highlight of E3 to me so far and I doubt will be beat. I love Kojima's work so much, and I have watched that trailer probably like 10 times now. It is so incredibly cryptic and surreal-feeling. I can't wait to learn more as time goes on. Some people have found a side profile of Reedus from the trailer on kojimaproductions.jp and found math equations on the things around his neck which are apparently The Schwartzchild Radius and The Dirac Equation which have have to do with quantum mechanics.

dou8f8m8pors3nrupyya.jpg


Some more to add from a recent Kojima interview:


Kojima: "A strand in psychology is often used to refer to ties or chains," he explained, alluding to Death Stranding's obtuse title. "So how all the crabs [in the trailer] have this weird umbilical chord and how the baby is tied to Norman [Reedus' character] is a representation of this.

"There's a Japanese author I am a huge fan of called Kobo Abe. He has a short novel called 'Rope' in which he makes a definition, a statement: the first tool mankind made was a stick. It was made toto keep away bad things. It's a weapon."

"The next tool created by mankind was rope. The rope is not to keep away bad things. On the contrary, it's a tool used to keep good things close to you, to tie good things close to you. Sticks and ropes are some of the tools most used by mankind even these days.

"In most games you see that are online multiplayer or co-op - or even single player - the communication is through sticks. In this game you will be able to use what will be the equivalent of sticks. But I also want people to use what will be the equivalent of ropes."

Kojima stressed this does not mean Death Stranding is a multiplayer game in which you will be using physical ropes, but rather that it will be about making connections.

"I want the story and the world and the gameplay, as well as the characters in the game and the the player - the life and death elements - all to be tied together," he explained. "That's the strong theme that is in this stranding concept."

"The player will be controlling Norman Reedus' character and it will be an action game if you really want to put a genre on it. For example, when I made Metal Gear, it was an action game but it was different because the main thing was about hiding. People eventually ended up calling that 'stealth action'. In this game the player will be controlling Norman but by playing it they will find something different, something that won't fit in established terms."

During our interview Kojima refused to be drawn on specifics - "It would be like telling you who's the killer in a mystery novel," he claimed - but did confirm that both Norman Reedus' character and the other-worldly setting would be appearing in the final product.

That said, Death Stranding the game has not even entered full production status yet. Kojima is still recruiting staff for key roles in his studio and has yet to make a decision regarding the graphics engine they will use to make it - although he revealed he has narrowed it down to two, one of which was responsible for the breathtaking, near-photo realistic visuals in the video.

"We are getting to a very good point about how we are feeling about the visuals so we are very close to making a decision on the game engine. And once that is decided we will be in full production."

"One thing I want to tell people is the teaser is running in real-time," Kojima adds, with tangible pride.

"We made it in two and half months - and generally teasers are not made by the development team. A lot of trailers are outsourced - that happens pretty often - but we don't like to do that."

"We made this teaser ourselves, so people can trust us."





Source: Kojima: Death Stranding isn't Silent Hills
 
Also, I actually didn't even realize Guillermo Del Toro was the guy with the glasses. Lololol
This game is going to have a stellar cast.
 
Hopefully this isn't going to be all visuals, no gameplay. I tend to be one to skip cutscenes and go straight to the action.
 
For some reason the facial animations of the guy with glasses in the beginning seem...really off. But then later with Mads it looks almost photo realistic. Kind of an odd difference there.

I am intrigued.
 
Great cast, creepy SH vibe, confusion, etc.
What more can one ask for? :p
 
Last edited:
Few of my thoughts:

The game is called Death Stranding and you see a lot of sea life stranded dead on shore. You also see the tank with tentacles on it. Also, I'm not sure if people caught this, on Mad's character, when he it zooms in the compass is going crazy.

I wonder if the game has something to do with some type of life or alien life (Mads is this life form) based on electromagnetism or other physics phenomenon (think about Norman's dog tags), and shape changing, emerging from the sea or visiting Earth. Screwing up the magnetic field would impact marine wildlife's ability to navigate the ocean and would cause mass stranding/beaching.

The infants in the game may be they are trying to protect new life because mankind is almost wiped our, or possible that the aliens are committing infanticide and people are trying to protect them. Also notice Normans belly button is missing in the first trailer, and that in the second the tube hooked up to the device appears to be going under Guillermo's shirt looks to go towards the belly button. The device may be some type of external womb and possibly only men are left to care for children.
 
Last edited:
So I showed my sister the trailers for this game and she immediately made a connection to the Junji Ito manga Gyo. It's about a virus developed during WWII that causes the infected to release a "death stench" that repulses those around them. To carry the stench into a battlefield machines were created that ran their movement off the stench. The ship carrying the prototypes was sunk in the ocean and it infected the sea life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyo

Tadashi takes her to Koyanagi in an effort to save her but plunges into a canal where he passes out after being injured by thousands of small walking fish. Awakening one month later, he discovers that Koyanagi has placed her into a custom-built walking machine. Upon switching the machine on, Koyanagi is mortally wounded by Kaori, who quickly escapes.

...Searching for her, Tadashi notices that most of the walking fish have decayed, and that the walking machines are now carrying infected citizens instead.

She said the scenes in the second trailer with the soldiers around the tank and later when they are attached to Mads' character come straight from this manga.
 
Death Stranding will be using Horizon Zero Dawn's game engine "Decima." Cool story; Guerrilla Games handed the source code of their engine to Kojima, and Mark Cerny commented during the PS Experience event that he has never seen a collaboration like this before. Kojima has a group of people from his studio working directly with Guerrilla in their studio which is now called "Kojima Productions Amsterdam." Pretty cool. Kojima's people and Guerrilla's people are working hand-in-hand to make the most realistic graphics they can by modifying the existing Decima engine to be even better looking, and Kojima commented that it'll be even more realistic-looking than the latest trailer (linked below) which is a very bold statement.

If you have a 4K monitor you need to watch this in 4K (this is all in-engine):

 
Death Stranding will be using Horizon Zero Dawn's game engine "Decima." Cool story; Guerrilla Games handed the source code of their engine to Kojima, and Mark Cerny commented during the PS Experience event that he has never seen a collaboration like this before. Kojima has a group of people from his studio working directly with Guerrilla in their studio which is now called "Kojima Productions Amsterdam." Pretty cool. Kojima's people and Guerrilla's people are working hand-in-hand to make the most realistic graphics they can by modifying the existing Decima engine to be even better looking, and Kojima commented that it'll be even more realistic-looking than the latest trailer (linked below) which is a very bold statement.

If you have a 4K monitor you need to watch this in 4K (this is all in-engine):


I'll be a believer once I see an actual gameplay video.
 
I'll be a believer once I see an actual gameplay video.

Well, there is no reason to doubt it. Kojima was the person who legitimized using the in-game engine for cut-scenes. Never has a Kojima game used pre-rendered cutscenes in any of his games; everything is always accomplished in-engine. If it was anyone else i'd be skeptical too, but in this case there is no reason to be.
 
Well, there is no reason to doubt it. Kojima was the person who legitimized using the in-game engine for cut-scenes. Never has a Kojima game used pre-rendered cutscenes in any of his games; everything is always accomplished in-engine. If it was anyone else i'd be skeptical too, but in this case there is no reason to be.
Normally I wouldn't be either, but Guerrilla Games has an infamous history which throws a nut into that confidence wheel.
 
Normally I wouldn't be either, but Guerrilla Games has an infamous history which throws a nut into that confidence wheel.

What does the game engine have to do with anything? Guerrilla has nothing to do with the game's actual development. Their expertise is merely being utilized to maximize their game engine. I mean the teasers we've seen so far are proof-positive that in-game cutscenes using their engine is possible which is also why I think Kojima inserted his own people at their studio to make sure it will work how they want it to. Regardless, i'm not worried about it.
 
I doubt they have much to show at this point. What we saw before is just a tech demo of motion capture.
 
Looks like one of those webs from a spider that they dosed with LSD.
 
What does the game engine have to do with anything? Guerrilla has nothing to do with the game's actual development. Their expertise is merely being utilized to maximize their game engine. I mean the teasers we've seen so far are proof-positive that in-game cutscenes using their engine is possible which is also why I think Kojima inserted his own people at their studio to make sure it will work how they want it to. Regardless, i'm not worried about it.
Since the thread was bumped with new info, I want to respond to this by saying Horizon has my confidence wheel spinning at full speed now ;).
 
Back
Top