I was quite shocked to learn in class that only about 4 people, me included, have actually played through Death Stranding. This game, and Kojima as a whole, created such intense, controversial, and civilized discourse that I had overestimated its popularity. I was a latecomer who played the game in 2022 when the PC port came through, and my motivation for playing was out of spite: after hearing everyone criticizing the game for being a “walking simulator,” I wanted to see for myself whether Death Stranding really was such a polarizing, avant-garde game.
Ultimately, I found the game to be disappointing, but to my surprise it was not because of the “walking simulator” aspects. These mechanics of Death Stranding were actually my favorite part; specifically, I enjoyed managing how many packages you think you can take on, traversing tough terrain, building infrastructure to improve upon subsequent deliveries, and — my favorite — vibing out to Low Roar. My issues with Death Stranding stem from it’s perversion of these mechanics.
At random moments throughout the game, while you are on a delivery there is a chance for a Low Roar song to begin playing in the background (see above). The ambience of the game, combined with Low Roar’s ethereal vocals and instrumentals, combine to form a uniquely relaxing game experience. These moments, as well as the lyrics of the Low Roar songs, also further the game’s themes of isolation, depression, and hope. While yes, you are basically alone on these trips, the music manages to make you feel somewhat connected with others, mimicking your job of connecting people to the chiral network.
So it really frustrated me to learn that the game will cut off these songs entirely when you encounter any combat situation. These combat situations take the form of BT encounters and MULE camps. MULEs are this game’s version of NPC enemies, they are essentially the only other humans you will fight. And guess what, you will encounter them A LOT (see the yellow circles on the map below). BT’s on the other hand, are a little more spaced out; they are essentially ghosts that you have to sneak past, but as the game progresses you will gain new ways of countering them.
The issue with these combat situations are their frequency and their lack of mechanical depth. Unlike Kojima’s previous Metal Gear Solid games, Death Stranding heavily disincentivizes killing (long story, but dead bodies will cause big explosions or create more ghosts). So you would assume stealthing these encounters is encouraged right? Well, Death Stranding also lacks core features of stealth games, like a cover system, prone, and gun mechanics which don’t feel gross (this game’s engine feels eerily similar to MGSV, so the lack of these mechanics hurt even more). Not only does stealth just feel weird as a result, Death Stranding also immediately gives you a very powerful non-lethal tool: the Bola gun. This gun acts pretty much like a standard gun, and it trivializes any MULE encounter due to its ability to one shot headshot MULEs. So this weird, ludonarritive dissonance is created where the easiest and fastest way to deal with MULEs is to run in, Rambo style, Bola gun in hand, one-shotting all MULEs in sight. Sam, your character, also for some reason is freakishly jacked, making it so that even without a weapon you can just start brawling with your fists and usually walk out fine.
For the sake of brevity, I’m not going to go too in depth with the BT encounters. In my opinion, they are cool at the beginning, but get old very fast. Take these screenshots of the DS subreddit as proof that I’m not crazy:
It could be argued that this is the point, that BTs are supposed to be an obstacle that is not enjoyable to come across. But I think there are much better ways to make the player want to avoid an enemy besides making the enemy really grating and annoying, because that’s what BTs become — an annoyance. And I just think that’s a shame for an enemy which is so cool and had so much potential. It’s yet another case in which Death Stranding sabotages itself..
Bonus Kojima fact: BT encounters also play this annoyingly long, unskippable cutscene once an encounter starts; this wouldn’t be too bad, except for the fact that even while you are driving on roads (making you unreachable from BTs), this cutscene will STILL play.
Yes the car stopping is part of it, BT encounters make all electronics stop working for a second. Yes this happens every time. Kojima is truly an unparalleled genius.
I really like how you frame Death Stranding as a game that simultaneously commits to its most interesting ideas and then undermines them at the exact same time. Your point about the walking simulator mechanics being the best part is not necessarily an opinion I shared before, but now, to me, the core loop of weighing cargo, reading terrain, improvising routes, and getting blindsided by the perfect interjection of Low Roar is honestly where the game feels most confident. Kojima clearly wants the mood of solitude, fragility, and connection, but then he keeps inserting encounters that feel like reminders of Metal Gear. I appreciate that your critique comes from a place of actually liking parts of the game rather than dismissing it outright. You really captured what makes Death Stranding so strange!