The "World Premier" of Death Stranding is Pointless

The 2017 Game Awards were last night! Woo! And while a plethora of games got a bunch of praise (NieR: Automata didn’t get nearly enough, I should add) what people really tune in for is all the exciting new games revealed during the presentation. And this year was no disappointment.

But to keep this article from going three pages, we’re going to focus on the big one for now: the “Word Premier” of Hideo Kojima’s next opus, Death Stranding.

Strap yourselves in, because it’s very long…



…and very, very pointless. For being a “world premier” it tells us next to nothing. There’s no gameplay, there’s no indication of plot... we see a few new things (invisible monster-things, a dude trying REALLY hard to kill himself, shadow monsters) but otherwise it’s just more flashing abstract imagery and some vague narration by Norman Reedus about explosions being the source, and eventual end, of all life.

No one is arguing it wasn’t a compelling watch, but to be honest, I’m too frustrated by Death Stranding to be excited for it anymore. We already had two vague, abstract trailers, Mr. Kojima, we get that you’re trying to make it enigmatic and mind-bending, but I’ve reached the point where I need at least some sort of indication of what sort of game you’re making here. Because honestly, just because your name is behind it, that’s not enough for me to trust in its quality.

That said, if I had to guess, it looks as if it’s going to be some kind of horror title, more akin to The Evil Within than his earlier work on Silent Hills. Plus, we briefly see a image of the USA in the trailer, so perhaps he hasn’t given up on fetishizing the military just yet.

But that’s all speculation. Consider my interest in this project gone until we get something more substantial.

“World Premier” my bollocks.