I made this topic to try and analyze the Death Stranding trailers to see if I could figure out the story behind Death Stranding before E3, and I can see many people are doing the same. I was thinking of posting this in another thread but the message was too long so I thought I better make my own, sorry about that!
I recently made a YouTube and Vidme video on this topic and posted them a few days ago, but don’t want to seem like I’m begging for views so I am not including the link, anyways I don’t have a huge channel and someone sent me a message telling me to post this here as they thought it was helpful, so that’s what I’m doing.
I wanted to submit this before E3 to help identify what I think is going on in the first trailer before any big reveals though I could be wrong. You may have seen theories on what every thing means in this game, and yes… this is yet another one of those theories. However this one is mine. I hope you guys enjoy it.
To start off I wanted to talk about the poem by William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence” in the reveal trailer. If you read it, it seems to be implying what this game is about. From my perspective, after watching the whole trailer, it seems to me to be telling of someone who is seeing the world for the first time. That special moment when it hits you and you realize what everything means. Now this is important and will come up again.
I wanted to go ahead and point out what I think I am constantly seeing throughout this trailer. The thing that seems to stand out most to just about everyone seems to be the strands coming off of everything in the game. And I think this is important. I think the strands represent a means of control.
If you have been following Death Stranding news lately you will have come to the theory everyone is talking about nowadays that the handcuffs on Norman Reedus’s character represents the Playstation 4 controller.
Now this may be true, however in the second trailer it is of interest that Guillermo Del Toro’s character also has a handcuff but his is on the opposite hand, so in a way it appears at first that these two characters are locked and linked together, one being in a separate world. However with the new idea that the handcuffs represent the PlayStation controller this might still be the case but not exactly. However, the most important thing I think you can take from this theory though, that I believe might be true is that we are seeing characters who are in a video game world, and this world seems to be breaking the fourth wall.
Yes, Kojima is known for breaking the fourth wall, and I believe that this game in particular is attempting to do this on a grander scale, and I believe this represents the core aspect of the game.
Now there are more strange clues to point that this game is basically a fourth wall breaking art form, and I’m going to try to break this down.
My theory is that this game story is the representation of a character waking up to his reality in a video game and I believe the first trailer makes this clear.
To start, the poem in the intro, seems to suggest that a person is finally seeing the world for what it is for the first time.
We later see that each moving object in the game has strands. Now what can this be? I believe the strands are representative of an input receiver. What I mean by this is that, yes it is like the controller, but it’s much more than just that. In a game, we have many characters, or NPCs, that a player can interactive with, but they can’t directly control, these objects are controlled by the CPU.
It is my belief that these strands are means of controlling these characters by the CPU, they are characters controlled by Artificial intelligence, and I believe this is clear when you see that all moving objects tend to have strands. Furthermore, Mads Mikkelsen’s character has other characters attach to him until he provides them with a command. I believe this is another clue that the strands are input devices.
This is very similar to other games. The first thing that came to my mind was Nintendo’s Pikmin, In Pikmin when you give a character a command they detach from the main character, and follow a specific command which they carry out based on how they were coded, then they cannot be commanded again until you relink with that character. This seems to be a way that games work.
I believe when Mads Mikkelsen’s character is representative of a player in a game, and when he commands the characters they detach from him until he links with them again.
Now this is important, for instance, the first character we see is Norman Reedus’s character. He is special in a way, because he no longer has a means of having a cord/input device connected to him. I have a feeling that this is a character in a game that has awoken and is no longer just part of a game. Now I might be wrong about this, but I think the point of the game is that you have a character previously run by a player, that has now become self aware by some means, and he is no longer just another playable character in a game, he is now alive. I believe that the whole first trailer is representative of this aspect of the character waking up. In addition, this idea fits other clues mentioned by Kojima in interviews, such as the game will start to change over time as people play it.
So what is the baby? There are many theories on what the baby could represent, I have heard it could be an extra life for example, and yes, this might be true, if the world is representative of a game world, which I do think is possible. However, I think the baby is representative of how people used to play games, in other words, a connection with your character that is still in infancy. However, this aspect is about to change in death stranding and the connections is going to grow up.
So what about the handprints?
The handprints I strongly believe represents the players. Yes Norman’s character is covered in handprints, and I believe this is your first indication that he is character in a game, and not a person in real life. This character has been played with and I think that this is why he has the hands imprinted all over him. However, we see a pair of hands walking around, I believe this represents how we are to play this game. If my theory turns out to be true, then you really can’t control Norman’s character like you could in past games, as a living being, you can only guide him but you cannot force him to move. In the trailer we see a pair of hands reach Norman and then point him in a direction by first moving by themselves as in guiding him to what he has to do. This, I believe will be one of the focuses of the game. However, I would like to note, in interviews Norman Reedus’s has stated that Kojima intends intends to make the player Norman and not make it seem like you are playing as Norman, this will be harder to do if the character is alive and independent from the player but the purpose could be to make the player feel connected to the character as if the character were themselves, this could be a means for you to question your own reality, or maybe Kojima could have meant something else.
In addition, the black ink seen through out the trailer. What is this representative of? I believe the black ink represents control, and specifically the concept that one can leave their mark. In other words, the beings seen with black ink represent those who are in control. The reason why Mads’ character might be a player is because he is covered in black ink, and in a way this seems to be suggestive that he is able to leave a mark within the world he is in, and considering how much ink he has, it could be a huge mark. Furthermore, Norman’s character has his baby, which prior I assumed meant an infant connection, disappear, upon which his hands are covered in ink. In a game world, it is the players who leave their mark.
Anyways moving on… as the trailer progresses we see figures in the sky, one of which may be holding the baby that Reedus was previously holding. Keep in mind, I believe the baby represents an infant connection between the player and the game, and I believe this is changing in the game, so this might explain why the figure in the sky might be holding the baby. However, I do not know for sure if the figure is holding a baby or not, anyways, I believe what is important here is that you see them, the figures, not the baby. So what are they???
I believe they represent the CPU, the A.I., the computer running the game. And I believe this is important in analyzing the trailer.
See... we see in the first trailer a guy waking up to the realization of what the world truly is. It’s a fake world run by a computer, he’s not really a human but a character in the game. So how is this being represented to us?
I believe Kojima is taking a hint from biblical context possibly from Guillermo Del Toro, basically, this is the story of Adam, waking up from Eden, we see the character naked because it’s similar to how Adam was naked when he first acquired knowledge, basically this is a guy who didn’t know he was naked until now, he is awaken, possibly through some action of his own that seems to have cost him and the world around him greatly. This likely also likely true of the story of Adam and Eve, as Adam’s action likely also had a huge negative consequence on the world around him. I believe that if anything, it is likely that the Norman’s character will be named Adam or something similar.
I believe what we are seeing is a game coming to life. I believe the second trailer provides more clues to this, and that the characters you see are all very likely gamers. In some interviews Madds Milksessn states that he doesn’t think that his character is evil or a villain, and I believe this can be cleared up by him being a gamer. As a player, he might just be a gamer, having fun in a game, likely a WW2 game, a very popular genre of games, and he is nothing more than just that. However, Guillermo’s character is a bit more complicated, he might represent a gamer, or some sort of NPC in the game some how connected to what is happening with Norman’s character. The reason I think he might not be a gamer out right, is that he has a scar on his head, signify something happened to his mind, so possibly he doesn’t have control of his actions exactly, so he might not exactly be a gamer who has complete control. In addition, he might have a connection with the actual Guillermo Del Toro, whose actually a director but isn’t in this game, which might explain the head scar… anyways.. who knows!
So to wrap up, what we are seeing is a gaming world coming to life, a man waking up to the real world, and seeing God or Angels, here representative of the CPU. The character is waking up and lacks the ability to be controlled by the CPU or by a player, so he’s now a being with free will, in complete control of his destiny, however, trapped within a game. This game might make you question your own reality.
Final note!!!
Yes there are theories that this game is connected to silent hills, and yes, this might also be possible, however, I don’t think that the Kojima-Konami split was a lie, so I believe there is an artistic connection. In other words. I think Silent hills was also going to tackle the same ideas and concepts as seen in death stranding. However, because that game was canceled this game will do it in a different setting, however, it might allude to events that occurred in silent hills. In other words I do think this game will have concepts of parallel worlds and I do believe that silent hills was about parallel worlds, and a game character gaining free will, to some extent. Whether we will see events in the game reminiscent of P.T. for example, is up in the air, but I don’t think is completely impossible.
Anyways there’s more to it, but that’s it for now guys! Hope you enjoyed!
TLDR; The first Death Stranding trailer reminded me of Adam from Adam and Eve, and I think Norman’s character is similar to Adam as he is a character basically finding himself waking up in a game world, he was likely a playable character in a game until that moment. Norman’s actions in the first trailer appear to me as being represented as a portrait of Adam. The strands represent input receivers and only playable characters, and NPCs are shown with strands, Norman’s character can no longer be connected to these strands.
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