Hideo Kojima is no stranger to breaking the fourth wall and introducing comedic elements in his games when you least expect it. We all remember Psycho Mantis reading our PS1 memory cards, Campbell telling us to look at the back of the CD case… The list goes on. Death Stranding was a little bit self-serious, but with Death Stranding 2, I’m pleased to say that Kojima’s back to having his fun trolling players once again.
Spoilers ahead for the first hour of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.
Death Stranding 2 opens with a gorgeous view of some rocky ridges. Your very first task? To make a long trek down along the ridge to get Lou back home for dinnertime. It’s not a particularly difficult hike, though it is a bit time-consuming. You’ll need to soothe Lou along the way, sidestep some creepy ass spiders, and also deal with a small earthquake. All in all, the trek takes around 10 minutes.
Then, you get home, and BJ Thomas’ Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head starts playing on vinyl as we watch Sam prepare Lou’s dinner. The camera pans over some photos on the wall, showing Sam and Lou doing deliveries together. It’s sweet. Before long, Fragile shows up and asks you to take on a new mission to connect Mexico to the chiral network. At this point, you can either refuse or accept the job.
It’s the first time Death Stranding‘s ever given us any sort of player agency, and because players just love to break their video games, of course I had to see what would happen if I rejected Fragile. I expected her to give some spiel about how the job is really important and we’d go back to the dialogue options and I’d be forced to accept anyway, but no. The screen cuts to black, Raindrops starts playing again, and we’re back to the start of the dinnertime scene.
Except this time, when the camera pans over the photos on the wall with Sam and Lou, we see a different photo: one of the scene with Sam and Fragile that we just saw. The camera zooms into the photo and takes us back into that scene where Sam must once again decide whether to accept or reject the offer.
No, I thought. I will not be forced to do this against my will! Once again, I rejected the job. And once again, the screen cut to black and Raindrops starts playing again.
I sit through the dinner scene again, feeling somewhat smug. Kojima thinks he can force me to play his game? Well I’ll show him! Except this time, when we pan over the photos again, the camera pans further right and away from the scene with Sam and Fragile. It slowly zooms towards a new photo, a much more horrifying one. It’s a photo showing the opening scene of Death Stranding 2, with Sam looking over the ridges.
Oh god. Oh no. This is how Kojima punishes me for not playing the game the way he wants me to. He’s going to make me do that 10-minute trek all over again. Please no! Anything but that! I’ll play your game, Kojima! Please!
We zoom all the way into the photo, I can even hear the intro music playing, then Sam screams offscreen: “No! No!” And the camera hilariously pulls back and takes us to the photo with Sam and Fragile. This time, there’s only one option available to me: accept the damn job. The relief that I felt in that moment was palpable.
Video games are at their best when they don’t take themselves seriously. When they display some degree of self-awareness and are willing to engage players on a meta level. Not too much, though — I could never sit through something like The Stanley Parable — but just enough to get a chuckle out of me, then move on with the plot.
I was mildly surprised at the fact that there were dialogue options in Death Stranding 2. Most of them just serve to help flesh out the story and get more information for those who want it, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about the possibility of actual decisions that might shape the flow of the story. After all, even if I think Kojima might be a little high on his supply and needs to be reined in while in the writers’ room, I, as his captive audience, wouldn’t want to mess with whatever crazy vision he’s cooked up this time.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is now available on PS5.
