Freddie Hatch

In the lead up to Hideo Kojima's latest game, the game director had often mentioned what he believed was the start of a new subgenre. Affectionately dubbed a "strand" game, much of Death Stranding 's marketing was bolstered by what Kojima believed was an innovative new concept for games. Obviously, stating that a game is starting a new genre before it's even released is short-sighted, something Kojima addressed by immediately doubling down. Kojima had essentially stated that the full potential of an "action strand game" genre would not be met without a few sequels to present the scope of his new subgenre of video ga On July 14, Hideo Kojima’s latest creative venture, Death Stranding , finally releases on PC . Like other PC players, I’ve waited since November to experience Death Stranding on PC, and now that I’ve had my hands on the game for about a week I’m happy to say that, so far, it was well worth the w Many gamers will be tuning in to The Game Awards 2019 to see which game won the coveted Game of the Year, but others will be tuning in for the world premieres. The Game Awards has gained a reputation for being an event where major new game announcements take place, with this year's event promising at least 10 world premiere reveals for gamers to look forward The vehicles are a strong point of contention for players, considering that they imply that they'll be able to trivialize some deliveries, but they also don't exactly move over unsteady terrain all that well. Combine this with the fact that most of Death Stranding 's artful aesthetic is built around landscapes that have been reclaimed by nature or wreckage of bombed cities, and the available vehicles almost require roads to be built. So, a new focus on vehicles to give them a better give and take on which terrain they can travel across and how much they can hold as a result is an improvement a sequel should aim Arguably the closest thing the video game industry has to the Oscars or the Emmys is The Game Awards . Each year, a group of industry insiders and journalists come together to vote on which games should win in a variety of categories. The winners are announced in December at The Game Awards , which has been hosted by video game journalist Geoff Keighley since its inception in 2 It's an interesting conceptual design that does genuinely make Death Stranding different from many singleplayer and survival-style games. However, Kojima's comments on the "strand game" genre mentioned sequels , some that may not necessarily be exactly like Death Stranding . In an interview with GameSpot, after being asked about the future of Death Stranding , he stated a new genre of games isn't defined by just one gameplay experie Firstly, it's important to hone in on Kojima's comments about the next big videogame genre, the "strand" type of game . In a way, Kojima had stayed true to his word in creating a game that, at first, seemed genre-less or at bare minimum tough to distinguish. One of the biggest and most important questions prior to Death Stranding 's gameplay reveal was: What is Death Stranding ? Some had asked in jest, others were genuinely curious of Death Stranding 2 DLC|https://deathstranding2World.com/ Stranding . According to Hideo Kojima, a "strand game" involves the usage of social systems to emphasize and incorporate "the concept of connections" between all players, otherwise known as "stran Death Stranding’s controls also map really well onto the mouse and keyboard. Every keybind feels intuitive and those who prefer a controller can still easily plug one in and enjoy the game that way. The mouse and keyboard controls even include some quality of life changes that PS4 players would’ve loved; for example, you can now skip cutscenes and any short animations like Sam’s frequent showers without entering any menus. My only real complaint thus far is a small one; the loading screen when first launching the game up takes about 90 seconds. However, all other loading screens are pretty short, so you only have to sit through that load once per sittDue to Geoff’s excessive mention of giraffes in games, I grew confused when Geoff Tweeted a different species in a Tweet reading, “Best Performance of 2019? #thegameawards” and used a photo of HouseHouse’s Untitled Goose Game . But then it became clear that Geoff must believe that the goose is, in fact, the giraffe of the duck world. If this is the case and Kojima Productions is looking at continuing Death Stranding into a series, then there are a few critiques and requests that the sequel may need to address. Similarly, there are some natural improvements that a sequel can make as both gaming technology improves with next-gen consoles and PC hardware, as well as the capabilities with in the game world evol So, there's a strange turning point that comes after reaching the first of Cliff Unger's war beaches, where the player is suddenly given the ability to kill enemies with the introduction of lethal weapons. However, as Kojima Productions writes through the gameplay , the lack of ludonarrative dissonance means that the player is heavily punished for killing enemies, but is given almost no reward for doing so. It's a positive in a storytelling sense, but leaves the player with all these weapon options that are really meaningless and could be explored further to give a stronger risk/reward factor for straight up mur