Without a doubt, Kojima Productions' forthcoming PlayStation 4 exclusiveDeath Strandingis easily one ofthe most anticipated games for E3 2018, as many are hoping for the developer to finally show off some concrete gameplay for the title. Should that not occur, one of the game’s stars, Mads Mikkelsen, has at least offered up a tease as to what fans should expect from the way in which Hideo Kojima’s project will operate, with the actor saying it involves player “collaboration”.
This much was revealed during an interview with Total Film magazine, in which Mikkelsen potentially alludes toDeath Strandinghaving a heavy focus on multiplayer elements that aims to connect its player base in a unique way. According to Mikkelsen, “The whole concept of playing the game, as I understand, needs collaboration from different people from different parts of the world, which is also another level of fantastic-ness.”
When looking at the surface of Mikkelsen’s above statement regardingDeath Stranding, it makes one wonder if certain parts of the game will revolve around players needing to band together to fight enemies, solve puzzles, or even receive exclusive region-specific items from others around the world to progress. While such notions are just conjecture at this point, Mikkelsen’s explanation of how he views the title’s gameplay somewhat syncs up with co-starNorman Reedus' understanding, in thatDeath Strandingapparently has “elements of social media in it”.
Taking these ideas into consideration, it will be interesting to see how Mikkelsen’s interpretation aboutDeath Stranding’s “whole concept” of gameplay related to player collaboration will come to be. Although it’s still murky at best, his description of the title also falls in line withprevious statements from Kojimain which the director explained, “The story is about connections, what you call ‘strands’ in psychology – how people are connected.”
That said, though, it’s also important to note that the majority of the team working onDeath Strandingactually didn’t fully comprehend what Kojima was going for at first, so perhaps Mikkelsen is still kind of in the dark regarding the gameplay’s mechanics. After all, the actor stated a year ago thathe didn’t understand the story, citing the plot as being “so elaborate that [he] got lost”. Then again, after having worked onDeath Strandingover the course of a much longer period now, there’s a much higher likelihood of Mikkelsen having a firmer grasp on what’s to come.
