Lajiaya

It will be interesting to see how frequent those Mule outposts actually are, and how often it is possible to be caught by Beached Things. But the actual traveral itself seems very granular, with a lot of systems to consider.

@shindig: Well I think what Kojima has in mind is the relationship betwen players over the asynchronous online aspects. I don't know about any further metaphors in the plot/story.

Dualshockers (website) put together a summary of the last presentation featuring the Japanese voice cast, and it seems like the message (Kojima wants the game to potray) is more about people being mean to each other over the internet and not considering "other people's feelings".

"You know, human communication has changed as technology evolved. In the past, we only had letters. Then we had phones, radios and TVs. And now on the net, we can communicate in real-time with anyone anywhere. The world is now directly connected. At the same time, with everyone hidden behind their keyboards, this made it much easier for negativity to spread. With Death Stranding’s game system, I wish to indirectly connect the world. That way people will start thinking about each other’s feelings again. I hope people who experience Death Stranding will try to understand more about others and the society we live in, ultimately making the world a better place."

@ntm: It seems that what they haven't really shown is what happens when you die, and presumably cross over to the world of the dead. I'm guessing that's where "the beach" is, and all the weirder world war imagry is.

I hope there's more to the message of this game than: People just need to connect! That's all!

You'll probably never play it, but interestingly for a while FFXI's teleport systems were also just a list of names; this was good enough for 2000's-era SE. However, when A Realm Reborn was released, FFXI also got an update that year that added a bunch of teleport crystals which automatically pop up a map showing you where your selection will send you. Maybe would have been a nice idea for them to do something like that for FFXII's HD-release as well.

Hopefully it's actually successful so more stuff like this can be made in the future. Otherwise sequels forever!

Basically what I mean by "cerebral" is that there are enough game mechanics to think about and situations to consider at a pace that keeps the player engaged; which is pretty much what your speculations for gameplay are describing. It can be meditative as well, but if it's slow to the degree that most people will get bored, it won't be very popular.

I don't think a big budget Journey (with the same number and depth of game mechanics) will do well for the new Kojima Productions. The first game that they release needs to be enticing to a large enough audience that publishers will be willing to support them further on. I'm not saying it needs to have shooting or big action sequences, but it needs to be fun and interesting, or else a lot of people will get off the KojiPro-wagon. Don't get me wrong, I still find it interesting myself and it's my most anticipated game, but I definitely see a lot of people saying "this looks boring" after the trailer was shown.

I hope it retains and builds on the ethos of open-world systematic elements, like some of the stuff you're describing. And if a lot of it is traversal, I hope it ends up being rewarding rather than troublesome (one of the mechanics I think will be keeping your balance as you carry on body on your back, and I can picture gameplay like that turning off a lot of people).

We know it won't be power fantasy like MGSV, but it's still unique enough to keep a lot of people's interests (so far).

I'd be very interested if the gameplay loop were something like this. I think in general it will have some kind of asynchronous cooperative online element. What some people (myself included) are apprehensive about is how cerebral the moment-to-moment gameplay will be, especially if the emphasis is directed away from any substantial combat, and what kind of enemies or obstacles one will have to deal with in what ways including and in addition to those ghost-things.

(Edit: Also I don't remember there being any drones in the trailer. But it was interesting seeing the bike, only to have it fall off of the cliff).