Hideo Kojima went on the Gamescom Opening Night Live show to the first gameplay from Kojima Production’s much-hyped Death Stranding. Death Stranding gameplay was shown earlier this year, but this is the first time we’ve seen extended, unbroken gameplay of Kojima’s latest.
This followed an introduction by Kojima where he showed two different cutscenes detailing the characters in greater depth. The first of these videos showed off dialogue between Sam — the playable character portrayed by Norman Reedus — and Mama, portrayed by Margaret Qualley. The second introduced Guillermo Del Toro’s character Deadman. Both were heavy with lore about the world of the game and the purpose of BBs (the jar babies), but without the proper context these scenes are quite a lot to handle.
The demo itself was equally as baffling, beginning with a staple of Kojima’s games, urination. Sam will be able to use his urine to make plants grow in the environment but, according to Kojima, the team has paid close attention to making sure you never see Sam’s private area.
The demo featured no traditional action or stealth mechanics common to the Metal Gear Solid series. Instead, we saw Sam exploring an environment and stumbling upon what Kojima called a Prepper, at type of NPC that will exist in the world. We got a glimpse at the inventory system and a suggestion that a focus of Death Stranding is about establishing stands and delivering packages as Sam travels across the country.
“You are going to play as Sam and connect the fractured cities and people from East to West,” Kojima said on stage. “Along the way you’ll find what we call preppers. Some preppers don’t have to do with the main storyline, so you might want to find these preppers along the way and if you get connected with them they might provide you good things. I can’t reveal too much but when you start to connect to these preppers you’ll notice you are more connected to people worldwide.”
At the end of the demo, we were introduced to another strange mechanic, rocking a baby. In Death Stranding, players will use the gyroscope in the PS4 controller to rock the BB that Sam is carrying with him back and forth. Kojima noted that if you rock too hard the baby will become upset.
It was also confirmed that Gamescom Opening Night Live host Geoff Keighley will have a cameo in Death Stranding. However, Keighley is not the only one to make a cameo in Death Stranding, Kojima let the world know that more cameos would be in store for the game. More information on the game will become available this week when its show at the PlayStation booth on the Gamescom floor.
Death Stranding will launch on November 8, exclusively for the PlayStation 4.
