Game plot analysis
The title of this "Death Stranding" trailer is called "release date published preview", so it is with a relatively clear purpose of the announcement. In fact, based on scheduling and SIE's fiscal year considerations, we're already looking at a fall release date for Death Stranding, so it's just a matter of how Kojima balances the trailer's artistic expression with the commercial demands of the release.
The trailer begins with Cliff, played by Uncle Mak, talking to the camera, and you can tell by the blinking effect, the floating objects, and the yellow reflections of the mirror that Cliff is talking to the baby in the container, which Cliff refers to as BB, which is short for Bridges Baby in Death Stranding, but it's clearly a reference to Big Boss, which is also short for Bridges Baby. Cliff's lines also seem to reassure the two men facing death, as he refers to them as "Big Boss.
The camera flashes to a photo of Sam's family with the president, and the next few shots are all about Sam's motivation for his actions, which are supposed to take place early in the game. Ms. President appears to be in critical condition and is being treated in her office while she asks Sam to "reconnect" the broken and independent United States.
The rest of the narrative is very linear, with the protagonist definitely taking on the mission, entering the organization known as The Bridge, and changing into his gear from the previous trailer to get ready to go. The purpose of the bridge is to connect two places, so this organization is the UCA formed to reunite the United States.
The next part of the game is a demo of the gameplay, as Sam sets out on the road to reunite America, trekking to different places to explore and collect things. It looks to be pretty hardcore survival exploration, as there's even a standing pee icon in the UI in addition to props and weapons appearing. It's not clear how the urination works though, my personal guess is that it's due to a side effect caused by the connection between BB and Sam, which requires Sam to expel harmful substances from time to time.
Then the villains make their appearance. While the protagonists' job is to reunite the United States, the villains' job is to maintain their independence, which in the game is called "armed separatists," a term that should be particularly easy to understand for those who read the news. As villains who can fight against the protagonists, they naturally have different skills, such as the golden skull Pharaoh (Higgs), who appeared in the previous previews, this time to show you an artificial rainfall. Lightning from his fingertips is pretty cool, isn't it? I think he's the one who released the strange time rain cloud chasing Sam in the earlier footage.
In addition to summoning time rain, the dialog introduces the villains as even having the ability to orchestrate false explosions. The trailer makes it even more clear that the "armed separatists" have the ability to move instantly while covered in flames, and that there are masks underneath the masks ......
The trailer is followed by a big gameplay demo, and most likely the officially mentioned multiplayer asynchronous online component. The sneaking that Hideo Kojima specializes in is still there, along with punching, kicking, fighting and the like, plus the villains throw electrically charged javelins that look a lot like the Golden Skull's powers. At a guess, the multiplayer element of the game in this part is that props dropped by other players will be presented in another dimension, and other players who die and don't respawn will become BTs in the player's normal dimension.
Just as Sam is getting into trouble, the rain of time comes, the villains give up the chase because they have no protection, and Sam says in dialog that he can get away from the rain of time because of the advance preparation of the BB can get out of Tokyu. The dialog also mentions that BB connects people to the Other Side (the Other Side), whether this Other Side refers to the after-death world or has some other meaning is unknown. Looking back at the previous previews, the scenes where BT appeared were accompanied by rain, so it's safe to assume that BB's purpose would be to escape from BT's hands rather than to protect against the rain.
Another demonstration of BT evasion, not much new this time, but the little paw that detects seems to have been upgraded, this time with a new detection scanning function that illuminates all the BTs in front of it at once. unfortunately, Sam is still caught up in the "oil".
According to the editing logic, the next step is to get involved in the "other world" story. I didn't realize that this time even the viewpoint was in first person. It's a war scene, with the same soldiers and weaponry as Higgs' Ashes, and with the "stranded" elements of the second trailer, but this time it's World War I, and the vehicles are British Mark armored cars.
In the article "Someone Can't Break the Connection," a man appears in the oil, and it's clear from what follows that it's Cliff, or rather another world's Cliff, since he's so much different from how he's portrayed at the beginning of the trailer. In his hand he holds the "rope" that connects the soldiers, corresponding to the previous trailer.
Cliff rises from the oil, has the same scar on his abdomen as Sam did in the first trailer, and has tears in his eyes like the oil.Cliff and Sam are supposed to share the same traits, such as being connected to the BB, which is why they survived in the other world, but they seem to be on different paths for various reasons. Fighting, though the skeleton soldiers are obviously not the usual lifeforms.
The later shots even show Cliff lying on a wire spider's web, with another form of baby - the cursed doll that once appeared - hanging from the wire. But that's all part of the next theme, "Someone Desperate to Stay Connected," which introduces a host of characters after him.
Sam reappears at the base of The Bridge, along with Del Toro's Deadman and the masked Die-Hard man. "They are joined by Del Toro's Deadman and the masked Die-Hard man. In front of them is the human mummy that Sam carried behind his back in previous trailers and burned in subsequent shots.
The new character, mama, appears to be a scientist in the base, and she seems to be communicating with the BT in some way, though it's worth noting that the detector claw on her shoulder isn't turned on, so it's possible that she's learning about the contrasting relationships between life in the two worlds, or she could just be developing the detector claw.
After that the first appearance of a baby-shaped BT occurs, and time rain falls from the air while mama is crushed under the rubble. A flurry of high (black) tech displays ensues, with no visible function, but MAMA then literally cradles the baby-shaped BT in her hands.
Below is the time for Kojima's groping payback, the ones that lead one to believe that walking around out there groping is actually pulling in a whole bunch of bigwigs to join the Death Stranding project. There's a magical point where most of the characters who appear here are shedding tears. While only two types of tears, petroleum tears and the usual tears, have previously appeared, the final trailer shows Amelie's blood tears, triggered for reasons unknown.Amelie is supposed to have some sort of specialness in the world of Death Stranding, and so Higgs kidnaps her in the ensuing footage.
Sam's mechanical claws are even bulletproof at this moment in time, presumably up the tech tree.
The quick clip also features the baby in the stomach once again, but this time the baby is replaced with a horrifying cursed doll. Does this also suggest that the two are also chiral to each other, existing in a different time and space from each other.
The end of the trailer once again features the Staff table, and the background voice is Higgs saying, "I think I know the truth about death stranding; it's hard to make a connection with someone when you can't shake their hand; it's good to know that I've got a good connection to the other world." This is a very informative statement; firstly, Death Stranding is a "neutral" phenomenon that is not actively triggered by Higgs, and it also tells the player that he is curious to know the answer to the mystery of Death Stranding; that a handshake being refused means that a negotiation has broken down, and that there is yet another reference to "making connections"; and finally that he has a good connection to the other world, which means that Higgs' abilities are probably "borrowed" from the other world.
Young Cliff reappears when this is mentioned. He's not quite as tarnished as he was later, but he has the same special powers and can manipulate skeleton soldiers, and his compass is not quite as out of balance.
The end of the trailer echoes the beginning, with Cliff still looking like a scientific researcher, saying positive things about the baby in the BB Pod, indicating that he'll soon be able to explore wherever he wants to, and that it's fine to even go to the moon. Rather than deliberately hinting at the plot, these words are meant for the player: they'll soon be able to see Death Stranding for themselves, with a vast world to explore, and it's fine to even go to the moon, as Kojima Studio's earliest Homo Ludens trailers featured an image of an astronaut on the moon.
You can see that by this final trailer, the main plot and worldview of the game is pretty well known, and more and more of the previously hidden gameplay is being announced, leaving just the details and the back-and-forth gameplay logic.
The theme of Death Stranding has been revealed by Kojima himself from the very beginning of the project, and it's the word "connection". No matter how many cultural symbols he uses to wrap it up, the core is always this. Hideo Kojima continues to draw from a wide variety of works, and then thinks y about them and transforms them into his own. Looking at the trailer alone, without going to the source to understand the core of what he's trying to say, the result is only skin deep.
From what I've seen so far, just from the trailer, I've been able to find references to Kobo Abe, Project Ito, and countless other movies, and I can't talk about them all in one article. Not to mention that I'm sure Hideo Kojima's ambitions go far beyond that. Toward the end of the trailer, in addition to the words he says to players, he also has something that sounds like he's speaking to himself:
Even if you cover the world with the Internet, you can't stop the wars and the suffering. Since you're going to try again, don't be too surprised if the world is falling apart again.
In the years of the Internet's emergence, there was a great deal of promise that the creation would turn the world into a "global village". That may have been true on a macro level, but on a micro level, the gaps between people seem to have grown bigger. How should people interact with each other? Should connections be made? Will the ending be as pessimistic as the ending of EVA? There's no better medium for figuring these things out than online gaming, right? Kojima, who y understands the nature of the internet and gaming, is already utilizing these mediums in turn, and this connected world needs him. I look forward to the attempt to truly connect with each other on November 8th.