Polarizing video games are, to me, the types of games that tend to live longer in people’s memories than games that are either overwhelmingly loved or hated. Many people can agree on the statement that suggests that a game like The Last of Us is one of the greatest video games ever created. Its longstanding acclaim from fans and critics alike supports that notion and we can talk endlessly about the factors that make Naughty Dog’s survival horror-drama such a rousing success.

But with overwhelming praise comes repetitiveness. There’s only so many different ways to spin the idea of The Last of Us being a truly one-of-a-kind game into an interesting topic for discussion through written media or videos. Sure, you’re bound to have the occasional counter-argument of the game actually being bad, but beyond that, the variety of content to pull from the topic can be quite limiting. Yeah, we know that The Last of Us is a critically acclaimed game adored by millions of people worldwide, but what else can you tell me about it?

It is precisely this type of phenomenon that, in turn, makes Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding such an interesting topic of discussion for gamers and online journalists. There is no one defining perspective of the notorious open-world post-apocalyptic action-drama, that finally dropped in November of 2019 after literally years of buildup. The game has not received the same type of praise that The Last of Us has received, but in no way is the game as critically panned as something like WWE 2K20.

Death Stranding stands firmly in the middle, perhaps unintentionally so, of those two games, being bombarded with a large number of reactions from many different areas of the spectrum. Kojima’s passion project has been dubbed a masterpiece, a grand disappointment, one of the worst games of 2019, a frustrating but worthwhile game, etc., from a wide variety of outlets and the fans themselves. People are truly divided on the game and this division, intentional or not, plays a role in the type of value I personally see in Kojima’s experimental drama.

Ever since its announcement at E3 2016, a year after Kojima’s infamous quarrel with Konami led to his departure from the company, Death Stranding was largely shrouded in mystery, with fans and journalists racking their brains on what he was going to do next. The official announcement trailer only added gas to the flames, showing a naked Norman Reedus holding a baby which quickly dissolves in his arms as 5 mysterious figures float over the ocean ahead looking on. 

Naturally, people were incredibly confused and that attitude impressively held for the entire duration of the game’s buildup towards release. Every new trailer would reveal only snippets of information and new characters, but no real explanation as to what Death Stranding was truly about. But in 2019, the details surrounding the game became a bit clearer as Kojima began to hint at one of the main themes of the long-awaited game: connection.

What he truly meant by that was still a total mystery, but there was now a big piece of the expectedly large and complicated puzzle that Kojima was presenting to us. Death Stranding would deal heavily with the idea of connection and the binds that tie society together as a functional whole. The official launch trailer in mid-2019 practically confirmed that, heavily insisting that the game was all about rebuilding a broken world.

How this theme is explored in Death Stranding is arguably the biggest contributor to the game’s divisive reputation. Upon launch, fans eager to try out Kojima’s game finally discovered that the method of rebuilding a society is a long and arduous process. The game, in true Kojima fashion, is loaded to the brim with long cutscenes that could easily pass as a mini-series on its own and the slow gameplay only made players feel the length more.

Death Stranding has you play Norman Reedus as Sam Porter Bridges, a porter (delivery man of sorts) that brings cargo and necessary equipment to various underground bunkers filled with people, all of whom are hiding from the surface world where a mysterious phenomenon titled the “Death Stranding” left the world in complete ruin, reducing the world to a pile of rocks and mountains. The few people that inhabit the surface world are hostile, often attacking anybody in their sight for their own selfish gains.

What doesn’t help the situation is the aftermath of the “Death Stranding”, which brings the world of the dead to the world of the living, interconnecting with each other with dire consequences. The undead souls, known as BTs, are the cause of various massive explosions that stem from consuming a living person without incineration. Worse yet, there are terrorists that intentionally cause these explosions (named Voidouts) for the sake of destruction. As Sam, you navigate through all these obstacles and a boatload of cutscenes to try and reconnect these societies torn apart by destruction and paranoia. 

The only way you can sense these BTs is through the use of a Bridge Baby (BB), a special baby encased in an artificial pod meant to simulate a womb (placed on Sam’s stomach no less). The BBs are able to sense the creatures, alerting them to your presence as a means to potentially avoid them, though even that can be quite tricky. BBs are generally seen as equipment, but with a living human being tied to your stomach, it’s hard to stay disconnected.

Are you still with me? Okay, then we can continue.

Obviously, there’s a lot of importance being emphasized in the story of Death Stranding. Kojima has stressed that the game is not so much about mindless shooting and violence, but about the power of connection and finding ways to cooperate to help solve each other’s problems, as well as provide a little bit of hope for anybody who may follow in our footsteps in the future. This is strengthened by the game’s insistence that you take different routes to avoid confrontation with hostiles, providing you with the necessary equipment to help you complete the many delivery missions you are assigned to without having to resort to brutal violence.

But why introduce all of these cool and terrifying concepts if we’re just going to be spending our time avoiding them? It seems rather contradictory that the game encourages us to stray away from the more action-heavy portions of the story while still providing us with enough equipment to make our way through the crazier levels. But once you combine Kojima’s admittedly heavy-handed story with the vast and sparsely populated setting, the game’s most terrifying implications come to light.

Spoilers for Death Stranding ahead. Proceed with caution.

Death Stranding, in many ways, attempts to tell the future (in its own fantastical way) of mankind and what will eventually become of us. The Death Stranding is ultimately Kojima’s take on the potential end of humanity, serving as an extinction event that is bound to happen, much in line with previous extinction events, i.e. the death of the dinosaurs. The Death Stranding is framed as a horrible, but necessary cycle to go through.

That is what Amelie, Sam’s “sister” who is ultimately revealed to be an Extinction Entity tasked with bringing about the next extinction event, explains to Sam as the end of the world approaches. According to Amelie, the next extinction cannot be prevented, but as Sam demonstrates, it can be held off through the combined efforts of humanity to restore and respect the world they live in. Even if extinction is inevitable, Sam finds a new purpose in rebuilding the world and the connections to different people, which is viewed as an alternative to complete world annihilation. By the end, the timefall has stopped and it seems as though there is hope for a better world despite its inevitable demise in the future.

Viewing the story as such not only brings a genuine sense of hope for the future, but it allows us to get a small glimpse into what we could become as well. Obviously, there’s little chance for us to encounter something such as BTs, but our own desire for isolation and sovereignty is something encountered all over the world. Countries isolating themselves from the rest of the world to follow their own set rules, pushing out foreigners and potential immigrants, and obviously the wall issue in the United States all point to an inane desire for independence, which can easily spiral out of control.

Kojima himself has mentioned that his game very much makes a point regarding these kinds of politics and his story is not exactly subtle with those points either, but what I feel has been missing from the discussion surrounding the game is how the gameplay and setting directly tie into what he’s trying to say. I’ve seen reviews – positive and negative – that seem to have missed the boat regarding the slow gameplay, with many reviewers simply commenting on how slow and boring it is for them.

In truth, Death Stranding earns a spot in the horror section of video games because of the slow and trudging gameplay that aims to antagonize the player at every turn. It’s harsh, unrelenting, and downright evil in some portions, especially when your delivery destination is a little farther than normal and you run out of necessary supplies by the middle part of your journey. All of the ladders, blood bags, and ammo are gone and suddenly there’s a slew of BTs ready to devour anything in their line of sight.

These portions of the game are certainly frustrating and can lead to moments where the journey may not even be worth it in the end. Sam himself sometimes utters these exact thoughts out loud as he’s climbing yet another mountain with heavy rainfall damaging his supplies or trying his best to keep his balance and not fall in a river. Kojima WANTS the players to feel frustrated, scared, and fed up with having to go through such a journey with minimal supplies to help them along the way. Though through this admittedly infuriating gameplay decision, it becomes clear that the scariest part of Death Stranding is the idea that nobody will be there to help you at your worst.

The Social Strand aspect of the game is designed to help you benefit from additional resources from real players across the globe, with ziplines, charging stations, timefall shelters, and even full-on roads to make your journey significantly easier compared to before. When a certain area is connected to the in-game “Chiral Network”, you are connected to an endless array of people, providing a sense of presence and comfort that you couldn’t afford when were alone.

It’s such a cathartic experience that makes traveling into unknown and disconnected areas that much more terrifying. The other players are not there to help you and the in-game characters mainly just speak to you through a transmitter, disconnecting you from the sparse traces of humanity left in the game world. When Sam is disconnected from the network, the journey truly begins to feel helpless and without that extra help, the experience evokes a sense of loneliness and despair. 

For the majority of Death Stranding, the player is truly alone in the world (with the exception of their BB), playing a character like Sam who has completely given up on the idea of reforming the nation. Sam prefers to live his life day-by-day, too tortured from his own past to motivate himself into serving a bigger cause. But the gameplay directly contradicts this belief, demonstrating the true horrific extent of simply “surviving.” How long before the world becomes too much for Sam? 

That same thought process extends to us as players. Sure, it’s an open-world game where you could travel wherever you want, but how is simply “existing” in the world satisfying in any way? Here, existing simply means avoiding death, but there’s nobody around to truly hang onto at that point. Even the BB can’t completely fill that need for human connection. Without a connection to somebody or some group of people, there’s no room to truly impact the world in a potentially positive manner. So simply being left to our own devices ultimately becomes our own undoing, leaving us completely alone to take on the burden of a world that is quickly falling apart at the seams.

Death Stranding plays up that level of existential horror with gameplay mechanics that are simultaneously experimental and frustrating. It’s maddening to lose all of your cargo when you can’t quite scale a mountain correctly, but with the Chiral Network, a zipline can save you the pain and suffering of having to go around a mountain or climbing through a tricky part of it. With a connection to other players, the threat of BTs, while everlasting, can be completely avoided with shortcuts, ziplines, and additional resources to help you fend them off without a huge struggle.

The way we use the internet in real life is a bit of a double-edged sword, with there being countless ways to use it for the purpose of harming others. Humans are complex in that regard, but a system that allows us to connect to practically anyone in the world is a window of endless opportunities to learn, help others, and broaden your own perspective and Hideo Kojima is using it to his advantage for Death Stranding, creating a game that is horrifying for its insane creature designs and painfully lonely experience, yet rewarding for the player’s efforts to strengthen connections and provide help for other players around the world.

Death Stranding may not be classified as a typical horror game, but its incredibly detailed world shredded by destruction and human wars introduce a kind of horror that slowly creeps up on the player. The horror of the game does not rely on cheap ways to scare the players for a short thrill. Instead, the looming dread of mass extinction and humanity’s fractured relationships with one another slowly burn themselves into the mind, letting the players meditate on how truly alone they are without connection.

To further illustrate this point, there’s a section of the game where you have to leave your BB behind to get repaired, leaving you completely alone to face the terrors of the outside world. Without that extra help, you are essentially blind and incredibly vulnerable for BTs to spot and try to kill you. The BBs help doesn’t guarantee complete avoidance of the BTs, but playing without one makes you truly helpless, with absolutely nobody to help you. With no connection, there’s little hope for you to come out unscathed. 

Yet, Death Stranding remains hopeful for the future. The story lets us see the true potential of something like the internet and what we can do with it, encouraging us to open up to others and help out with whatever we feel like we can do. Even if you’re somebody that’s prone to cutting yourself off from others, the game demonstrates that there will always be others out there to help you out with something, even if done in an indirect way.

I’m sure many of the player-made structures in Death Stranding aren’t done so with only one or two people in mind. Most of the time I built structures, it was to help myself out with various situations, but seeing that others used my structures and appreciated the help feels truly validating. People in the world were able to make their experiences easier through a portion of my help and I was able to use others’ structures for my own personal paths. The horror that we could’ve experienced in one section was now completely in our rear-view mirrors, prepping us for a potentially safer delivery. The world felt a little more alive in those instances.

Death Stranding will undoubtedly still spark intense debates over its quality or lack thereof, but the way I see it, Kojima and his studio managed to craft one of the most interesting horror-drama hybrids in quite some time. It won’t get the same reception as something like The Last of Us, but its own exploration of the devastating horror of our own disconnection from ourselves is something I believe will stick with players for a long time, even the ones that hated the game.

It’s quite ironic that a game about connection has left the gaming community divided, but much like the game’s horror, Death Stranding feels like something that will hit harder with patience and time. Perhaps another playthrough in the future will inspire new attitudes towards the game. Hell, maybe I’ll just end up hating the game the more I let it simmer. But at the end of the day, for better or for worse, Death Stranding is not a game meant to be enjoyed and maybe that’s for the best, even if that time isn’t now.