Will Death Stranding 2 make it as easy to hate as the first game? Like attempting to balance on a ladder over a precipice, DS2 succeeding where DS1 failed is a shaky proposal at best.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not champing at the bit to unabashedly jump down DS2’s throat with reckless abandon and unyielding hatred as I tear the game to pieces with morbidly delightful glee: I just suspect that is what is likely to happen. I don’t want to be a monster to this game series, but it leaves me little choice in response to it’s inanity.


You are what you eat (drink)?

When Death Stranding 1 (DS1) came out, I had fallen out of the habit of writing about games on the regs, so I never really got the chance to give it a full dressing down in written format, and something I will likely never get around to. As I’ve brought up before, the irony of writing about games you don’t like is that when it’s not technically one’s job to play them, then there remains the queer point of contention why one would engage with them at all, let alone to write about them…


…cause of the crushing burden of hatred involved, you see.

However, in the spirit of dutiful betterment, with the idea of “my love of the game” in mind….though ironically, not my love of Death Stranding; the “metaphorical game”, the jousting with challenging ideas, the combat of grappling with the contentious other, the spirit of intellectual pursuit via triumphing through adverse entanglement, etc…that “metaphorical game”, that love will see me grant merciful amnesty to a game I swore off so long ago.
To that point, I will use the excuse of the launch of the second game to give the series a chance to explain itself in a crossed fingers moment of hoping Kojima ceases the absurdist belligerence and art house nonsense, stops talking shit long enough for DS2 to act as some kind of apology letter to DS1, and perhaps see some return to form more in line with his developmental output while still at Konami.


If flopping around as a naked ninja is the equivalent of eating crow, gag me hard.

I know he’s been discussing elements of Metal Gear Solid as of late, in reference to both his work on a future title Physint, which sounds as if it will approach a similar tone and style to MGS, and in the same spirit of self-referential callback within regards to how Death Stranding is concerned, Kojima’s undying love of both cinema and stealth action has led him to include some Solid Snake stand in relevatory glory as a character in DS2, so perhaps the old boy is now in his old habits die hard phase, which would be ideal, cause the more we have a motivated Kojima to put some actual game in his video game, the more likley DS2 won’t turn out to be a similar shit show as the first one.


Silver lining moment: the bar is low.

Death Stranding 2 launches June 26th.

~Pashford