Bridging Themes in Death Stranding
To be clear, this is my perspective. You are entitled to your opinion. If you agree with me then great, if not, that is also fine. I am also aware that news outlets such as The Washington Post and Polygon have posted videos and articles attempting to answer the “what is it” question. I refrained from reading and watching reviews, articles, commentary of any kind about Death Stranding once early reviews started to be posted online. I wanted to experience the game on my own terms first before I engaged in a public discourse. Here we go.
Death Stranding is a perplexing game. That much was made clear with trailers sprinkled throughout the years after Death Stranding was announced at E3 2016. Many people, and I, were happy to see Hideo Kojima back at what he does best which is creating experiences in virtual realms. For years now, my friends and I pondered quite frankly, “What the hell is it?” “It” referring to not just genre of the game, but what the narrative is really talking about? What is its purpose? Most importantly, is this a game for me? All valid questions. I spent a couple hours playing Death Stranding since its release and I think I figured out what Death Stranding “Is” or at least, the themes within it.
Death Stranding is a game about life and death. Beached Things or BTs have ravaged America to become a desolate and bleak abyss. BTs are the spirits, harbingers of death in the game. People who die necrotize thus becoming BTs. BTs leave behind massive craters wherever the body was fully necrotized. Bridge Babies (BBs) are the lifelines that connect the real world to the spiritual realm. Main protagonist, Sam Porter Bridges, can sense BTs, therefore hypervigilance is not something Sam does, but literally embodies. Most importantly, Sam is a repatriate, so when Sam “dies” his soul is taken from his body. The player controls Sam’s soul to swim back to his body. After that, Sam is brought back into the world of the living.
It is a game about politics. America has been badly stripped of human life that it is a nation of desolation. The United Cities of America (UCA) via the Bridges program is on a mission to put the proverbial pieces back together. The population is depressingly low. President Strand stated that no is having children anymore. It is understandable on why procreation is not an option for people. In a nation in which death is literally looming everywhere why subject another human life to that kind of existence.
It is a game about connection and separation. As Sam Porter Bridges, you must connect America via the chiral network. The chiral network connected cities from the east to west coasts, but due to BTs and a separatist group known as Homo Demens, several cities have lost that connection. Death Stranding plays on both physical conceptions of connection as well as emotional. As Sam, one must go city to city to connect them to each other and ultimately to the movement of American reconstruction. However, the paths are long and arduous, so Sam’s BB is the only other human life to interact with on the journey. BB is a baby in a capsule and Sam is a package deliver. Though an enclosed capsule keeps BB and Sam from ever sharing a loving embrace, it is the connecting port in Sam’s suit that allows that allows for a kind of symbiotic relationship. BB helps Sam detect BTs and Sam provides BB with a feeling of human connection.
Lastly, Death Stranding is about boundaries. Christena Nippert-Eng’s (1996) Home and Work: Negotiating Boundaries Through Everyday Life talks about the boundary (mental, physical, temporal, etc.) lines we create between what we consider our “home” and our “work.” Using George Simmel’s (1985) conversation on “the bridge”, Nippert-Eng discusses a bridge as being a large structure that connects a body of land together. When a person is driving over an extremely large bridge, it is important to be mindful of speed and steering wheel position to prevent falling off the bridge. For such a fall would be horrible. Furthermore, Nippert-Eng (1996) discusses mental bridges for she asserts:
“…the more we segment, the more conscious we are of transitional home-work movement and its absolute necessity for participation in either realm. The more we segment, the more preoccupation with other-realm thoughts in an other-realm frame of mind is a formidable barrier to effectively participating in either realm. If we fail to complete our ‘bridge’ crossings, we may feel stranded in a kind of mental ‘Never Land.’” (p. 109).
By this logic, a person can have clear boundaries between the tasks and behaviors they perform between home and work. However, the more we stray away from one realm, we may entrap ourselves into a mental lawlessness of uncertainty of what either realm is about if one fails at (re)establishing the connections between our realms. Death Stranding crosses the boundary between life and death with BB technology and attempts to reconnect the boundary of hope and country. However, Nippert-Eng’s work is focused on home and work boundary making. It is clear what Sam’s work is, but where is Sam’s home? That remains unclear even hours into playing the game.
Death Stranding blurs the boundaries of videogame and cinema because the first ten to fifteen minutes of the game, one is watching a cutscene. Several cutscenes happen before a player…well plays. There are many cutscenes in this game. The game is divided into episodes, but that just means a character is more in focus within an episode than others. If any of this is good or bad for the game’s pacing, that is completely up to the player.
This game is frustrating. Several times when I agree to do an order and see of how far I must travel, I utter, “dammit!” or “sheesh!” As Sam, you are walking on foot most of the time to get to places. It took me a while to understand how packing gear loadouts worked. Also, the pace of the game may feel too slow for some folk.
Personally, Death Stranding is great because it forces me to think critically about videogames as a medium. It’s kind of my job as games researcher to think about these things. If that is not what you are looking for that is completely okay. Even if you do think critically about games, and you still dislike Death Stranding…alright, cool. Death Stranding is an acquired taste, but one should try it before passing judgement.
Is it the greatest game of 2019? Maybe. It is the worst game of 2019? Definitely not. Over-hyped? Possibly. Is it a game that sparks chatter amongst members of the game community about the ways in which folks gatekeep or harbor thoughts that reflect the ill will towards new perspectives on games? I believe so. Death Stranding raises these questions and so much more. Love it or hate it, one cannot deny Hideo Kojima was cognizant his game being controversial. Only time will tell if Death Stranding will meet its own death as a game forgotten in years to come or live on within the next generation of game developers.
Now excuse me, BB needs a nap before the next delivery.
