If you’reanything like me, the imminent launch ofDeath Stranding 2: On The Beachis a source of constant dread. People who lovedDeath Strandingand people who hated Death Stranding (like me) both have the same reason: the frustration. Death Stranding, in true Kojima style, was both narratively incomprehensible and agonising to play.
For me, this led to a truly offputting experience both times I attempted to play the game,leading me to put it down after the second timeand never try to finish it again. For others, this was their favourite game of all time, a landmark achievement for the video game industry.
Art Shouldn’t Cater To Everybody
Hideo Kojima thrives on this kind of polarised reception. That’s why his games are sokooky, unpleasant to play, and difficult to parse– that’s exactly the energy he’s going for. But it feels bizarre to read that not only was hedisappointed by the overwhelmingly positive review tests for Death Stranding 2, but heoutright went into the game and changed things based on what people approved of.
It’s ridiculous. I understand the impulse behind it: artists want to make art that’s provoking and difficult, and Hideo Kojima is an artist. Even I, as a Kojima detractor, can’t deny that. I may not jive with his art, and it may even create reactions of actual anger in me just to see billboards with Death Stranding 2 when I’m in town going about my business, but the man is making art.
His rationale makes sense. As he told Death Stranding 2 composer Yoann Lemoine, who goes by Woodkid, “If everyone likes it, it means it’s mainstream. It means it’s conventional. It means it’s already pre-digested for people to like it. And I don’t want that. I want people to end up liking things they didn’t like when they first encountered it, because that’s where you really end up loving something.”
I get it, I really do. Nobody wants their art to cater to the lowest common denominator – that’s how you end up with Netflix’s library of slop movies, created to bekind oflistened to in the background while you do chores or doomscroll on your phone. Artists want their work to be provoking and engaging, not “pre-digested” and “mainstream”. Kojima, particularly, wants his art to be difficult.
But Can We Please Be Serious Here
But there is a point where this reaction is contrarian. The people who wanted to playtest Death Stranding 2 are likely already fans of the first game – they like the stuff that’s difficult, incomprehensible, and downright annoying. They want Death Stranding to be Death Stranding-y. They’re going to react positively to the things that achieve that. That doesn’t mean the things they like make the game easily digestible, and in fact, I’d argue that it’s probably the opposite.
If Kojima is going into the game and making it evenmoreannoying than the undoubtedly annoying product that it already was, then, well. God help us all, I say. I have no doubt that the game was already inscrutable and impossible to understand, which means the final product that lands in our hands will definitely be even worse than the original. The story will be impossible to wring any meaning out of. The gameplay systems are going to be nightmarishly plodding.
Some people are going to love it. Some people are going to hate it. I am never going to play it. And the wave of discourse we’re going to face is going to be absolutely intolerable.
