It has been almost four weeks since I first started playing Death Stranding, the long-awaited game by the legendary video game developer, Hideo Kojima. I beat the game a few days ago after spending 86 hours and 47 minutes on it. Since then, something has been itching the nooks of my soul, heart, and mind. It was—still is, since I am now trying to complete the side missions of the game—a remarkable experience that reshaped my entire mindset and drastically altered the way I perceive life and death.
The game's setting is a post-apocalyptic, dismantled America in the faraway future where people are rarely seen outdoors due to severe climatic changes that brought "Timefall," an acid-like precipitation of rain and snow that accelerates aging and ruins everything it touches, including inanimate objects. To make things worse, there are also invisible ghostly figures known as BTs—an abbreviation that stands for Beached Things—who accompany that deadly precipitation and kill human beings on sight. Amidst this futuristic horror, there is a man called Sam Porter Bridges (played by the actor Norman Reedus) who is destined to be the one who reconnects the severed joints—or the loose "knots", as they are literally called in the game—of the broken world.
The "unsung hero," Sam, has a pod—which is a virtual or artificial womb—that contains a fully grown—also artificial—fetus called BB. The fetus has the gift of being able to see BTs and even detect them from afar. Sam is connected to the pod via a man-made umbilical cord, which makes him possess the same preternatural abilities BB has. The relationship between Sam and his BB evolves dramatically and we get to witness an exceptional, intimate, fatherly bond manifesting unapologetically. Some details, like having to soothe BB when he cries or hearing him laugh at something funny, definitely add a breathtaking, surreal dimension.
To rebuild the dilapidated world, Sam has to deliver necessary cargo to secluded areas and get them all connected into one online web, known as the "Chiral Network," that makes living a lot easier.
The game addresses several themes. The most essential ones are probably fatherhood, the ineluctability of death, loneliness, and social solidarity. The last two are brilliantly presented by the game's online mechanism that allows players share the equipment they make. Let's say, for instance, that I used a climbing anchor to traverse a mountainous area. I can leave it behind so other players would use it and I would collect points as rewards. This applies to all items players produce: ladders, ropes, electricity generators, shelters, watchtowers, bikes, trucks, paved roads...etc. However, you will never come across any other player; you merely see their vestiges and in return they see yours—a way to be reminded that you're alone in this world, but not entirely!
I remember in one of the earlier episodes of the game that I was using a motorcycle to get to my destination. The bike's electrical engine was dying, and I thought I would have to ditch the bike eventually and proceed on foot. However, just when I was about to lose hope, I found an online generator built by another player and placed in a perfect spot where most porters would be in need of electricity. I used the generator to charge my bike and I was ready to travel hundreds of extra miles. That incident urged me to pay it forward. I suddenly found myself building things I didn't really need, but I simply anticipated they would be needed by others.
The original score of the game is marvelous and incredibly captures the essence of the entire journey. Kojima's musical taste has always been phenomenal, so the beauty of the in-game music was unsurprising at all.
At the beginnings of the game, Sam is required to dispose of the dead body of someone to whom he was closely related. His mission was to deliver the cadaver to the incinerator. In the final chapter of the story, he goes to the incinerator again to deliver another dead body of another person to whom he was closely related. The cycle was complete, and so was the revelation he sorely needed.
This game offers a virtual reality that is teeming with virtues the real life lacks so desperately. The desolate landscape in that fictional world seems a lot brighter and more hopeful than our real world, where loneliness is felt the most when we are amidst hordes of people; the reason is simply because we are a dismantled nation of stupid fucking homo sapiens.
Now, if you please excuse me, I have deliveries to make and roads to build and pave for fellow human I have never met. Fuck this world and have a nice day!
No comments:
Post a Comment