We’re no strangers to Hideo Kojima’s dense and engaging plots that have kept us playing through all of his masterpieces. But, initially what we’re shown can be confusing as Hideo likes it. Lucky for you we took the time to watch, analyse and discuss the launch trailer for ‘Death Stranding’.
The trailer kicks off with the camera focused on what appears to be a beach, seemingly in the aftermath of an ecological disaster, the most obvious guess would be that of an oil leak of some kind? After panning and revealing a naked human body we’re introduced to what we assume is our protagonist, portrayed by The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus. As we first see him he appears next to a small baby seemingly connected by an umbilical cord, in similar fashion at the end of the trailer we pan out to see the environment in which he is standing strewn with animal carcasses seemingly connected by umbilical cords too. Though in this instance those cords appear to come from the ocean itself.
More confusing, in my opinion at least, is the main character himself; he appears completely naked, showing hand marks all over his body, wearing a strange looking necklace and appears to have been handcuffed? Could this suggest he may have been a test subject who escaped to find himself stranded in this grim looking environment?
We’re shown a touching moment when Norman picks the aforementioned child up and starts sobbing pointing to some form of reconnection? Suddenly the child appears to vanish and as the character stands up we see a cross section of scaring along his abdomen, could this suggest the child is taken from him or part of him? Furthermore at the beginning we see handprints in the sand moving toward the protagonist before he’s revealed, could we be looking at a formless being able to take different shapes or is this simply Kojima showing us a fractured psyche of the game’s lead?
When Reedus’ character fully stands up, the look on his face is not fearful, but rather seems to analyse the environment, his look almost angry or vengeful. Could he be the cause of the desolate, corrupted beach, filled with dead fish? And the five human looking figures in the sky. Who or what are they?
Kojima definitely caught all of our attention with this trailer. There’s certainly a lot going on and as with anything Kojima so much potential for interpretation? What do you think of Death Stranding? Is there some details you reckon we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments below.
Richard Di Stefano | @richup5