Th-thank you Boss!
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is due for release on PlayStation 5 in June, and let’s hope it doesn’t take eight months to come across to PC this time. Creator and director Hideo Kojima has just done a big interview with IGN to accompany some preview coverage, within which he just cannot stop with the Metal Gear comparisons.
This has been a notable element of Death Stranding 2’s marketing, even. The release of a 10 minute long trailer (yes, really) in March made the Metal Gear links overt, with new character Neil giving us a new version of Snake’s bandana-tying, and a mech unmistakably reminiscent of Metal Gear Rex.
To be clear, Metal Gear remains a Konami property and none of these references or echoes are in any way official: but it does feel very much that Kojima, having firmly established himself and Kojima Productions, is now much more comfortable with his own legacy. To the extent that, when explaining the differences between Death Stranding and its sequel, he immediately reaches for the leap between Metal Gear Solid and its own sequel.
“I’d like to ask you to think back to the beginning of Metal Gear Solid,” Kojima told IGN. “No weapons appear at first, and you only acquire them after going up the elevator. Placing weapons at the very start will cause players to pick them up and start killing enemies, so we consciously decided to not do that. But that part turned out to be unpopular, with some people saying they couldn’t get up the elevator.
“Still, we had to design Metal Gear Solid so that players learned how stealth works. For Metal Gear Solid 2, we made it a little easier to use weapons and aim at specific parts using a POV angle, as many players were already aware of stealth games.
“It was the same for Death Stranding. There aren’t many games about delivery, so we had to get people accustomed to it first. For the sequel, we wanted to allow players that want to fight to do so more freely. Players can use weapons, and it’s now easier to drive cars and motorcycles. For the story, the first game was about Sam and Cliff, but this time one of the main themes is Lou and what her existence means.”
Lou is the Breach Baby or “BB” that Sam carries around in the first game, though here she’s now more toddler age. It is interesting Kojima picks out the vehicles: Death Stranding actually allows you to access a motorbike relatively quickly, though that brings its own traversal challenges. I thought the first game hit a nice balance of vehicles having real utility while also not trivialising how you get across the map, and I’ll be curious to see if the sequel still manages to make the walking as impactful as it could feel in the first game.
Another open world element that casts Kojima’s thoughts back to bygone times is the day and night cycle, though here the comparison comes from the very end of the Metal Gear series and the stupendously good Phantom Pain.
“We did [a day/night cycle] in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain as well, but I wanted to properly include the passage of time in an open world,” says Kojima. “Gazing at the sky as the sun rises and sets is something that couldn’t been done in the first game, in part due to engine-related reasons, but it’s been put into the sequel.”
Kojima goes on to discuss some specifics of lighting changes and his desire to control exactly how specific scenes look rubbing up against the dynamism of this system (“this is a game, not a movie”).
“We also included the option to go to bed and wait for the morning before leaving,” finishes Kojima. “This is something we’ve been sure to include because I imagine there will be players that don’t want to travel at night. Metal Gear Solid 5 had a system where you could smoke to advance time, but this game does it in more natural ways, like going back to bed in a private room after waking up once.”
I don’t think you could get more natural than the Phantom Cigar, which always made me smile thanks to its “woooah-oooh” music and fast-forward effects, but good to know anyway that we’ll have some control over when we do things in Death Stranding 2. Finally we come to what looks to be the biggest distinction between this and the original game, which is the emphasis on combat.
“It’s not that I’m simply pushing combat,” says Kojima. “The game is still fundamentally about cargo delivery, but combat has become more flexible. Some of the staff on Death Stranding 2 worked with me on the Metal Gear series, so there were times when people worried that it was getting a little Metal Gear-ish. My personal explanation for it is that we simply pursued more enjoyable combat. This is actually connected to the theme of ‘we should not have connected.'”
Erm… so even Kojima’s own staff thought it was getting a little bit too much like Metal Gear, but he just thinks that’s because it’s “enjoyable.” Well OK! I mean, MGS5’s probably some of the most fun I’ve ever had in an open world combat game, so bring it on. Kojima also adds that, while stealth is an important element of the game, “that doesn’t mean that you will be forced into stealth: I don’t even use stealth myself.”
Finally I found myself rather amused by the fact that Kojima himself didn’t fully engage with the Social Strand System of the first game, which refers to the semi-persistent building that players can engage in across the landscape. I love the idea of this and used it a little to create many smaller elements in the world, but when it came to larger projects like the giant highways I left it to others and just contributed the odd bundle of resources.
“When I play the game myself, I use ladders and make bridges, but I don’t build any of the highways; I just use what someone else made,” says Kojima. “That’s why I was concerned if people would really make roads themselves when the game came out, but it turned out that a lot of people did nothing but that. That was a pleasant surprise for me. I wanted to make sure that the sequel would have more interesting things to do for those players as well. The monorail is one such element.”
Death Stranding 2 really does sound like it could be something special. My love for Kojima’s games is no secret, and seeing him once again return to the rich vein of ideas that ran through Metal Gear feels like a long-overdue homecoming. It felt like the acrimonious nature of his split from Konami and the director going solo left him a little fearful of being too explicit about his legacy the first time around, but make no mistake: Hideo Kojima was and will always be Mr. Metal Gear.
We’ll have to wait and see how that manifests in the full experience when Death Stranding 2: On the Beach makes its way to PC. But I’m happy to say one thing right now. Good to have you back, Boss.
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