Is Death Stranding Multiplayer?
By TJ Denzer ·
Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding is still as cryptic as ever with what we can expect from the game, but newly teased information could point to the game being multiplayer in some way.
What is Death Stranding? That’s still pretty hard to say. Hideo Kojima and his newly revamped Kojima Productions studio have been more than a little cryptic as to what players will be doing with Norman Reedus, Guillermo Del Toro, Léa Seydoux, and Mads Mikkelsen. However, new teasers for an upcoming trailer seem to suggest that whatever Death Stranding will be, it will be a multiplayer experience of some sort.
New interest was sparked on May 26, 2019 when Hideo Kojima teased a new trailer for the game from his personal Twitter account. As vague as ever, the teaser offered only a little snippet of video with the message “CREATE THE ROPE”. Another teaser held little beyond this snippet, but a further teaser shown below offered a link to the PlayStation Twitch account. The PlayStation Twitch is now showing promotional build up to whatever this trailer is going to be, but the bottom line is that it seems we’ll get a new look at Death Stranding on May 29.
https://t.co/crxaNwlAA7 #DEATHSTRANDING pic.twitter.com/yQFbxJIz2U
— 小島秀夫 (@Kojima_Hideo) May 28, 2019
The multiplayer rumor comes from a number of various resources spawning first from an interview Kojima did with IGN in 2016. According to Kojima, a portion of Death Stranding is about connections, between life and death, and between “animals”.
“Animals are connected with each other,” Kojima said. “People are connected to each other, so many things are connected.”
Kojima stated that this theme was inspired by a story written by Kobo Abe - The Man Who Turned Into A Stick
“[Abe] states that the stick is the first tool that mankind created to put distance between himself and bad things — to protect himself. He states that the second tool mankind created is a rope. A rope is a tool used to secure things that are important to you.”
Kojima would go on to say how he wanted to explain this in his game.
“I want people to be connected not through sticks, but through what would be the equivalent of ropes… But of course you will be able to use the sticks too.”
Adding to that mystery, Kojima has left various other clues in trailers or interviews in the time since Death Stranding was first announced that hint at this being more than an experience for just one person. A synopsis had been in discussion over on Resetera ahead of the May 29 trailer with many agreeing that though an online element might be divisive, it also seems likely. The myriad of hands together on the teaser image for the May 29 trailer continue to push a sense of community or connection. Again, maybe this is just a story Kojima wants us to share, or maybe it will be shared through multiplayer.
Do we get multiplayer in Death Stranding? It’s hard to say for certain just yet, but one thing seems certain - Kojima wants this to be a shared experience.