New Death Stranding details: Timefall, out of body exploration, death and rebirth
Last week, at The Game Awards 2017, Kojima released a brand new trailer for his upcoming game, Death Stranding. In an interview with IGN published today, he gave some interesting new details about what we saw in the trailer, and about the game and its mechanics in general. He confirmed that chronologically, this is the earliest point we’ve seen from the game, taking place shortly after the prologue.
We already know that Death Stranding will have a different approach to the concepts of life and death in video games. Normally, when you die in a game you can reload to the moment before you died and retry as often as you like, and this is a system that has existed since the first arcade games and hasn’t really changed since then. However, in Death Stranding, things are different.
“One of the themes of this game is life and death. So I want people to realize that when they die in the game, that isn’t the end.”
When you die in this game, you will be transported to some kind of purgatory – the upside down underwater world we saw in the latest trailer – and you’ll be able to freely explore it in first person. With the help of the mysterious abilities of the protagonist, Sam, you can wander outside of your body, and find items and other things.
“At that point, you’re not dead or alive. It’s the equivalent of that screen that says ‘Continue?’ and a counter ticking down towards zero.” Kojima told IGN.
You can then choose to return to your body and get back to the world of the living. However, the actions from before your death are not undone, and they will persist in the game world.
“So as you saw in the trailer, you saw the crater, and when you come back, it’s still there. Most games would’ve taken you back to before the crater was made. So depending on the player, you might have a lot of craters all over the place — depends on each player.” Kojima explained. “Death will never pull you out of the game.”
In the latest trailer, there are two instances where we can see living things age dramatically in a matter of seconds. The reason this happens is because of a phenomenon called Timefall, some kind of rain that is not of this world.
“Most people in the game are aware of the rain — and well, Norman is quite unique in this regard… I think I should stop there. I’m spilling the beans.”
Then there’s the baby, something that will play an integral role in the story. “The baby relates to game mechanics as well as the story as a whole.” Kojima also confirmed it is one and the same baby in all trailers.
The interview also tackled the subject of interaction with the fans and their theories, because as we know Kojima really likes to put hints (and misleading elements) in his trailers and see what people make of it, like a game in itself. At the same time, people impatiently watching his every move can also be though.
“I’ve been reading a lot on the internet of people saying I’ve spent the last year just traveling around and having fun. A lot of people saying I’m wasting time and money. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.” Kojima said. “We’re waiting for the right moment to show gameplay, but right now we’re on track with the project.”
On top of that, the time Kojima takes for his projects is actually quite reasonable, if not rather fast. “You could ask so many people, but I really think that I’m doing this pretty fast. If you have a company, if you already have an engine, you already have the tools and the team together, and even then, it’s pretty standard for a AAA game to take three to five years to develop their games. For some games, it can take up to 10 years.”
Then there was also the actor strike that went on for months, that caused some delays in their schedule in regards to performance capture and voice over recordings. Now that the strike is finally over, Kojima Productions has commenced full performance capture sessions recently. Development is going well.
“A lot of people have been telling me, ‘You’re crazy like Stanley Kubrick…like David Lynch,’ and I’m honored, but these are all elements that play into the game design, and they do come together and they’re in line.” Kojima stated. “Everything makes sense. Everything will come together.”
Lastly, this has been a tumultuous year for gaming, with the controversies surrounding microtransactions, service driven games and statements about the increasingly uncertain future for single player games – if publishers like EA are to be believed. Kojima said, smiling: “I think there are a lot of people out there who still enjoy single-player games, aside from some microtransactions.”
Source IGN
Good job for posting it Boss ^_^. After reading this….https://media.giphy.com/media/EldfH1VJdbrwY/giphy.gif
[!]
Now it makes sense.
Cool that Your decisions will affect gameplay and story!
I absolutely love Single player games.
My Favorite series? You better believe its MGS.
Mine was too… until 5 came out… worst of the series, I couldn’t even finish it. And you can forget about “Survive” lol
Once there was an explosion, a bang which gave birth to time and space.
(Gaming)
Once there was an explosion, a bang which set a planet spinning in that space.
(Polygons in Video Games)
Once there was an explosion, a bang which gave rise to life as we know it.
(Fully Voice Acted Single Player Campaigns in Video Games)
And then, came the next explosion, an explosion that will be our last.
.
.
.
(LOOT BOXES) [ ! ]
https://youtu.be/SxIz18ZLqJs
My favorite part is with the rain. So sandbox idea like with MGSV sandstorm is coming back but in a more interesting and creative way?
I hope that the water section is fun, other than that. I can not wait for this game.
My fav part too, Timefall is gonna be awesome.
And with that everything falls into place:
Timeline is: This Trailer>First trailer> Del Toro and Mads trailer
-This trailer we see Sam gets the baby inside him, who allows him to be on this other side and come back. Mads’ character has been through the same experience which allows him to come back and use abilities similar to the creatures.
-First trailer Sam has died for a story important moment and the baby is cut out of him (the scars on his abdomen), the baby then disappears prompting Sam to follow it into the “sea” of black goop.
-Del Toro’s character has found and is smuggling the baby and Mads’ team is there to either retrieve the baby for whoever he’s working for or get it back to Sam.
“I’ve been reading a lot on the internet of people saying I’ve spent the last year just traveling around and having fun. A lot of people saying I’m wasting time and money. ”
Confirmed: Kojima reads Metal Gear Informer’s comment section. LOL
It’s Bullshit, we did not write that, we did noooooot…
Oh, hi Hideo!
*nnaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhttttt
**oh, hai
Actually these comments re on his twitter page but he definitely reads our comments
Twitter mostly I guess ;). Sadly some people think he isn’t supposed to have anything else in life than game developing lol.
You also get a lot of concern trolling from detractors in comment sections and on forums who know nothing about game development or who feel entitled that Kojima should show them gameplay on demand. Othwerwise they can’t understand how anyone else can be excited for liking what they don’t like. That’s when they’re not generally trash talking about Kojima and bringing up zany conspiracy theories that Kojima never wrote any of the MGS series and it was all the result of other Konami staff, and everything good in those games should for some reason be attributed to those unspecified people and never anything to Kojima. Wouldn’t surprise me if Konami actively hires trolls at this point. And when called out on it there’s always the good ol’ standby slanders and accusations that Kojima is sexist because of Quiet’s attire. Yet ignore early design notes and tweets by Kojima telling Yoji Shinkawa to make her that way so that she would be an ‘un-cosplayable’ character, meaning that nobody would want to dress up like her (which he was hilariously wrong about), but it seemed that he intended to do something with this character, that he could’ve been at fault for not puling off, or it could’ve been something lost in the troubled end of his involvement with Konami. hopefully someday we’ll get to ask him when he can openly talk about it.
A lot improvise themselves as game developers whereas they can’t realize even a single percent of the difficulties involved in dev / producing a game. The same people usually spit their opinion and are deliberately blind to the ones of REAL game developers that always praize Kojima the way he really deserve.
I never saw developers or studios ever even slightly criticize the way Kojima is working.
To those really thinking he is a mindless diva, I would really like to ask them why no single game developer think like them then ?
I am sad he is somehow impacted by the potential trash he can read here and there..
It means he sometimes forget even himself how famous he is and that he should not pay attention to 2 cents commentaries of such.
There’s going to be a prologue
As much as i would want to play DS like…Yesterday, i don’t want another Ground Zeroes, i want Ds to be it’s own, full Single Game.
It’s probably more along the lines of a tutorial level, or the Tanker section of MGS2 and the Virtuous Mission in MGS3. A self-contained section of the game that introduces the mechanics and sets up the story, but it’s still part of the main package.
As long as it’s released like the MGS2 tanker scene, a free Demo, and not as a half priced 30/40$ Game like GZ was, i will be happy.
Again, nothing Hideo said actually implies it’s going to be a separate product from the main game. “Prologue” could mean any number of things, and I would think (given that he’s very much aware of the criticisms that his games have) he’d know not to do another Ground Zeroes thing again.
I never said he said that, just expressing my concerns towards how Sony might market this game.
I suspect splitting up Ground Zeroes was Konami’s doing, considering how money-grubbing they’ve been in recent years. In any event, Sony hasn’t been doing anything like that, so I’m not expecting them to start now.
I hope it was Konami.
I don’t like first person view.
I just saw this and it made me think that we are not going to see every scene of the trailers in the final game.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/420720ecf890ab8020b2f6fe711d06d20e22791d415070ba2ebee7754c31b5f9.jpg
Fun fact: In MGSV, you could see that exact same scene in the game if you use the “Infinite Heaven” mod.
Show me.
ok.
https://youtu.be/F5wSP1QXXZA
I was expecting Africa with that bird.
This is cool
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e8cfb8cd853d127b2e4d602b953d083b948fdaa74462a161cf228aa14f06c102.jpg
https://twitter.com/iiTinyFox/status/940225632545406976
This was great haha!
I bet Kojima is amuzed that we give attention and importance to such random pictures.
He’s clearly enjoying reading those comments here, are you, Kojima-san.
https://twitter.com/Kojima_Hideo/status/940318832375320577
Ignore the fact that he playign soemthing on background, but he makes a great point.
Death Streanding might be a world where no one since WW2 ever trully died, and these same people use those babies like, you guessed it, fuel, like oil to a Car, and those oil creatures, are the souls, the damned souls of those babies.
Now i don’t know about you, but this sounds exactly like a Silent Hill Game, DS is SH reskinned in a new IP, same ideas, but different script and plot, but the same story.
This also reminds of those lyrics from a SH Song called “One more soul to the call”
“Pray for the children you lost along the way
Still remember the names, and faces
Cold, and abandoned
They cry, their fate put in your “hands”
When it’s over, they come to “haunt you”
Wasted confusion
Deadly illusion
Nightmare intrusion”
https://youtu.be/YsArSDDwOv0
Last one today.
Now we can tell, that this was Norman speaking, evil Norman to be more precise.
https://youtu.be/peoUI8YDNjo
https://twitter.com/Kojima_Hideo/status/940561936156168192
Honestly I advocate Single Player games over multiplayer or MTX (microtransaction) driven ones. I will take a good story over stupid loot boxes. EA is now in hot water for over reaching with all this MTX nonsense.
I can’t improve my cars in nfs payback because the system is random.
Just imaging next year when they show the gameplay.
“At that point, you’re not dead or alive. It’s the equivalent of that
screen that says ‘Continue?’ and a counter ticking down towards zero.”
I dont know if someone asked about it already but I wonder what happens when that time end?
“Death will never pull you out of the game.”
So what for is that time ticking?
I want to play it already!
He isn’t talking about a literal counter in the game, he just compared DS’s system to that of traditional games, the counter was just an example of that.
Oh! I see.
Thanks for answer!