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

i think i figured out that I’m my own BB? i didn’t understand wtf was going on tbrr

Kojima wept

i didn’t like that the game made me treat BB - i mean, ‘Lou’ - in a way that i totally didn’t want to just in order to advance the story and finish. but i liked the uncanny bit where reedus winds up in the past, in the hospital, interacting with past events. super weird. can’t even remember now what happened with deadman. die hardman’s the new president of jack shit, so that’s exciting for him.

deadman keeps on keep in’ on

if anyone is not here for SPOILERS set bookmark after my post now


it was kind of touching, and despite it being heavily telegraphed I was kind of surprised by the “current BB is not flashback BB” twist. that was my character! I was loved, and not by creepy extinction president! Mads is my dads.

tbh I want Mads to be my dad though

oh i just assumed that from the beginning!

I was too busy dumping my packages in a creek to ponder it

started this yesterday. bonkers. I've no idea what I'm doing. Just clinging on for dear life p much

keep on keepin' on 👍

My name’s Sam too!

this game's giving me some weird-ass dreams already.

No idea how to avoid areas swarming with timefall and BTs. Managed to escape by the skin of my teeth just by button bashing and hoping for the best, much to the detriment of my cargo.

If my cargo gets destroyed, or if a BT kills me, is it better to go back to a save point, or just continue? I'm not sure I really understand how reptriation really works.

i will admit restarting from a previous save a couple of times rather than lose my cargo and redo the mission.

many/most/all of the time you can't really avoid BT territory - you have to creep your way through it. but if you're patient you shouldn't have to actually fight them.

they seem to grab me no matter what but maybe i'm freaking out and being clumsy. feels like the rain damages a lot of my cargo whatever happens

the rain gets easier

keep in mind container damage doesn't count against you

it's trickier toward the beginning, but the main thing to remember is to be cautious and patient. make sure you're crouching, constantly re-scan, and if you have to creep by in relative close proximity, hold your breath

I played a little bit over the weekend to visit a few people I hadn't found originally. The Veteran Porter is in a cool spot, although running down that hill is ridiculous!

wait whaaa?? never knew about him

Does scanning tell you where BTs / timefall is? I thought it was just for terrain and landmarks?

nope, but other porters will often leave helpful signs warning of timefall or BTs that you can see on the map or while you're strolling by

I meant the odradek scanning so you can see the BTs hovering there as opposed to the map

Cool.

One thing that frustrates me (and maybe it's my telly to blame) is how small some of the info on screen is.
I've increased the font size, but even so, some writing is still quite tiny. As for icons, it's really hard to see what button I'm supposed to press for what.
And in compass mode, my cross-hairs get lost in the landscape and feel super sensitive, so I'm always scanning past what I'm trying to identify. Anyone else getting this?

i almost never used compass mode so idk

my screen is 26” and it was just baaaarely big enough - i had to sit pretty close

oh yes that’s true about scanning for BTs - if they’re close enough they will show up! i got into a little rhythm of creep, stop, scan, creep etc

Huh, okay I use Compass quite a lot. Maybe I'm doing things 'wrong'?

I'm amazed at how involved this game makes me feel.

Weird dreams I've been having since I started playing notwithstanding, when I finally managed to track a long route around BT territory last night, suffering BB autotoxema on the way and dashing desperately towards my target outpost, the sense of relief when the receivers patted me on the back and I finally got to plug my BB back into its 'womb' was immense.

I had a shower (actually I had two) and sat on my bed looking at various things in my room for like 5-10 minutes, a bit like I would after an IRL hard day at work.

I spent a significant amount of time going through my Odradek, reading interviews and tips. In fact the Odradek is such a huge huge part of the game. I just wish it had been designed better. It seems incredibly over-detailed and fiddly and text-based. The whole thing feels ugly and clunky, like a beta version of something that's still in development. In some ways I feel like this about the whole world of the game - it's incredibly detailed and rendered but it's also ramshackle and ugly and the main character looks like a mess and the technology looks scrobbled together like they're still working on it.

While I was showering, I got some communication from Deadman where he apologised for interrupting me on my 'break' and it occurred to me that I had been treating this respite as a sort of break, which is ridiculous. I'm playing a computer game ffs, why does it feel like I need to take virtual 'breaks' from it where I'm effectively staring into space?

And I guess that's one of the main themes in Death Stranding: man's relationship with labour. Why am I compelled to find this arduous trudge enjoyable? Why am I so relieved when I reach my destination? Then there's the whole thing with the MULEs and Homo Demens and their own obsession with cargo and portering. Reminds me of one of my favourite books, The Pale King, by David Foster Wallace, which is similarly a meditation on boredom and drudgery and how different people approach this.

okay Gawd... another parallel with actual real work is that there's SO MUCH to take on board,
it feels like my first week on the job and I'm being bombarded with different admin tasks I'm supposed to understand, being given complicated systems training I can barely keep up with etc..
I feel like I walked in on my first day expecting to do some heavy lifting, and I'm getting told I'm doing great etc but also that there's a bunch of stuff I have to know first

great posts dl! it's true this game is a lot about your relationship to work, and being tasked. all (most of) the holograms at the various depots are so relentlessly upbeat and fawning over what you do i feel like it's a bit of an ego-boost placebo for most of us who play this game who probably don't get nearly enough of this at our actual jobs.

I can only hope I'd be as kind to someone who brought new underwear to my post-apocalyptic underground bunker

Kojima in 2019: this game is set in a near future where people live in self isolation hiding from an invisible threat, as a delivery man you play a key role in keeping society alive
Everyone: haha ok kojima

— Hal is in the air tonite (@halphelt) March 19, 2020

So strange that I started playing this almost to the day coronavirus hit the UK. As such I am finding it all at once strangely close to home, somewhat close to the bone and strangely comforting.
Unlike the Witcher, I'm quite content to play just one mission at a time and it doesn't seem to frustrate me if I get stuck or lose all my parcels and have to start again.

You'd think that having to start a mission over after you've trudged miles and miles while trying to stop parcels falling off your back would have the opposite effect, and that after a couple of attempts at getting through BT territory one would get frustrated and quit. But somehow I don't seem to mind. I die, I quit the game and come back to it afresh the next day hoping to find a new and better route.

That said, I'm still only on Lvl2, hoping to reach Lake Knot City. Haven't got the hang of getting past BTs

...oops posted without finishing...

I have tried throwing grenades at them but somehow they still manage to grab me and throw me around like a rag doll. Those parts are especially stressful.

If you create a voidout, is that it? Is it there for the rest of the game? Do you mind? Do you just continue as is, or do you generally go back to an old save point?

you just have to be patient with BTs. crouch, hold your breath while moving, stop, catch your breath, repeat.

not sure about the voidouts tbh.

i think i heard that they eventually clear up? i luckily never had one.

I find some of the confrontation mechanics almost deliberately clunky. like, I'll be confronting a BT and trying to throw a grenade at it, but somehow and for a reason I can't work out, Sam decides to freeze.
I'm also completely unsure how to use that decoy cargo on MULEs. With them I'm trying to use the Bola gun but mostly I just punch them and they go down fairly easily

Every time I think I’m done making Death Stranding Real jokes, the universe throws me a bone pic.twitter.com/JvNoVYI0pN

— Social “Distancing” Snake (@hyenasandgin) April 5, 2020

fuck

https://ve.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_q85k2aanvS1rh1xia.mp4

that is quite a trip

I’ve seen that a few times and there are a couple tells but it’s still somehow anxiety fuel

lol, you guys need to see the real life version of this that takes place in the first half hour of the 2019 film Aquarela; it will break your mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDCmNx22AF8

My wife wants to know where I’m going with all those suitcases on my back. “Just to the store, babe”

xp looks good

That Tracer Hand vid is dope

Also marking down that Ulysses rec

I wrote a thing about Death Stranding https://thequietus.com/articles/28177-death-stranding-video-game-review

cool article, dl!

in other news: death stranding real (and this is not good)

Straight out of a video game: China’s ubiquitous food-delivery app https://t.co/O6kOT9RrJG caught the Chinese internet’s attention this week after testing a powered exoskeleton for its couriers. The exoskeleton endows the wearer with the strength to carry up to 50 kg with ease. pic.twitter.com/4elmxRhLDU

— Sixth Tone (@SixthTone) April 30, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDqTwSO1DDc

Finally completed this last night. As expected, the ending is an increidble piece of exposition wrapped up in genius. Still not quite sure I completely understand everything, but maybe it would be worse if I did. Still need to do the Chapter 15 bonus episode. Looking forward to tracking down the hidden porters and generally bossing the rest of the map with zip-lines and whatnot.

I've decided to put DS down for a while and go back to zip lining the map and completing the extra deliveries another day. that said, there's a DS shaped hole in my life now which I'm having trouble filling. Other, perfectly good, games seem facilities, Hollywood-ised and sophomoric by comparison.
I don't want to get all 'You have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick & Morty' here. It is a game in which you piss grenades after all, but is there anything else on PS4 which comes close to the level of depth; games for grown-up if you will, which prize pacing and patience over pell mell shoot/slash thrills?

I’m on the second WW2 shoot em up level, have tried and failed about ten times so far. Mads is one nimble fucker. Game slightly insulting when it tells me I can adjust the difficulty if I need to - but f that.

i found those really difficult. make sure you’re using the blood rounds rather than normal bullets. i was never able to use the grenades effectively - it was all about the guns.

they are definitely among the tougher and more stressful parts of the game. they come so unexpectedly and it's a completely different style of game play that it's intensely jarring, truly horrific in places. make sure to scan regularly and pick up ammo. each one took me several goes