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Death Stranding is a game I’ve had a complicated relationship with over the five years since its release. In this analysis/retrospective, let’s discuss how Hideo Kojima’s art project eventually became one of my all-time favourite games.
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Death Stranding represents one of the most complicated relationships I’ve ever had with a game. Releasing half a decade ago in 2019, it was a game whose grand ambition I could greatly appreciate, but whose structure left me feeling mixed on the overall experience. Describing said experience at the time led to one of my most disliked videos, and all the intense, downright strange bile that accompanied such a deviation from fan consensus. It was difficult to even think about returning to, let alone talk about, the game that generated such a response.
Cut to five years later, and a recent playthrough confirmed Death Stranding to be one of my favourite games. In this lengthy video, I discuss why that is, defining my own experience with the game, the nature of art criticism in an engagement-driven ecosystem, and why sometimes great art requires a little time.
0:00 – Death Stranding is About Time
2:22 – Death Stranding is Now a Favourite
4:11 – Sponsor
5:17 – My Past Relationship With Death Stranding
7:22 – The Important Story in Death Stranding
10:45 – Breaking Up the Journey
11:48 – A Controversial Decision
14:14 – Death Stranding is not as hostile as you think
16:06 – A Meditative Experience
18:35 – We All Missed the Point of Death Stranding
21:14 – I was wrong about Death Stranding
23:22 – Outro
#deathstranding #deathstranding2 #hideokojima
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Text intro by Isaac Holland – http://twitter.com/drazgames
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Thanks for watching! Feels good to really love this game now. Hope you enjoyed the video.
Not even started watching yet, but I'm so excited to hear your thoughts on this incredible game. It's truly one that hits everyone at different times. Everyone tries it and the game plants a seed. Then one day, they come back when they need it most and it changes lives.
I lost my Dad last year, when my baby was 7 months old, so it was a rough time. My husband suggested I played Death Stranding because it might help a bit.
I really struggled with it to start with, but it genuinely helped! I didn't feel as alone and isolated. I can't put into words exactly how it helped in the immediate aftermath of my dad's passing, but it did.
It was also good to be able to walk around when I couldn't/ didn't want to go outside.
11:43 I fucking swear it wouldn't let me take the zip line with a cart attached, wtf? Update?
I'll never forget the american's reaction to Kojima calling them out on not understanding the game
My friend and I were huge Kojima fans, and we all started Death Stranding on day 1.
I got bored of it after 3 days, took a short break (of a month) then came back to finish it, had amazing experience.
My friend grinded his teeth and speedrun till the end, he hated it so much…. cuz he wanted to see the story so bad, he ended up walking his way back… while I took my sweet a** time to build the roads and got to drive all the way home
I like Kojima but this game isn't for me. Would rather play something a little more fast paced like MGSV
Deadstrinding was the best that happened to me during the lockdown.s
I’ve been homeless for the past year and a half and the main thing I want to get an apartment for is the ability to play death stranding 2
Love your videos dude. Death Stranding is a game i think about every single day. Theres some definitely strange stuff in there but it's locked it's place in my heart and mind.
I finally bought Death Stranding after so many years ignoring it because people called it a walking simulator, they couldn't be more wrong, who ever called it a walking simulator clearly haven't played pass chapter 1. This game is now one of my all time favorite, I can not believe Kojima make walking fun.
it didnt seem like anyone really used the infrastructure I developed other than the roads. so the game failed to give me the feeling of interconnected gameplay and feeling wanted
I’m always glad to see Death Stranding resonating more and more with people over the years. I was a bit late to the party myself. I find that it’s often the most confusing and challenging pieces of art that end up staying with you the longest.
If you're the type who doesn't at all feel the need to constantly be running in games, if you like taking your time walking around at a normal pace and taking in the scenery, there's few games that can rival Death Stranding.
Ohhh boy are you going to LOVE Snowrunner.
Death Stranding has the dumbest, stupidest, most non-sensical story I've ever seen a in a videogame. Hideo Kojima is so full of himself and people treat him like a fucking Einstein mixed with Shakespeare. Absolute garbage mumbo-jumbo. None of it made ANY sense. I cringed and rolled my eyes into my brain every time the "story" was going on. Gameplay was good even though I hated the "combat" sequences.
Told ye
On my second playthrough I realized that vehicles are noisy and reduce the experience to just holding down the accelerator.
So I decided to only use them when absolutely necessary.
Travelling on foot and with floating carriers is a much more fulfilling experience. Turning a delivery in after an onfoot trek just hits harder.
Great watch 🫡👊🏿
I hope one of these days I have the same realization everyone else has had about Death's Stranding. I feel like I'm missing something that is keeping me from clicking with it.
You’d probably enjoy Snowrunner as well, where every trip is it’s own narrative as you try to overcome its challenges. Very chill and your story about using a truck to get stuff off a truck you got stuck is exactly the kind of scenarios you end up in! It’s great fun, definitely recommend.
I cant help but laugh at the insane show of people trying to make sense of Death Stranding or make it "a great game." Death Stranding is a really poor game mostly fueld by Kojima hype trains.
Edit: Its kinda fun how you later in the video talk about this and subject views and such. Im glad you liked DS somehow but its really bizzare to watch people play DS and call it amazing when its a weird weird game that will fade away with time and deservedly so.
In terms of "giving something time", this is the same way I felt about Elden Ring. When I first started it, I wanted to beat the game, like any other. I didn't start truly enjoying Elden Ring until I stopped trying to beat it, and just tried to experience it.
Death Stranding is the best 200 hour video game I will never replay.
I love death stranding
I had a weird experience with DS. My playthrough took me about a year. I'd play it for a week or so, get really into it, and then drop it for a month or two. Rinse and repeat until i finally rolled credits I've never done that with a game before. The gameplay loop is not something i can stay engaged with for long, but the story kept pulling me bsck in. It's an incredible experience.
Death Stranding is so wonderful, and I'm so happy that people have started to appreciate it.
i dont mind the gameplay of this game ,but fuck me when the game throws 40 min cutscens at me and after those cutscenes more dialogue about it i get put off playing the game .good games integrate story telling with gameplay and dont force me to watch a movie while playing video games
Thank you for being open enough to make this video. I love when this game finally clicks with people. This game was most fun after completing the story and having ultimate freedom and fun tools (zip lines) to work with.
I loved Death Stranding when it first came out and I loved playing it again on PS5.
this game is basically post-apocalyptic Euro Truck Simulator but on foot and with ghosts, i feel like setting the expectations on this instead of an epic action adventure game would lead people to enjoy their time on the game more.
9:57 "camus would have a field day" 😂.
17:50 I love how much you dislike mario and princess beach 😂😂😂. It's funny.
18:56–19:45 I liked your video on Death Stranding. Although, when you characterizes a wide audience's response into one, reductive monadic thing, of course it'll end up as "weird" or "mixed feelings". So idk that that's bad, or whatever, it's just expected.
Kojima, you sonuvabitch. You did it again! lol
It always makes me so happy to see people come back to this game to give it another chance. Makes me even happier to see people change their minds about it. It is not a perfect game (exposition dumping perhaps being the biggest issue), and it DEFINITELY won't be for everyone… But it is one that I hope that EVERYONE tries because one won't know if it is for them or not unelss they play it themselves (at least until some of chapter 3). It is a game I recommend to EVERY person who plays games.
Me personally? I knew I was gonna love it the moment the camera pulled back on the first delivery to the incinerator and a Low Roar song started playing. I knew I'd see it to the end. And it remains one of my mos cherished gaming experiences of all time. Absolutely cannot wait for DS2!!
This game, The Phantom Pain, Dishonored, Pray and Deus Ex, belong to a rare type of game in which the player is at least as important as the creator, in which the vision of the designers doesn't surpass the reaction of the gamers to it. You couldn't have played this game more differently than I (watching you playing with the whole HUD on and running all over the place got into my nerve, for one thing), but that has nothing to do with playing it right or wrong. That is, actually, the whole point of the game.
I think you are just here for the zip line
I'm not going to lie… this is a fate I deserved. Upon it''s launch, i overshared my ire for it's basic concept. It's the antithesis to what i had come to know as gaming after all, i had a decent enough excuse. But in the years since, i've become much more of a casual gamer. I lack the time and patience to get good at things, so i play things that i'm familiar with or are simply easy… but this game simply flipped the script in ways i could never have predicted. A lot of the time, the journey is the adventure in the most organic way. Before you connect to the chiral network, there's no POIs, no paths, no blueprint… and when the story beats kick in with the soundtrack? It's almost haunting, but in a comforting way. And then the world springs to life after linking your cupid! It's strange to say i've made friends here? Strangers who'd started the game the same time as me, who I ended up making bridge contracts with. Now every time i see their structures in my world, it's a friendly reminder to keep on keeping on. Every meticulously placed vehicle, generator, timefall shelter… zipline routes that present themselves as i invest my time in the chiral network. From the dropped cargo to paths tread, and even signs… this is the most positive social experience gaming has given me in a long while, and it's without even meeting your peers "face to face." I joked about Kojima calling this game the first of it's kind when it dropped, but the joke was on me. I don't even know if death stranding 2 will provide us a similar experience lol. Never has a game focused more on being a rope, the stick always proves more popular. This was and is something special, and i'm so glad i was hilariously wrong about it! Just got BB back… in going back to reguild the roads for the homies lol
So basically, It was supposed to be zelda but kojima shot himself in the foot by kojima-ing it.
Great vid. So pumped for the sequel 😯
It was a strange one for me as I loved the story but really wasn't a fan of the gameplay. I do the majority of sidequests in most games but here I mostly mainlined it since all I really cared about was the story moving forward.
I loved this game for the boring bits and didn’t really like the exciting bits.
Mud/snowrunner at the end of the world 😂❤ I honestly this it pay it forward as a game. I build roads not for my own delivery but for everyone else, not a lot of game is really about community & a game for introvert connection very Japanese in a sense but uniquely humane game that shows we are all connected & a beautiful future for us is also beautiful for others ❤
Unknown used a road you rebuilt
Unknown used a road you rebuilt
Unknown used a road you rebuilt
Unknown used a road you rebuilt
21,342 likes 👍
I felt like a crazy person playing this at launch. Felt like all of the interwebs hated this game, meanwhile, I was in a trance and loved it.
That spray story is exactly why I loved this devicive game. It's pacing is "boring" to some but EVERY time some travel element was frustrating me, the game gave me an uograde. That tension and delight made it eeem deliberately paced to perfection
Loved playing this fascinating game during 2020 Xmas lockdown. Took it slow, about 300hrs, felt like I was adventuring, creating and helping when in real life it felt hopeless. The world sucked me in like no other and I would love to do it all over again
You & I have had the exact same thoughts about this game at the same exact times. I just came back to it a few weeks again and love it now.
Kojima himself said, it will take years for the players to understand the game. and he was certainly right about one thing, now, more and more people realize what a great experience this game was. like all of his work
In the sea of content. Your videos stand out as art.
I'm sorry, I still can't agree with your opinion that "Comrade-ree" is the way to pronounce that word
i imidiedly feell in love with the game the same way you did
have you ever done a video about Red Dead Redemption 2? seems like it would fit this channel perfectly. it is maybe the most well written game ever made.