Post Script
Sublime or ridiculous? Why not both?
The usual critical debate around Hideo Kojima will only be further fuelled by Death Stranding 2. If his game design credentials are widely recognised, as a writer and director he’s always been harder to evaluate, and that’s not about to change. For some he’s a genius, for others a hack. But, like the stories he writes, the reality is surely more complex.
What do we think, for example, about the characters in Death Stranding 2 with bluntly descriptive names? Sam Porter Bridges is, of course, a porter who builds bridges. The first game’s Deadman and Heartman are now joined by Tarman, who pilots the Magellan through tar streams, and Dollman, a guide character in the classic Zelda style who takes the form of a talking doll. Is this simply lacklustre writing? Perhaps. But then the game’s often-tortured prose is equally entangled in bright ideas, clever jokes, layered meanings and self-awareness. Kojima’s worlds never let us escape the sense that there’s method to the madness.