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How cargo is packed by the player, and the overall weight being carried, affect Sam’s ability to navigate through the environments. These merits are, in turn, used to level up the player’s statistics, such as stability and weight capacity, and increase their standing with individual locations and characters (which can improve rewards). The player is evaluated by the company and recipients based on their performance (including via “likes” similar to social networks), including whether the cargo was delivered, and if it is intact among other factors. The player is tasked with delivering supply cargo to various isolated cities known as KNOTs, as well as isolated researchers and survivalists, while also connecting them to a communications system known as the Chiral Network. The player controls Sam Bridges, a porter for a company known as BRIDGES. Kojima compared this genre to how his earlier game Metal Gear now considered a stealth gamewas called an action game during its release because the stealth genre had not been established. Kojima refers to Death Stranding as the first “strand game”, an original genre characterized by the game’s incorporation of social elements. A sequel is currently in development.ĭeath Stranding is an action game set in an open world, and includes asynchronous online functions. Numerous commentators later noted that elements of the game resembled the COVID-19 pandemic, which began within a month of its original release. By July 2021, the game had sold 5 million copies worldwide.
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The game was nominated for and won several awards, including for game of the year. Alongside Reedus, the game features actors Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, Margaret Qualley, Troy Baker, Tommie Earl Jenkins, and Lindsay Wagner, in addition to the likenesses of film directors Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn as supporting characters.ĭeath Stranding received generally favorable reviews, with critics praising its voice acting, soundtrack, and visuals, with more mixed opinions regarding its gameplay and story. Players control Sam Porter Bridges (Norman Reedus), a courier tasked with delivering supplies to isolated colonies and reconnecting them via a wireless communications network. The game is set in the United States following a cataclysmic event which caused destructive creatures to begin roaming the Earth.
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A director’s cut version was released for the PlayStation 5 in September 2021, followed by a release for Windows in March 2022. It was published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4 in November 2019 and by 505 Games for Windows in July 2020.
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It is the first game from director Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions after their split from Konami in 2015. Death Stranding is a 2019 action game developed by Kojima Productions.
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