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+---
+title: Death Stranding Review
+date: 2019-11-11
+series: reviews
+tags:
+ - kojima
+ - video-game
+ - what
+---
+
+# Death Stranding Review
+
+NOTE: There's gonna be spoilers here. Do not read if you are not okay with this.
+For a summary of the article without spoilers, this game is 10 out of 10 game of the
+year 2019 for me.
+
+I have also been playing through this game [on
+twitch](https://twitch.tv/princessxen) and have streams archived
+[here](https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/kojima_unchained).
+
+There's a long-standing rule of thumb to tell fiction apart from non-fiction.
+Fiction needs to make sense to the reader. Non-fiction does not. [Death
+Stranding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding) puts this paradigm on
+its head. It doesn't make sense out of the gate in the way most AAA games make
+sense. 
+
+In many AAA games it's very clear who the Big Bad is and who the John America
+is. John America defeats the Big Bad and spreads Freedom to the masses by force.
+In Death Stranding, you have no such preconceptions going into it. The first few
+hours are a chaotic mess of exposition without explanation. First there's a
+storm, then there's monsters, then there's a baby-powered locator, then you need
+to deliver stuff a-la fetch quests, then there's Monster energy drinks, and the
+main currency of this game is Facebook likes (that mean and do absolutely
+nothing).
+
+In short, Death Stranding doesn't try to make sense. It leaves questions
+unanswered. And this is honestly so refreshing in a day and age where entire
+plot points and the like are spoiled in trailers before the game's release date
+is even announced. Questions like: what is going on? Why are there monsters?
+What is the point of the game? Why the hell are there Monster energy drinks in
+your private room and canteen? Death Stranding answers only some of these over
+the course of gameplay.
+
+The core of the gameplay loop is delivering cargo from point a to point b across
+a ruined America after the apocalypse. The main character is an absolute unit of
+a lad, able to carry over 120 kilograms of cargo on his back. As more and more
+cargo stacks up you create these comically tall towers of luggage that make
+balancing very difficult. You can hold on for balance using both of the shoulder
+buttons. The game maps each shoulder button to an arm of the player character.
+There's also a stamina system, and while you are gripping the cargo your stamina
+regenerates much more slowly than if you weren't doing that.
+
+The game makes you deliver almost everything you can think of from medical aid
+to antimatter bombs. The antimatter bomb deliveries are really tricky because of
+how delicate they are. If you drop the antimatter bomb, it explodes and you
+instantly game over. If you hit a rock while carrying an antimatter bomb, it
+gets damaged. If it gets damaged too many times it explodes and you die. If it
+gets dropped into water it explodes and you die. And you have to carry the
+suckers over miles of terrain and even mountains.
+
+This game handles scale very elegantly. The map is _huge_, even larger than
+Skyrim or Breath of the Wild. You are the UPS man who delivers packages,
+apocalypse be damned. This game gives you a lot of quiet downtime, which really
+lets you soak in the philosophical mindfuck that Kojima cooked up for us all. As
+you approach major cities, guitar and vocal music comes in and the other sound
+effects of the game quiet down. It overall creates a very sobering and solemn
+mood that I just can't get enough of. It seems like it wouldn't fit in a game
+where you use your own blood to defeat monsters and drink _monster energy_ out
+of your canteen, but it totally does.
+
+There is some mild product placement. Your canteen is full of Monster energy
+drink. Yes, that Monster. Making the player defecate shows you an ad for an AMC
+show. There's also monster energy drinks in your safe room that increase your
+max stamina for a bit. I'm not entirely sure if the product placement was chosen
+to be there for artistic reasons (it's surreal as all hell and helps to
+complement the confusing aspects of the game), but it's very non-intrusive and
+can be ignored with little risk.
+
+This game also has online components. Every time you build a structure in areas
+linked to the chiral network, other players can use, interact with and upgrade
+them so they can do more things. Other players can also gives you likes, which
+again do nothing. Upgrading a zipline makes it able to handle a larger distance
+or updating a safe house lets you play music when people walk by it. It really
+helps to build the motif of rebuilding America. There is however room for people
+to troll others. Here's [an example of
+this](https://twitter.com/Brad_barnaby/status/1193084242743312384). There's a
+troll ladder to nowhere. There's a lot of those laying around mountains, so be
+on your guard.
+
+Overall, Death Stranding is a fantastic game. It's hard. It's unforgiving. But
+the real thing that advances is the skill of the player. You make the
+deliveries. You go the distance. You do your job as the post-apocalyptic UPS man
+that America needs.
+
+<center>![UPS Simulator 2019](/static/img/ups-simulator-2019.jpg)</center>
+
+By [mmmintdesign](https://twitter.com/mmmintdesign) [source](https://twitter.com/mmmintdesign/status/1192856164331114497)
+
+Score: 10 out of 10  
+Christine Dodril's Game of the Year 2019
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