Death Stranding
is an action game developed by Kojima Productions. It was released by Sony
Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4 in November 2019, and is
scheduled for release by 505 Games on Microsoft Windows this year.
Players control
Sam Porter Bridges (Norman Reedus), a courier tasked with delivering supplies
to the fractured and isolated colonies that remain and reconnecting them via a
wireless communications network.
Alongside
Reedus, the game features actors Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, Margaret Qualley,
Troy Baker, Tommie Earl Jenkins, and Lindsay Wagner, in addition to the
likenesses of film directors Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn as
supporting characters. Death Stranding was nominated for several awards, and
received generally favorable reviews, with critics praising its voice acting,
soundtrack, and graphics, although many were polarized by its gameplay and
story.
The player's
main enemies include otherworldly creatures known as "beached things"
(BTs), MULE (a cult of rogue, bandit-like porters influenced by an obsession
with cargo, who attempt to steal deliveries so they can deliver it themselves),
and Demens, MULEs who have begun killing porters to claim their cargo. BTs are surrounded
by a rain known as "timefall", which damages the player's armor and
cargo by speeding up their deterioration. BTs are normally invisible, but Sam's
suit is equipped with a robotic sensor that points towards BTs he is in close
proximity to, and the player can then scan the area to reveal them.
The game is set
in an apocalyptic United States, where a cataclysmic event known as the
"Death Stranding" caused "Beached Things"
("BTs")—invisible creatures originating from the "Beach",
lands thought to be unique to each person that are typically visited during
near-death experiences and are said to be the link to the afterlife—to begin
roaming the Earth. BTs cause explosions known as "voidouts" when they
consume the dead by necrosis, and produce rain known as "Timefall"
that rapidly ages and deteriorates whatever it hits. These events damaged the
country's infrastructure, leading its remaining population to confine
themselves to remote colonies known as "Knot Cities," which form the
remaining "United Cities of America".
By Santiago Sandoval, Step 10
