Death Stranding: a story of death and connection ☠?
When Kojima speaks or writes, the world stops.
In the past, his different activities on social networks have had reactions in which they raise Kojima as a god and their titles as masterpieces. Today we talk about Death Stranding, the latest title of Kojima Productions.
A video game that has managed to drive the entire community of players crazy for every trailer, every announcement, every new piece of information … But the hype is a dangerous weapon.
Announced in 2016, it was published in November 2019, and the wait seems worthwhile judging by the reaction of the community.
The story unfolds in a world divided by a terrible cataclysm that seems to have condemned humanity to its extinction. Time has passed, but fear remains in people’s hearts.
However, there are a few who are willing to fight for the future. Hope prevails if you work for it, and what makes this world better is connection.
Death Stranding is developed in Decima, an engine where games like Until Zero Dawn or Killzone Shadow Fall have been created. It took 3 years to finalize its development since it was announced, as we explained, and the deployment of resources has been enormous.
It has professional actors who have contributed cinematic and high-caliber interpretations, greatly improving the narrative.
However, not everything is good in this story, in terms of development:
DEATH STRANDING has the element of something never existed before, the gameplay, the world atmosphere, the visuals which we aimed to create. The studio I established was tiny indies but trying our best to deliver the product launching on Nov 8th. Still in crunch time of dev? pic.twitter.com/sNvTAc7wwB
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) August 1, 2019
“Still in crunch time” is key. For those who don’t know the term, it’s a period of time, usually close to the release dates, in which the video game development teams work all the hours they need to deliver the product on time, leaving labor rights in the background.
It is not the first time we have seen this phenomenon in videogame development studios, as it happened a long time ago in Rockstar. In the case of Death Stranding, this whole thing went much more unnoticed. Maybe because of Kojima’s reputation or endorsement? It is hard to say.
Despite this situation, we cannot ignore the final result. All this work and effort allows us to enjoy today an adventure about the connection of humanity that is surrounded by death, separated by overwhelming and lonely landscapes.
Have you tried it? Have you survived its long roads full of threats? Let us know about your experience in the comments section!
Written by: Elena Guzmán, part of Idiwork’s team.