See you on the beach - the thread for Hideo Kojima's DEATH STRANDING

I'm struck by the balance between the beauty of the landscape, the solidarity of uniting people, and the absolutely fucking depressing backstory every major character has

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukqZ5VOoK5s

minor spoiler: in one of the later plot advancing scenes -- one of the few where failing gives you a "continue" screen -- there is totally some MGS-style stealth assassination action

I haven't finished it yet, but was pleasantly surprised when my last attempt made it 3/4ths of the way through using nothing but the handcuff-like strand thing

i am not enjoying this i think

I heard it really gets going after the first 45 hours.

Judging by the totally chill debates nerds are having online about it, it’s evident Kojima did a great job with this game about bringing people together

Downvoting that comment

truly mystified by the haters

just got a "like" from a BT when cutting its strand haha

Why do some people worship Kojima? I've never played Metal Gear and really don't know anything about them, but they seems more or less like a ninja guy sneaking around and shooting people. Was that radical at the time? Are they clever in some other way? Because this game does not seem like those games, and even if someone was really into those games, this game doesn't seem a logical progression.

Someone else should take this one since I never played much beyond the first Metal Gear Solid, but I've gathered that they're extremely idiosyncratic compared to most games that involve shooting people, lots of long cut-scenes involving weird characters and an identifiable voice for dialogue, fourth wall breaking elements, and generally a sense that he was trying to question and push against the boundaries of the game he was being paid to make.

i mean you have read this thread and presumably watched at least part of at least one of the videos that have been posted. surely you have gotten some inkling of an impression of an idea that there's something going on in this game beyond package delivery, and that the metal gear games have something going on besides ninja shooting.

and that the respective package delivery and ninja shooting are top notch as it is

"The series is credited for pioneering and popularizing stealth video games[2][3][4][5] and "cinematic video games".[4][6] Notable traits of the series include stealth mechanics, cinematic cutscenes, intricate storylines, offbeat and fourth wall humour, and exploration of cyberpunk, dystopian, political and philosophical themes,[7][8] with references to Hollywood films to add flavor."

So he pioneered stealth and ... cut scenes? Are they actually good games, too? Or just iconic?

for example, I watched that Dunkey Metal Gear video - do people play the games to advance the plot, or because they are good games?

they were good for their time, i'm sure better stealth gameplay has been made in their wake

MGS series is basically socio-political thrillers questioning the cold war, history of military intervention, with a good dose of illuminati-style machinations and the titular metal gear machines, which are giant mech-type robots built as superweapons

the gameplay mechanics differ throughout the series and you can definitely play the later ones as third-person view shooters, but you're going to do poorly on objectives. with the exception of the boss battles, I'm pretty sure you can still finish them without firing a shot. it's part stealth, part tactics

Death Stranding definitely has gameplay mechanics in the same line, with the main difference being the treks over terrains. Stealth is a big gameplay mechanic when navigating around the ghostlike BTs ("beached things")

I mean, as to whether they're "good games" I have no idea how you quantify that other than noting that they're insanely popular, sell a ton of copies, inspire a myriad of fans to do videos and cosplay, and have elevated Kojima to the position you're questioning

It's definitely not a semi-ironic "so bad it's good" thing going on, although some of the story points and predictable characterization is a little eye-roll inducing. They're definitely identifiable author/producer quirks

in gameplay update:

I encountered the first instance of "better to load from a save than struggle through" since the very beginning of the game. Sometimes when someone tells you "be careful with this package" you really should pay attention

not causing a massive voidout on the way to the delivery would have probably helped with that

I guess what I was getting at is, why do some seem to revere Kojima? Is he just a cult figure? And, further, why were so many people looking forward to Death Stranding? What were they expecting and did they get that? (And does the answer to that question explain why the response has been so varied?)

he made a popular game franchise. could only be considered a cult figure due to the relative unpopularity of console gaming compared to more universally enjoyed media - the gaming franchise metal gear is popular. guy who made a popular game franchise made a new game. that is why people looked forward to it. also there were ads.

response is varied because he stole the whole idea from this:
https://youtu.be/RG4xioX7eDI

^lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKdv-IeAv2g

can you answer your question for film directors? why do some people make a big deal about e.g. Tarantino or David Lynch? it's the same idea in a different medium

It's a fair point.

the mgs games are very good - the original mgs is one of the best games on the original playstation and that's a critical consensus pick - but kojima is also an auteur, though not necessarily in a good way - he is bemoaned for long, convoluted, batshit cutscenes.

I guess what I was getting at is, why do some seem to revere Kojima? Is he just a cult figure?

ciderpress otm, but even more explicitly: Guillermo Del Toro and Nicholas Windn Refn are characters *in this game* (well, Del Toro's character is voice acted by someone else, but it's physically him)

Hideo wears his influences and aspirations openly, but it's up to you to determine how effective that presentation is

I thought this was a great (positive) review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKdv-IeAv2g

Also tells me that even if I wanted to play this, there is no reason to unless you're online playing with others. That sort of seems like the point.

idk but the game but the dunkey review is a+

bout*

xpost whoops!

Josh, you don’t play *with others*. If your PS4 is on a network at all, it’ll pick up the objects, likes, etc

None of the people I’ve “interacted” with in the game are on my friends list. I am probably overly stressing it, but there is no real multiplayer experience, more that you’re playing adjacent to others.

Also, if your PS4 has no network access it is probably bad because every dumbass company either requires a decent system software patch level to play new games, or ships games that need a patch immediately

fwiw I had internet connectivity issues twice in the last week and, while the game retained some constructs copied from others, it was mostly vanilla and played just fine

I guess I'm confused, then. Obviously my machine is on *our* network, to download games and updates and whatnot. Other than that I have it pretty locked down. But for example, if I wanted to race other real people in Mario Kart, I have to be on the Nintendo network (which I forgot I currently am, thanks to that promo!). Or, more closely, if I wanted to leave messages for other people in Dark Souls, I have to be on the pay Playstation network, don't I? I played Dark Souls entirely "offline," so I couldn't leave or receive messages for others (and didn't have to deal with invasions and whatnot). So hypothetically speaking, you're saying even if I am not on the Playstation pay network, I'd be able to leave likes and equipment for other players in this game? How? Would I have to uncheck a few privacy boxes or something?

it doesn't use ps plus so yeah as long as your ps4 is connected to the internet it'll work

Huh. So do/can other games do that, allow you to interact, directly or indirectly, with other people on the network? Does Playstation have to allow the developer permission to do that? I guess Fortnite allows you to play with other people for free, right? Who makes that decision?

There's no console-wide "opt into network access during play" setting so it's controlled by accepting the terms & conditions of the game and your willingness to have the machine connected to wifi or plugging in the network cable. I believe in DS you can go in and turn off internet access as well.

I guess we're conflating "network" with "service" here. PS Plus is a service that takes advantage of Sony's developer package for network interactions, although I'm not sure if they provide any assistance to companies in hosting game servers. Nintendo's "network" is also a service. At the basic level, "on the network" means you've connected your Playstation to a computer network. If you're downloading updates, you've connected it to an internet-connected network.

I guess if someone was predisposed to do so, they could set up firewall rules to only allow access to update servers and not game servers, but that sounds like a pain in the ass.

as far as locking down a network, unless you're specifically running a firewall and blocking all outbound connections to the internet and then whitelisting things to poke a few holes, you're not very locked down tbh

generally games that have real time synchronous online multiplayer will require the PS plus subscription. the big exception is free to play games like fortnite.

asynchronous online features like leaderboards, the stuff in death stranding, the stuff in persona etc generally don't require the subscription

I can’t remember, can you view your trophies and those of others online without psplus? That’d be kind of a dead giveaway that “offline” is fake

yeah pretty sure you can do all that social friendlist stuff without it

By "locked down" I mean that I don't keep a friends list or allow messages or any of that shit; locked down to other *players*, not to PS, who can of course push updates or whatever else they want to do.

I'm pretty sure I can view my own trophies, but I've not seen any sign of any other players, directly or indirectly, for as long as I have had the system.

For a lot (all?) real time synchronous online multiplayer games, they have a dedicated server, right? That I would be accessing via PS plus? Like, if I wanted to shoot other people in a shooting game, whether Fortnite or Doom, there is a waiting room, where other people "wait" to play one another on what is I assume a server, that - exceptions like Fortnite aside - I can only get to through PS plus? What I'm trying to figure out is how a game like Death Stranding must work (again, I haven't played it). If I "leave" something for someone, where am I leaving it so that another person can see it? Via a server I'm connected to, I assume, right? So playing the game, accepting the terms of service, means that I am connected to others whether I want to be or not, and they can leave me stuff in "my" game just as I can leave them stuff in theirs? But you're saying, by asynchronous, that this is not happening in real time, like a Dark Souls invasion, this is happening ... when? If I left something in Death Stranding, when can another person see that thing I left? And how many people can see it? And how much stuff can you leave? There must be a limit, so that these unpopulated landscapes are not suddenly cluttered with ladders and detritus. So then I've got to assume that anything I "leave" eventually disappears or expires or something, right?

Idk how Death Stranding works, but Dark Souls uses servers run by the software company for all the asynchronous stuff (messages, player ghosts, bloodstains, etc). Obviously there's some sort of algorithm for what you actually see, it's a limited subset rather than everyone playing all over the world. And it gets cached, not limited to when they're actually online.

For real-time interactions (invasions/summoning help), it's a direct peer-to-peer connection (mediated through PS+ presumably).

when you build something it gets recorded in a database of everything people have built, on some sony server somewhere

when you load up your game, after loading all your own constructions, it arbitrarily chooses some number of other people's constructions from that database and adds them to your game. you're not directly connected to other players

Does that mean it's possible to leave something useful for someone in a useful place, but that possibly no one would ever see it? Or, conversely, you could leave something totally not helpful in and unhelpful place and that might be pushed out? Also you've got to assume that these virtual things left to be randomly/algorithmically doled out refresh/delete themselves on some set schedule, to clear the virtual clutter? And if they are doled out randomly, that implies you can leave an identical helpful item right next to another helpful item, and that someone else would see your helpful item but not the item you initially saw, right? So you could be strategically helpful in a quest to juke "like" stats (assuming that helps you)?

Playing Dark Souls without PS+, I didn't even have access to asynchronous stuff (messages, player ghosts, bloodstains, etc)., beyond what the game had built in (like a few messages), right? And definitely didn't have access to any player generated messages.

yes to all those, though no one knows the exact mechanisms of how the death stranding sharing stuff works and there's no real reward for 'gaming' it anyway

Correct, I guess they could have done it so that you could see player messages without PS+ (but not summon/invade), but it's always been all or nothing.

You don't leave things *for* people. You can set up signs, bridges, etc. in the game and you see them. It seems to selectively show those in other games, and if they're "liked" by people, they seem to show up in more games.

There is no direct player-to-player "hey, I left you a waystation" metric. It trickles small amounts of content that has been liked by others into your game, and objects evaporate over time. If I build a bridge in a spot that is in an obvious path that lacks a bridge, chances are the few people who have it appear in their games may like it. So then it appears in more games, etc

There is a sort of reward, in that likes you accumulate add to one of the in-game metrics. But that same metric is added to by characters in the game.

there's no reason to juke the stats, as it were, as the things that get the most support from others are going to be the ones that are most useful to you