Disclaimer this is long so I don't blame you for just reading the TL; DR: but please consider reading all of it.
Tl; dr: A theory by two philosophers helped me plot out what I thought were the 2 most probable storylines for the game. 1. That Death Stranding is an event or the name of an effect by this event. 2. Death Stranding refers to what humans call the state one finds themselves after death. As Well as some of the ways in which the gameplay would mirror what’s been seen in the trailers. Including how we may already be playing or “learning” how to play the game. All based on an assumption that there is more than one Dimension involved in this game.
To start off I need to explain why Deleuze and Guattari have any role in this post. I’m currently a Philosophy Major and had been reading some Deleuze and Guattari, when I decided to apply this Rhizomatic way of thinking to what I had already seen and read on the subreddit countless times. I don’t want to get too into the theory or the work by Deleuze and Guattari but I’ll link to the wiki so you guys can take a look). A brief description, of my thought process, was, “Okay all the things I know about the actual world in Death Stranding I learned via the trailers.” What this leads me to believe was that all I needed was a base or a starting point and then I could make a multiplicity of assumptions based on what I thought would result in me reaching the points of the trailer. If this is confusing, I know, I can barely even articulate the thought itself. What I mean by all this, is that in order for me to reach the actual state of events of the trailers, I need to infer what the world would be like from the beginning. The way I did this was thinking of some of the posts that we’ve seen on this Reddit, as well as what Kojima himself has hinted about the game itself. This led me to the thought, “Why is it that Death Stranding, as Alien as it appears in the trailers has a strong sense of familiarity?” This is what changed the way I viewed the game and trailers as a whole.
I began with the idea that perhaps the event that took place that led to the Death Stranding was something I could not actually infer so I gave up on that. What I could infer based on the trailers is that at the very least the scenes that include time fall, must be in the same universe where time fall is prevalent. So I hypothesized based on this assumption that there have to be at least two dimensions that the player will play on. One of these dimensions is very much like ours and has the same people etc, with very minute differences. Now the theory that I'm about to go into has two different routes that I’ve considered. 1. That Death Stranding is an event or the name of an effect by this event. 2. Death Stranding refers to what humans call the state one finds themselves after death.
- Death Stranding as an event
Death stranding as an event would be something similar to Pacific Rim, or any other post-apocalyptic scenario. Humanity adapts to the new environment and sets up a change in governments, and technology to either fight back whatever caused the event or to try and live as comfortable as possible given the current state of affairs. In either case, they would need someone to deliver mail. This is where Sam “Porter” Bridges comes in. Sam is a delivery man this is obvious just looking at the 3D sculptures they have of Norman Reedus as Sam.
Not just that but in the E3 trailer, Lea Seydoux’s character can be heard saying, “Sam Porter Bridges, the man who delivers.” Which is in itself is entirely ambiguous, is she referring to his job doing deliveries, or does it have any association with him being involved in politics at least in the universe (this will be important in both theories) that I assume we see in the photo that Sam picks up in the E3 trailer. I say assume, because it may be the case that the game revolves around a multiplicity of dimensions or the game is completely different than I think in these theories. If there are mailmen in this dimension, then there are other things that would pop up in this world that would be different than our but would be very similar, think memes, and the “need to know” series. I told myself think memes in the traditional sense. So looking at Lea Seydoux’s character we can assume that she works for Fragile Express, I believe this delivery service is similar to FedEx or UPS. This just helps elaborate on what kind of world this is. Where there might be conflict or “the main evil” in the game might be the giant monsters we’ve been seeing in multiple of the trailers. This includes trailer 2, via the organs on the tank destroyers, and trailers 3 and the man in the golden mask trailer. In trailers 2, and 3 we can see organs of creatures or in trailer 3 the creatures who would have those organs. This would mean that it is not the case that Mads Mikkelsen's character is not a bad guy per se. The reason I think this is because I believe that the dead and living seem to be co-inhabiting the same space for some reason due to the “Death Stranding” event.
At this point, this is what I believe to be the main premise of the game if “Death Stranding” is an event. The gameplay elements would be similar for both theories which I will get into but this also means that how we as a community have been talking about the game is or would be in line with how Death Stranding as a game that makes connections is already being played, but allow me to move on to theory 2. Death Stranding refers to what humans call the state one finds themselves after death.
- Death Stranding refers to what humans call the state one finds themselves after death.
This theory is a bit different, instead of some apocalyptic event, it's still some event that will be explained when the game comes out, but I thought what if Death Stranding isn’t an event itself but a label of something like “Limbo” for example. For this theory, I imagined that the dimension that the trailers take place will be called the DS for Death Stranding. Similar to the phenomena that happen when whales beach themselves. This would clearly be some metaphor but could still explain the feelings of those who may not be in the DS. I say that because I believe that in Death Stranding there are two parallel dimensions one where the living exist and one as the place for the dead. In this case, Imagine that when you die you end up in the DS, and you keep living somehow, in this separate dimension. Wouldn’t you want to let people know there is an afterlife? Perhaps in this case in the DS all those who have died and made it to the DS have had to endure dying and coming back time after time void out after void out, controlled by the “kaiju creatures” in this world people began building societies and things that could survive the environment like time fall or other variables we don’t know off. They would still need mailman to deliver packages. Which is why we play as Sam a delivery person. It could also be the case that Sam delivers mail for society in this parallel dimension with its own government “The United Cities of America” within the cities, and, or even to the world of the living. Other government factions or groups such as S.T.A.R could form or even enemies like the man in the golden mask may be out to cause trouble. Regardless being a delivery person is an integral part of this game.
Gameplay
As far as gameplay goes, I believe that this game is just an open world game similar to Zelda Breath of the Wild or even Horizon Zero Dawn with no tutorials. What I mean is that I don’t think this game will have hubs of any sort or at least very minimal like GOW. That's what things like the handcuffs and the Spinning Flower detector are for to give the player feedback that would be relayed via hubs, that is now simply part of the character or story. That’s where the online elements come into play. I believe that the way people will make connections is by posting either on an app produced by the game or Kojima productions or just simply on PSN or on other platforms, but the “need to knows” are based not just on direct references to the game or memes that they are implanting into us, but words or phrases that will be useful when creating guides or tips for other players which will be accessible via the game itself. The social media element is the tutorial. I believe that this will be the first, Minimal Guide Open World Game.
Final points
I still have much to say but my thoughts aren’t as concrete on those topics. Some last points would be that both theory 1 and 2 could be combined and be combined with what we know of the gameplay to make some cohesive hybrid of the two theories. At the very least something along the lines of either theory is probably where this game is going. The religious symbolism, as well as the “sad” vibes of the game, just scream a game that takes place in whatever place it is we call heaven or hell. But let me know what your thoughts are I’d love to engage in some discussion either PM me or just comment below, thank you for taking the time to read if you got this far.
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