Hideo Kojima and his team have finally dropped the new Death Stranding trailer after months of teasing, and the wait has been worth it. While still mysterious and filled with an air of danger, this trailer has shown a lot more than the other trailers. Expect the same beautiful visuals, uncanny facial feature, and Futuristic Lovecraftian design from the last trailers, but instead we get a showcase of a bunch of little gameplay and world details.
First and foremost, many peoples suspicions and worries were put to rest as they finally displayed action and combat for the first time within Death Stranding. After the E3 2018 gameplay reveal of Death Stranding which mainly showed the (assumingly) main character Sam trans-versing the world and sneaking past some “B.T.’s” many were concerned that the game would be a glorified walking simulator. Well they can fret no more, sneaking and hand-to-hand combat were displayed with dodging and a very visceral and smooth animation. Sneaking around a recreation of a World War I battlefield and gunplay in what seems to look like a trench were present to give even more insurance to those a bit skeptical that this game would not feature action.
But enough about just the action, this trailer also gave us a huge look at the universe at play. Two new characters have been revealed, along with the names of many previously shown characters in what seemed like the most badass line up reveal I’ve ever witnessed in a trailer. The trailer showed a character named “Mama” being portrayed by Margaret Qualley, and “Heartman” being portrayed by Nicholas Winding Refn. All other previously shown characters other than Sam were finally given a name with Lea Seydoux’s character being Fragile, Mads Mikkleson’s character being Cliff, Guillermo Del Toro’s character being Deadman, Tommie Jones’s character being Die-hardman, Troy Bakers character being Higgs, and Lindsey Wagner’s character being Amelie. With Sam Porter Bridges, Cliff, and Fragile, it seems that characters adopt the name of their “company” or it is used as a moniker for them in this new fallen world. While it is possible to string together a narrative of what could possibly be happening, we can assume that what we know is just the tip of the iceburg. What we can assume is that time traveling hi-jinks will be involved, along with a terrorist group lead of Troy Baker’s character Higgs, which is no doubt a reference to the Higgs Boson particle. Physics and science also takes one a major role, it was discovered a while ago that upon the necklace pieces that Sam wears actually as physics equations inscribed onto them, but now we finally get to see the necklace used in some sort of lab setting.
So far, what we know is that somehow Sam Porter Bridges is tasked with reconnecting people again, creating ropes to connect people, instead of creating sticks that keep people away, Death Stranding wants to break the tradition of most games being about “sticks” and wants to make a game about “rope”.
Confused like we are? well take a look at the trailer yourself.
