(Playing DEATH STRANDING With Player 3)
I’ve watched a lot of my friends play…a lot of video games online. Everything from Sekiro to Elden Ring, Bloodborne, Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Nier, Final Fantasy XIV, and especially Metal Gear. Metal Gear Solid blew my mind when I was a kid, and it’s a series I’ve carried with me into adulthood. You know, Metal Gear 2 is great, Metal Gear 3 blew my mind again. Metal Gear 4 was perfectly timed for me, and Metal Gear V was as well.
Finding out what people think is one of my favorite things about criticism, and I was delighted when I found out that my younger brother, who we’re gonna codename Player 3, he played Metal Gear 3 a while back and he really enjoyed it, and he’s reaching back to Metal Gear 1. There’s something really cool about the fact that Metal Gear has captured me and my younger brother at this point. I really get a lot out of the creativity and storytelling that Hideo Kojima and, you know, his collaborators like Yoji Shinkawa bring to the table.
I wanted to know what my little brother thought as well. So I sat down and I talked with him about it for a little bit. We chatted about Death Stranding and we played a little Death Stranding, and then we chatted some more. He’s still very early in the game, so it was really interesting seeing what he was latching onto and what hadn’t taken root yet. It was really difficult to avoid spoilers and backseat gaming, but I guess that’s just how these things go.
I’m David Brothers and this is No Relation.
Chronomentrophobia.
Transcript:
Player 1: So, can you introduce yourself to us and tell us how old you are?
Player 3: I’m sixteen years old, almost turning seventeen in June.
Player 1: Okay. And you’re my little brother, whose name we’re not gonna say on the internet, because, you know, there’s weirdos.
Player 1: And, you like video games?
Player 3: Yeah, I like video games.
Player 1: What kinda games do you like to play?
Player 3: Story games, online…
Player 1: What do you mean by “story game”?
Player 3: Oh, story games, that would be like crime or adventure. It could be a variety.
Player 1: Oh, okay. So not just like action games or fighting games, you want games that have a narrative, let’s say. Because you want to learn something, or what do you get out of having a story? What makes that interesting?
Player 3: You know, it like, it adds something to the gameplay.
Player 1: Okay. Yeah.
Player 3: You know, it’s fun to be engaged.
Player 1: And you played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: Tell me about that. What was that like? What system did you play it on and when did you play it?
Player 3: I played it on the 2DS. It was really interesting to play. It was kind of like, hard getting to know the controls, but after a few hours, I got to know it well. Yeah.
Player 1: There’s this thing I like a lot, this phrase. I heard it a lot growing up, you’ll probably hear it too. “It’s easy once you know how to do it.” And I think Metal Gear is one of those where it’s really complicated, but once you’re in the groove and sneaking around, it feels very natural. That feel the same to you?
Player 3: Yeah. Definitely.
Player 1: It really tripped me out that you like Metal Gear, because Metal Gear 1 came out, I was thirteen or fourteen maybe? So you started playing those games around when I did back in the day. Was Metal Gear your first game by Hideo Kojima?
Player 3: Yeah, Metal Gear Solid 3.
Player 1: What are you playing now?
Player 3: Death Stranding.
Player 1: What do you think of this one?
Player 3: It’s very amazing, you know. Graphics are obviously amazing. They’re kind of on the level of Red Dead Redemption 2.
Player 1: Oh yeah. That one’s a big deal.
Player 3: And the story’s pretty interesting. It’s very original. Stands out from a lot of the games. And the characters, yeah. They’re good.
Player 1: Kojima’s originality is really interesting to me because some people make video games that are kinda like movies, you know? I think Grand Theft Auto is very much, kind of a Hollywood-style game, let’s say. But Kojima makes games that are very much video games, he wants you pressing buttons and sneaking around and doing things. Do you think Death Stranding is complicated? Was it hard to learn like Metal Gear? Or do you have it figured out now?
Player 3: It’s sort of like Metal Gear. First, it’s kind of complicated to know, but after all the tips and stuff, you can kind of understand it.
Player 1: The in-game tips?
Player 3: Yeah, the in-game tips, like that.
Player 1: Do you always read those or do you skip past them?
Player 3: I always read them. If I wanna climb, there’s gonna be a tip there.
Player 1: You mentioned liking the characters. Do you have a favorite or anyone that you’re interested in the most so far?
Player 3: Well, the game kinda just started, so I don’t have a favorite yet. I would probably choose a favorite from kinda far in the game. Like, half.
Player 1: That makes sense. How far into the game are you? You mentioned it just started.
Player 3: Oh yeah. I’m on episode 2.
Player 1: Okay.
Player 3: I kinda started building some stuff. Watchtowers. Bridges. Postboxes. It was kinda getting difficult, going to all the places. Because first, there was the timefall and BTs. There was MULEs, but they’re kinda easy to get past.
Player 1: Yeah.
Player 3: It’s kind of like Metal Gear again.
Player 1: I like the way that the combat’s not the point of the game. You can fight all you want. You can hit people with boxes and things like that. Eventually you’ll get different kinds of guns. But you can play the whole game in a pretty… semi-pacifist way, which is pretty cool. Did you ever do a challenge run in Metal Gear? No kills, or anything like that?
Player 3: No, I just kinda played the game. I did try to sneak past and through without killing, but I’d get seen and then I’d just like…go on a rampage.
Player 1: It’s Rambo time, right?
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: Yeah. When I was a kid, I heard about people getting the Big Boss ranking, you know? Like, no kills, no alerts, and finish the game in like three hours of something like that.
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: I was never that good. But I would always try to do no kills as much as I could, just to kind of… because that’s how I thought the character would behave. You mentioned the stories adding to the game?
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: For me, thinking about what the characters would do and then kinda playing that way adds a lot.
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: And in something like Death Stranding, it’s interesting because it’s so open that you can kind of do whatever you want. You can deliver things all day.
Player 3: It’s very peaceful.
Player 1: Yeah. Have you seen anything that really knocked your socks off so far?
Player 3: Ummm. I have to say it was… I don’t have a favorite moment, but the part where Sam’s team gets wiped out.
Player 1: Ohh, yeah. That part was also in the original trailer, I think. And everyone was like, “What is going on with this baby?”
Player 3: Yeah, and every time I’d see a rainbow in the game, I’d feel like, afraid and stuff. Yeah.
Player 1: It’s interesting you say afraid that way. ‘cuz you know something is coming?
Player 3: Yeah. It’s very interesting. You can make a flower be the dangerous thing and with the rainbow, Hideo did that.
Player 1: Yeah. And that’s also part of the beauty of the game. It’s a really good-looking rainbow.
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: I played this game half on PS4 and half on PS5. It looks even better on PS5, I gotta say. I know you’re playing on PS4. But I think the graphics being so realistic and the story being so… much about other people, like, community, building connections, and things… I thought that it was really moving as a video game.
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: So I’m interested in seeing how it sticks to you. You’re just a couple episodes in. There’s so much to go. I know you’ve seen… I think you did one delivery for Heartman out in the woods.
Player 3: Yeah, that was really difficult.
Player 1: Getting through all that timefall. Was it the Wind Farm, I think?
Player 3: It was the Wind Farm.
Player 1: Yeah. I think everyone, they get there and they’re like, “Aw, man.” But it kinda sets the tone for the game, right? Like, here’s the things you have to fight, but also here’s how you can beat them. How did you get through that part, out of curiosity? What did you do?
Player 3: Wind Farm?
Player 1: Yeah.
Player 3: Well, I was exploring a bit after I finished a task. And then I saw the woods, and I was like, oh, hey, there’s woods, and I’ll go up there. There was stuff over there so I wanted to get it, and then there was this tip thing that said there’s strong wind and stuff, it’ll push you…
Player 1: Yeah. [laughs]
Player 3: And then there’s rainfall, which was a very bad thing. So I had to like, put stuff in the private locker so I could not get it damaged.
Player 1: Did you fight the BTs or sneak past them?
Player 3: So far I sneak through them.
Player 1: Ahhh. Okay. Where I’m at in the game, I’m in basically the endgame. I can just run around doing deliveries whenever I want, and fighting BTs and things. I’ve taken to just getting captured by them when they show up and then doing the boss fight, and then running away. And it’s both… It can be fun and easy, then sometimes you mess up one little thing and it becomes scary. And I think this game does a great job of that. What do you think of the delivery system? A game where you’re a delivery person?
Player 3: It’s very interesting. There’s the weight thing.
Player 1: Yeah. Weight management is very important. It’s almost like a walking puzzle, I found. “How much can you carry and get to some place efficiently?”
Player 3: Yeah, I would sometimes have to drop stuff. I would leave it there and when I’m done, I’d come back to it.
Player 1: Are you picking up packages from other people?
Player 3: Yeah. Sometimes I find that.
Player 1: Delivering those too. That adds up a lot as the game goes on. I think the game gives you so many cool options for carrying stuff. It’s pretty impressive.
Player 3: Yeah, and that’s what I like about the game. There’s a lot of options in it.
Player 1: You can kinda play it however you want.
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: So we just played about an hour or so of Death Stranding together. Me watching. What I wanted to see was how you played the game, kinda the decisions you were making, that you were coming across, and the way that you approached BTs and MULEs and things like that. I noticed that you sneak almost all the time. You try to avoid fighting, whether it’s a BT or MULE.
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: Do you know why?
Player 3: For the MULEs… If I’m doing a task that’s really, really important, and I come across a MULE place, I would just pass by and try to escape. When it’s just a standard task, then I would just, you know, kill them and stuff.
Player 1: And what about BTs? You really didn’t want to fight BTs while we were playing.
Player 3: Yeah. ‘cuz how they’re represented when they’re first introduced, especially where Sam’s team got wiped out, I was like, I think I shouldn’t mess with these guys. Once you’re in the black puddle, if you don’t struggle out of it, then it’s kind of over. Then the whale part had me panicking, but thanks to you for those tips, I managed to collect my thoughts, think about decisions…
Player 1: I was trying not to backseat game too much… but I did give you more tips than I was intending to.
Player 3: Yeah. So I handled it more.
Player 1: Were you surprised when you beat that first one?
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: You didn’t think it was gonna happen at all?
Player 3: Yeah. I didn’t think it was gonna happen at all.
Player 1: How did you feel after, when you realized that you could beat a BT if you needed to?
Player 3: Oh wow, this is like… groundbreaking.
Player 1: “Groundbreaking.” That’s a good word. What do you mean by groundbreaking?
Player 3: Like, BTs. They’re dangerous. I killed one.
Player 1: It kinda changes how you see the game?
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: How many BTs did you beat tonight?
Player 3: About two. One, I escaped one.
Player 1: You escaped one… I think that counts as defeating them, because then the timefall goes away for a while.
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: Which way do you prefer, the fighting or the escaping from the BT?
Player 3: That’s a tough question. ‘cuz like, if you’re out of weapons, like the grenades, then you’re just gonna have to escape it. If you have the weapons, then you’re pretty much okay. You can just beat the whale.
Player 1: For me, I think I prefer to fight them, but I tend to come prepared for that. I keep hematic grenades with me just in case. Or I use the strand to kinda sneak up on them and cut their connection.
Player 3: One thing I did want to say about the BT fights… It did remind me of the time I used to play Breath of the Wild.
Player 1: Oh, okay.
Player 3: Very good game. The time, I forgot what it’s called, it’s the sea kingdom. You had to get these arrows. There’s big…forget what it was called. There’s kind of mutant horse, I forgot. It was like a horse and a humanoid-ish torso.
Player 1: I’ll find it and put a picture up.
Player 3: It was kinda reminding me of that. It was a mini boss fight.
Player 1: Tonight we were working through episode two, probably the end of episode two.
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: Why did it feel like the end of episode two?
Player 3: With all that was happening and the music that was playing, that just had to be the ending of episode two. Like BTs… A lot of BTs.
Player 1: Yeah.
Player 3: Mountains. The music that was just playing, the city that was presented… You just finally reach that city.
[an excerpt from Silent Poet’s “Asylums for the Feeling” featuring Leila Adu plays]
Player 1: And how did you feel about the pathfinding side of things, knowing you had to go from the top of the map to the bottom of the map, and there’s a bunch of BTs in the middle.
Player 3: That made things easier, the markers.
Player 1: Oh, using waypoints? Were you just kinda hoping for the best before and just walking?
Player 3: Well…yeah. Like that.
Player 1: Yeah.
Player 3: The mountain part. That was very hard. Especially with the loss of the bike.
Player 1: Oh yeah. Do you wanna recap what happened to your bike?
Player 3: Yeah. I was trying to figure out how I would go to that other side, and then I accidentally moved my bike too, I think like a… how do you say it… like an edge of the mountain, like that. So I tried to get back up but that was impossible. So it fell. And I fell there. I think a lot of my items took damage.
Player 1: Yeah. You fell on one cliff edge, the bike fell even further than you did… and exploded at the bottom of the mountain.
Player 3: Yeah. The bike…when I discovered the bike, it pretty much just made things easier, kinda.
Player 1: But now you’re learning the weaknesses of the bike.
Player 3: Yeah, it just went back straight to walking.
Player 1: Do you remember what that guy said about his brother at the end of this chapter, where we were?
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: How did that make you feel?
Player 3: What was his name? Victor?
Player 3: Victor Frank.
Player 1: Igor was his brother.
Player 3: Maybe like… I don’t know if I heard Igor mentioning his brother but it was very surprising to see that he has a brother and he knows… Er, Victor seeing the baby, or the BB that his brother uses, that was very shocking to him.
Player 1: yeah.
Player 3: You know, like it passed on his legacy.
[excerpt from Death Stranding plays]
Player 1: Yeah, it’s uh… This game does a good job of tying things together that way, where you’ll meet someone and they have history with someone else, or they feel a certain way that, you know, might change the way you feel about certain things, you know?
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: Do you have any closing comments? Anything else you wanna leave out on? Any final thoughts about Death Stranding?
Player 3: I do wish to play the game, you know, finish the story. It’s very interesting.
Player 1: Are you gonna beat it before part two comes out?
Player 3: I will try to.
Player 1: If you do, we should talk about part two as well.
Player 3: Yeah.
Player 1: By the end of our conversation, I had a pretty good idea what Player 3 was in for while he was playing Death Stranding.
I know a lot of the twists and turns pretty well just, you know, by virtue of having been through the game before and reading up on it, and listening to the audiobook, buying the art book, and yada yada yada, you know, we don’t have to go too deep into it. But I was excited to see how he would interpret the same things that really touched me.
I found Death Stranding incredibly moving after I beat it. It was the kinda game where you have to sit there and think about it for a little bit, and then keep mulling it over after you reach the endgame. I found the game’s point of view… really remarkable and interesting. And it made me endlessly curious about the game.
I wanna know what everyone thinks about every aspect of this game, and having someone close to me like my brother be into it as well is an even more fun way to approach interpreting art. Like, this is the meat and potatoes, like, this is the juice, this is why I love art so much, is finding out how it affects other people and sharing how it affects me.
We reconnected this weekend. He’s up to episode eight now, so he’s getting pretty close to the end. He’s about halfway through the game. And it’s great seeing him barrel through deliveries, go directly where he wants to go, figure out the pathing and the best routes and all that stuff… It’s just…I dunno. It’s a good time.
I’m glad there’s art and games like this to bring us together.