Death Stranding

J. Marston

New trailer released...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6goa1pI_az8

No clue what it's actually about but it looks cool and it's got Mads Mikkelsen.

me_irl

J. Marston wrote: »

No clue what it's actually about but it looks cool and it's got Mads Mikkelsen.

Also that's Guillermo del Toro at the start.

On presumptions alone it looks like there's either an alien or man-made tendril like all emcompassing consciousness...thing. I know that doesn't make sense it's a feckin' Kojima game!

So, I'm assuming Mads is the main villain and the "strands" part of Stranding are the tentacle like appendages that keep him connected to everything.

And then there's a being that will change it all. The baby that del Toro has.

Needless to say it's going to be a head melter. Just wonder what the gameplay is going to be like.

super_furry

More weird CGI. Would be interested in knowing what kind of game it is.

sweetie

Has Norman Reedus been replaced?

me_irl

sweetie wrote: »

Has Norman Reedus been replaced?

No. His name is still on the credits at the end of the teaser.

Hercule Poirot

me_irl wrote: »

No. His name is still on the credits at the end of the teaser.

I think it's been confirmed that Reedus is the main protaganist

Osmosis Jones

It's an interesting video but at the moment it's still just more weirdness for weirdness sake. I have faith in Kojima but I really don't care about this game until we see, or are at least told, what kind of game it's going to be.

I also think it's getting far too much exposure too early, we've already had two trailers and chances are this game won't be ready for another four years, I had hoped we were getting away from this kind of marketing in gaming and for Kojima's sake I hope they stay queit for a while now.

Otacon

https://twitter.com/micha/status/804516764700835840

me_irl

Otacon wrote: »

https://twitter.com/micha/status/804516764700835840

oh no

So, another third person sandbox game then?

J. Marston

me_irl wrote: »

oh no

So, another third person sandbox game then?

Don't know much about game engines but taking the engine doesn't mean it's gonna be a sandbox game, does it?

Maybe it just takes character movement, combat physics and environmental stuff? All of which I thought were brilliant in Infamous: Second Son and First Light. Infamous was near enough a PS4 launch game and it's still probably one of the best looking games out there.

Otacon

me_irl wrote: »

oh no

So, another third person sandbox game then?

It's just the engine. That doesn't necessarily mean it'll be used for the same purpose. For instance, the FOX engine MGSV runs on is the same one used in PES 2017.

johnny_ultimate

Well del Toro has made his feelings clear :pac:

https://twitter.com/realgdt/status/804669316675280896

https://twitter.com/realgdt/status/804672347185750017

EoinHef

Osmosis Jones wrote: »

I also think it's getting far too much exposure too early, we've already had two trailers and chances are this game won't be ready for another four years, I had hoped we were getting away from this kind of marketing in gaming and for Kojima's sake I hope they stay queit for a while now.

Have to agree with this,another game revealed way too early. Stupid showing anything at this point for me. As we know things change in development so anything we see now could totally change. Even though Fallout 4 wasnt a great game for me i thought the reveal close to release is a much better strategy.

Generic Dreadhead

I imagine this would be right up there on the list of games not to play while on psychotropic drugs,

Zero-Cool

Lovely moment for Kojima last night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENLGV7FaGgw

Maximus Alexander

me_irl wrote: »

oh no

So, another third person sandbox game then?

A modern game engine tell you very little about the games that will use it. The engine is a toolbox which can be used for pretty much whatever you want. Obviously if you have unusual / specific requirements then one engine might excel in that area over others and this will influence the choice, along with pricing, performance, platform support etc. But broadly speaking the engine tells you nothing about the game.

Take a look at the list of Frostbite 3 games and Unreal 4 games, for example.

5dolla12

Looks like the marketing team are really pulling out all the stops for this campaign: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/hundreds-of-whales-die-after-mass-stranding-in-new-zealand-1.2970735

YouSavedMyLife

5dolla12 wrote: »

Looks like the marketing team are really pulling out all the stops for this campaign: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/hundreds-of-whales-die-after-mass-stranding-in-new-zealand-1.2970735

lol. Man that sucks...

5dolla12

5dolla12 wrote: »

Looks like the marketing team are really pulling out all the stops for this campaign: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/hundreds-of-whales-die-after-mass-stranding-in-new-zealand-1.2970735

:mad: Not cool

murphyebass

[Deleted User] wrote: »

:mad: Not cool

Sure it's not like it's people.

Seriously though the first person talking is smiling which is odd. She has a face only a mother would love.

Other than that the hippies will have a field day helping the poor whales that they've never cared about until just this precise moment.

Get the guitars out

YouSavedMyLife

murphyebass wrote: »

Sure it's not like it's people.

Human life is not inherently more important than any other form of life

Pickpocket

YouSavedMyLife wrote: »

Human life is not inherently more important than any other form of life

Growth, reproduction and the use of energy are inherent to all forms of life. A life-form's 'importance' is a value judgement that has no place in a conversation about what is or isn't inherent in living organisms.

YouSavedMyLife

Pickpocket wrote: »

Growth, reproduction and the use of energy are inherent to all forms of life. A life-form's 'importance' is a value judgement that has no place in a conversation about what is or isn't inherent in living organisms.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Next time I won't try using big words for fear I may use them incorrectly.

johnny_ultimate

Mod note - Think that's as far as this tangent is going to go, can we keep to the topic at hand from here on out? Thanks!

Pickpocket

I wonder how the title is borne out in the story. I thought it was a crap name until I found out it was a natural phenomenon. It's really set my imagination running.

Xenji

Good interview with Kojima.

Has the idea for Death Stranding always been there, or is it something that has blossomed very quickly and developed based on the new collaboration with Sony Interactive Entertainment?

This is a question I get asked a lot. When we started our new studio, I came up with several ideas, but we chose to do Death Stranding because it answered the questions – “What game do I need to make now? What type of game does the market want now? What kind of game can we make? We really wanted to make something that was different. That was out-of-the-box, and Death Stranding was the answer to this.

Sometimes people have an idea from when they were a child, and they’ll turn that into a game when they’re an adult, but I don’t think that’s the way to approach the subject because every day our lives change. Society changes every day, and we need to make something that is topical and something that is in-line with the world that we live in now.

What type of game will Death Stranding be?

You can think of Death Stranding as an action game. Many people play games in the shooting genre and I want to make a game that is very intuitive for them so they can get into the experience very easily, but when they play it for a bit they will realise there is a certain new type of depth to it, something that they might not have seen before.

Can you tell us more about the gameplay?

I can’t really speak on that right now but in a word, it’s an action game – an open world game, with a lot of freedom. You have a lot of freedom of choice to do what you want to do and you can get in vehicles and so on. If you are a fighter, there’s plenty of opportunity for that. If you’re not that type of player, there are other ways to play this game. I can’t really say much more, but it’s an open-world, action game that’s very intuitive to play. Once you get into the world and start to explore more, we’re hoping there’s something there you’ve never seen before.

We have heard about the ‘Strands’ concept that is being introduced for this game, what does this mean, exactly?

Concerning the ‘Strands’, this is my 31st year in the games industry and I’ve been deep in action games across that time. In action games, generally, the player has a gun and plays against enemies in a single player environment – or they take it online and play against other players in a competitive environment. They join in together with guns – [laughs] it’s almost always with guns – to take down a stronger opponent. In this game you can do that but I wanted to go a little deeper beyond that with something that doesn’t focus on a weapon like a gun and that’s what has a connection to the strand concept.

It has also been said that Death Stranding will feature a new type of online play, differing from the traditional. Can you tell us more about this type of gameplay?

Again, this is something that we can’t say a lot about at the moment but if you want to play the game stand-alone, without an online component, that’s perfectly fine. We do have an online component and, again, it’s different as there will be something different versus what most people expect from an online game. A lot of games have a ‘campaign mode’ and once you’re done with that you take it to the online mode. This game is not that kind of structure.

During your studio tour with Mark Cerny, did you have a vision of what you were looking for in a game engine already?

We visited 15 studios around the world with Mark Cerny, and after this we spent another 6 months visiting other studios of people that I know. In total we visited 30 studios looking for the engine. I had a vision for the type of engine that we needed because I knew the type of game that I wanted to create.

So, first, I knew that I wanted to create an open world game, so the engine had to support an open world game structure. As far as the visuals were concerned, I was looking for very photo-realistic presentation, so the engine had to be able to support those types of visuals.

Also, the tool-set had to be easy to use. With some engines, the tools are behind a ‘black-box’ and for our purposes we needed to be able to optimize and edit the tools. These were the conditions we had when looking for the engine. As you know there are some commercially available engines and these are the ones with the ‘black-box’ type structure.
“They handed over what was basically the crystallisation of their efforts over many years.”

And what specifically led to the adoption of Guerrilla Games’ Engine?

I visited many studios all around the world, meeting many great people. Guerrilla Games in Amsterdam: their technology was just a league ahead of everywhere else. Even though they have an open world they are able to render very rich scenes with many objects. As you know their upcoming game Horizon Zero Dawn, which is coming out in February, has an artistic sensibility, particularly with regards to the use of color, whereas we’re looking for a very photo-realistic sensibility.

Their engine is built for their purposes, for the game that they wanted to create, and as I said we wanted to create a game that even at the very base levels looks very different from that, so we needed to test it to see how far we could tune their engine to fit our purposes.

Usually when you go to use, buy or borrow an engine, someone will say, “Lend us your name,” or of course ask for payment. We had no contract with Guerrilla Games, but when we met them they suddenly gave us a box, a very pretty box. When we opened the box, there was a USB dongle inside that had the source code for the engine.

Keep in mind we had no contract or anything at this stage, yet still they handed over what was basically the crystallisation of their efforts over many years. They simply said, “Mr. Kojima please use this engine,” and we thought these people are incredible.

There was one condition though, that Kojima Productions doesn’t just use the engine, but that we develop the engine together with Guerrilla Games, that it should be a collaborative effort. So we were really blown away by their stance on this and being so open with the engine and we thought “Wow, these are the people we have to work with.”

How has this collaboration with Guerrilla Games grown since first adopting the engine?

We were looking for a realistic presentation (for TGA), so we had to make changes to the tools and other adjustments to the engine. Over the course of 6 months we passed the code back and forth between Guerrilla Games and Kojima Productions, working off the same code base. At this point our code had completely merged together.
It was different from the engine they originally gave us, so we decided we should give this new engine a name. That’s when we came up with the ‘Decima’ name (derived from Dejima – an artificial island in Japan where The Netherlands and Japan would trade during the Edo period). I really feel that with both of us working on this engine we are accomplishing the work at twice the speed and building something really fantastic.

Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen are working on this project, so can we expect more Hollywood stars to be revealed on the project in the future?

Unfortunately, we can’t really say anything with regards to Death Stranding at the moment, but I feel like this type of method (working with Hollywood stars and actors) in games is going to become the norm in the future. Creating movies and creating games like this, the process is very similar.

Was the part of the protagonist written with Reedus in mind?

When I went independent and I was thinking about my first game in my head, I did see Norman playing this character. The visuals of this character were based on using Norman Reedus as the precedent.

Finally, can you tell us how development is going so far?

As you know, we have a new office in Tokyo and we’re still hiring additional staff to work with us. We’re still running tests on the game, but we have made it to the stage where we have the framework worked out. This year is all about hardcore production and development, so please look forward to the fruits of our labor further down the road.

We certainly will, Kojima-san.

EoinMcLovin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIgYnFMZiF8

... what?

J. Marston

There's a baby hiding from invisible oil monsters in Norman Reedus' belly?

Penn

Finally we get to see what this game is about!

*watches trailer*

I have less of an idea what the game is about than I did before it was even announced.

J. Marston

J. Marston wrote: »

There's a baby hiding from invisible oil monsters in Norman Reedus' belly?

No, there's a baby in the container whatsit that got into Reedus' stomach that stops invisible oil monsters. But then the baby turns into black muck. Or something.

SolvableKnave

Deleted User wrote: »

No, there's a baby in the container whatsit that got into Reedus' stomach that stops invisible oil monsters. But then the baby turns into black muck. Or something.

But what about the baby in his throat?

SolvableKnave

SolvableKnave wrote: »

But what about the baby in his throat?

Is that the same baby? When Reedus looks at it just after he wakes up, the container is now oily black.

Oh I don't know. The whole thing was bonkers.

What might be intriguing is if the game is played in a third person over the shoulder way like Dead Space/mass effect. And if the only way you know if enemies is near is if the whirly light yolk tracks and follows it.

SolvableKnave

Deleted User wrote: »

Is that the same baby? When Reedus looks at it just after he wakes up, the container is now oily black.

Oh I don't know. The whole thing was bonkers.

I have no idea. As you say, the thing was bonkers. Beautifully bat$hit bonkers

Deleted User wrote: »

What might be intriguing is if the game is played in a third person over the shoulder way like Dead Space/mass effect. And if the only way you know if enemies is near is if the whirly light yolk tracks and follows it.

If the twirly light thing is an integral part of the in game detection system, then yeah, I'd go with 3rd person.

Retr0gamer

It's like a students game design project.

"There's like these invisible guys and you can't breath and then the place floods and there's like dead people and then a whale and when you wake up you have a baby in your belly."

"Yeah.... but how is it going to play?"

klose

No idea what direction or what this game will play out but I'm hyped as fcuk, love a good sci-fi apocalyptic setting.

Icaras

I reckon its going to be a straight forward action game, run and gun. All the promotional material is coming from the dream/drugged up level(s) which break things up a little.

Zero-Cool

:cool:

https://twitter.com/theofficialmads/status/985152531536936960?s=19

SeantheMan

Mads is just cool anyways.
Normal still looks like an unwashed apocalypse survivor.

EoinHef

Taking a picture of yourself and labelling it cool....no ego there at all:P

SeantheMan

EoinHef wrote: »

Taking a picture of yourself and labelling it cool....no ego there at all:P

I doubt Mads himself actually uploads of posts them things. He has someone to run the page for him

EoinHef

SeantheMan wrote: »

I doubt Mads himself actually uploads of posts them things. He has someone to run the page for him

Sorry but thats no excuse...

SeantheMan

I'd have an ego if I were him. Cool as feck he is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofLhH3RPwmo

ShadowHearth

SeantheMan wrote: »

I'd have an ego if I were him. Cool as feck he is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofLhH3RPwmo

Yup, couldn't agree more. After watching Hannibal series, he is right at the top of the list of being "cool as ****".

SeantheMan

SeantheMan wrote: »

I doubt Mads himself actually uploads of posts them things. He has someone to run the page for him

It literally says just that: The Official Twitter Account for Danish Actor Mads Mikkelsen [Due to Mads' hectic schedule all the social media accounts are managed by his webteam]

SeantheMan

Well that was mental.
Still not sure what's going on

Kiith

SeantheMan wrote: »

Well that was mental.
Still not sure what's going on

I expect to be saying that exact thing after finishing the game.

Mr Crispy

New cutscene clip from the TGS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ssn2rxFtOI

Icyseanfitz

What is this game

J. Marston

I'm bored of it already.

It's been three years of wacky cutscenes and Hollywood cameos and still no sign of a release. Sony must be praying this sells amazingly because to me, at this stage, it looks like the arsiest of vanity projects that is going to bomb.

nix

J. Marston wrote: »

I'm bored of it already.

It's been three years of wacky cutscenes and Hollywood cameos and still no sign of a release. Sony must be praying this sells amazingly because to me, at this stage, it looks like the arsiest of vanity projects that is going to bomb.

I dont know, it does look too crazy to be good, but it kinda reminds me of how games used to be created. Alot of games made back in the early days, the ideas were crazy also but the end products were great.

I have faith in Kojima, him and his teams are consistent at pumping out gems. I'm glad to see a game being made by a man and an idea, whos given total control, as opposed to a bored of members who dont play games and base the creativity of their games around marketing feedback and polls.

At the very least, if its not good, it will be fresh, new and an experience.