So, here's the thing: I'm not a gamer. My wife, she's a gamer. She'll play mass effect all day. Me? The most recent games I've played are the Batman "Arkham" series, and Ghostbusters. Not the new one tied to the new film, but the 2009 one, with the original cast. Those are my most recent not because I'm a gamer, but because I love batman, and I LOVE Ghostbusters. That said, I also love creativity, and I love seeing/hearing/watching other people be creative. Hideo Kojima is a creative man. You don't even need to be a gamer to see that. So is Guillermo Del Toro. I have long loved his films, and felt like a kid in a candy store as I walked through his "At Home With Monsters" exhibit with a friend back in November. His creativity was on full display, and I relished it, seeing not only his own creations, but the things that influenced him. The things that made such an imprint on him that you can see how it drove him to become the creator he is today. It was like seeing the formula or the equation behind his works. If A= Classic monster movies and B= a love of old fairy tales, then A+B= Pan's Labyrinth... Or something like that anyway. I love art and writing and coming up with my own stories, and for me part of that involves taking the things I have experienced or learned about and finding ways to connect them and make something new or unique, then taking that new thing and again seeing how I can connect it back to this world. I really enjoy seeing other creative who seem to think along these lines too. When I saw Del Toro's name attached to Silent Hills, I got excited, and I vaguely knew Kojima was a big name in video games because of Metal Gear Solid, so I was pretty excited to see what would come out of the game. Norman Reeds as the lead character was a win to me too. Something about having an actor involved to the degree that they use their likeness in a game feels like it gives the project a little more "umph" to me, but, that's just me. And of course I was bummed to see the project get canceled... But it was what came out of all of this that had me hooked. 2 brilliant creative minds and a good actor deciding to carry on after what seemed like a pretty severe brush off, and the cancelation of a high profile project. Something good felt like it was gonna come out of it. And know, we see what that was: Death Stranding. Between cryptic words, a couple trailers, and the mysterious "Homo Ludens" mascot of Kojima's new company, there's a lot to process, and a lot to guess about. But there's also the overwhelming invitation to try. To find the pieces if that formula. The elements of the equation that Kojima built Death Stranding from. I saw a video recently (I believe from YouTube user YongYea) talking about comparisons between the first Death Stranding trailer and the first Terminator film. Now, at first I thought "OK, big whoop, here's 2 naked guys who start out on the ground and then stand up. It really evidence of anything, right?" But then I saw his side by side comparison of the two scenes... And my mind was blown. It was clear that Kojima purposefully built the Death Stranding scene to mirror the Terminator scene. Do I think it's some link between the two stories that is significant? No, at least not right now, but I do think it's a piece of formula. I think it's one of the things that was swirling around Kojima's head that inspired him. By no stretch of the imagination do I think I am any sort of equal to Kojima. He clearly knows a ton more about video games and making money than I do. But, I do think I sense something about him and the way he thinks that I can relate to... That I vibe with. He's a connector. He's constantly absorbing and analyzing the world around him. Facts, theories, history, legends, technology, advancements, people, all of it. Observing things and storing them away, noting how it all connects to the world around him, and then allowing his brain to connect those different concepts into something new. Taking things that haven't been put together before and seeing how they fit. Coming up with new meanings and interpretations of things. I read about how one of the Metal Gear games involves unplugging a controller and plugging it into the other controller port to confuse an enemy who up til then has been predicting your moves. That takes someone who is constantly thinking about how to reinterpret the world around him. The idea that he would be the 3rd person in the hospital, in his own creation, witnessing his creation, and then having it interact with him, and allowing the player to experience that too? That's someone who cares deeply about not creating a game, but an experience. A world. It totally falls in line with the "Homo Ludens" character from the Kojima logo. The Playing Man. An evolution. A character that represents all of us as we engage in his games. His name isn't Carl or Steve or NORMAN. He is... Kojima. He's you. He's me. He's anyone playing a Kojima game (or a game in general, I suppose). He's us. That said, he happens to look like Norman Reedus. BUT, this isn't Norman Reedus playing a certain character. Hell, it isn't even Norman Reedus as Norman Reedus. It's just... His shell? His body? It's the figure that represents this new man. This Playing Man. It's his likeness in the suit, but that likeness can be Kojima, it can be anyone. So when Kojima says "It's me in the suit" he's not lying. And when he says "it can be anybody" he's not lying. He's just being clever... He's also not lying when he says that Ludens is not Norman, and Ludens is not the main character Death Stranding. However, the main character of Death Stranding could very well be another example of Norman representing this Playing Man. Separate, but the same. Homo Ludens is the poster child, but game Norman is the concept in action. Now, as for the game itself... ... What if it's a meta examination of gaming itself? Think about it. When you game, you play, your character dies, you respect, you move on. But what if every playable character that dies becomes... Stranded? Every time you respawn, that old, shot up body that you just shed so you could take a new one out to battle is stranded. Every element t of the game, person, place, thing, etc, that gets broken or killed carelessly and thoughtlessly becomes "stranded", left to drift, winding up in some sort of game world graveyard. This explains why it's not just lifeforms that have the disconnect Ted umbilical cords dangling about, but stuff like the planes as well. It's a haunting place. One that looks like it's starting to become its own gnarly assemblage of weird biological matter and parts, if that creepy tank on the bridge is any indicator. And what if, in the midst of this madness and decay, there was life. A new form of life. A life to be protected, of fought over. What if this "playing man" is that life? Life that has evolved to care and understand "death" in a new way, and that death in any form is to be revered and deserves compassion, and that life is to be protected? Life that has evolved to be a product of this game world... Homo Ludens. Maybe that is what the baby in the pod is. Another video I saw, and forgive me, I can't find it again, and I can't remember who said it, but they put forth that the way things suddenly appear and disappear and change, sometimes off screen and sometimes in a burst of embers and light... Maybe that's the in game equivalent of having an invisible cache of gear and equipping it seemingly out of nowhere. Mads Mikkelsen is seen using his goggles, but as he flips them up, they disappear. In the first trailer, as Norman is holding the baby, connecting Ted to him via the cord, the shot is tight on him. We can't see the child, but suddenly, he reacts, and we pull out to see its gone, and later on, that a scar has taken the place of where the cord would have connected. Maybe it disappeared in much the same way Mads' goggles disappeared, just off screen. Was it because Guillermo "equipped" the baby from where he was? YongYea also made a video that showed by altering the speed of one of the trailers, the 2 trailers sync up in a way that makes it seem like as soon as Guillermo connects his cord to the pod carrying the baby, that is the moment when Norman loses the baby in his world. He pondered that maybe the fact that the "dogtags" on Norman's neck and the equations etched onto them, which pertain to quantum physics and black holes, possibly meant that the game would touch on those elements. He sort of dismissed the idea that speeding up the video played into the black hole theory, but I think he was on the right track. I think that is because these are 2 characters in different worlds/levels of the same game, but Kojima is taking this concept to new depths. These worlds/levels in the game might actually relate to each other in a way similar to the scene in Interstellar when some of the characters go down to the surface of a planet, only to find that an hour there was years on the ship in orbit. Maybe that's consistent between the worlds of this game. Clearly they are all suffering from the same affliction of being a place where dead things are stranded, but maybe those equations are the key to Norman moving throughout the levels, and maybe moving the baby back and forth through time is part of the game's mechanics to protect it. Maybe it's ability to relate to and move through time and space differently and still survive is a part of its evolution... From Homo sapiens into Homo Ludens. And what if Mads, as the villain, is able to manipulate all the death and decay and abuse it to his will? People have wondered if the oil is a sign that the game has something to do with an actual oil crisis, but I think it's not so much a firm in game literal element as much as just visual symbolism for the abuse of life. It leaks from Mads as he is connected to the world war 2 era soldiers in the tunnel. He's using all those discarded soldiers and warriors so carelessly "stranded" after their job is over, as his army, out to stop this Homo Ludens. To crush it before it becomes a threat. I think the five floating beings in the first trailer are that world/level's incarnation of Mads and his death soldiers. I think each level dictates their appearance. In the more war oriented world, they are soldiers. In the, literally, stripped down world Norman is in, the take the threatening appearance of some all knowing beings above him. They will follow you from world to world in pursuit of Ludens... I have more thoughts, but they're not completely fleshed out. I'll probably post them eventually. I've definitely been sucked down this rabbit hole. For me the fun isn't in trying to figure out every detail of the game's plot. It's in putting together the equation. Deciphering the pieces and influences and what they could mean when connected together, in the equation that will ultimately equal Death Stranding.
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