IT Blog | Mr. HiTech Tech Blog

There is no elevator pitch for Death Stranding. Every inch of Death Stranding teems with meaning or implication. Even the stupidest and most pretentious developments build to create a multi-layered game, one with numerous potential points of attack to analyze. It is a story about fatherhood. It is a broad dig at the gig economy. It is deeply concerned with upcoming environmental disaster and American politics, old and new.Death Stranding is also about throwing grenades made from your own piss and shit at ghosts. It is about hiking alone in the wilderness for hours. It is a tireless grind. It is a commentary on social media and the internet, delivered through the asynchronous interactions players can have with one another as they play. It is breathtaking in scope, consistently intelligent in design, and beautiful to behold. It is a heaping pile of pretentious nonsense. It is a game in which characters drop overwrought interpretations of K?b? Abe quotes. Its most recurring visual motif is a not-so-subtle gesture towards Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. It progresses not with the quiet stroke of a pen but with the pounding crash of a hammer. “I brought you a metaphor,” one of the characters says late in the game. It is stupid, and obvious, and perfect.Death Stranding is also Hideo Kojima’s first major project following his departure from Konami in 2015. The context is charged: here is a widely acclaimed “auteur,” supposedly shackled by corporate overlords let loose at last, ready to blow your mind open with a masterpiece. The game follows on the heels of the tragic cancelation of Silent Hills, which was to be a video game collaboration with film director Guillermo del Toro, starring Norman Reedus. (Reedus now stars in Death Stranding, along with del Toro and tons of other celebrities.)Then there’s the supposed weirdness of Death Stranding itself. During development, its plot and gameplay were tightly guarded secrets, with exorbitant and celebrity-laden trailers providing the only hint of what was to come. The game has been mythologized through its marketing, and Kojima—already considered a legend—has been further mythologized along with it.But that narrative is replete with mischaracterizations. Kojima is a man with a highly skilled team at his disposal, decades of experience, celebrity friends, and millions of dollars in Sony backing. He’s no scrappier than any other rich and famous person. Because of this, there are two Death Strandings. There is the one in public consciousness, and there is the one that I have played. The first is a dream, an impossible (and frankly unnecessary) vindication of games as art created by a glorified mastermind. The actual game is a fantastic mess.But is it good, Heather? Yes, friends. I love it.Death Stranding is set in an alternate future where a cataclysmic event called the Death Stranding has devastated most of the world. The incident, described as a great explosion, has blurred the lines between the land of the living and the afterlife. In the world of Death Stranding, there is in
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