With less than a week before the mysterious and highly anticipated Kojima title Death Stranding is released, a 26-minute BBC Newsbeat Documentary titled Death Stranding: Inside Kojima Productions provides a peek into the game’s development and strives to give players an insight on what the enigmatic game is like.
The documentary showed the inner workings of the game studio and their processes as they are nearing the releases of their debut title. Through brief interviews, the thought processes of some of the most essential people in Death Stranding’s development have been revealed. One such example is Ludvig Forssell, the game’s composer and long-time Kojima collaborator with composing credits on Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain. The discussion revolved around BB’s Theme, the lullaby-like song heard from the game’s 8-minute launch trailer, the process which involved throwing ideas back and forth between Forssell and Kojima.
Other aspects of the game’s production, such as the 8-minute trailer, have allowed Kojima to be very hands-on when it comes to just about every aspect of Death Stranding. An explanation of the game’s art style and approach has also been given by Art Director Yoji Shinkawa, which focuses not on getting the attention of prospective players, but instead is faithful to the game’s theme and direction and ultimately “what seems cool and interesting” for the studio. Insights on how Hideo Kojima’s mind works has also been gathered from Shota Hirasawa, the game’s Cinematic Lead, with words describing the game developer as a “surprisingly bottomless pit of ideas”.
Lastly, as with all Kojima games that seem to be concerned with carrying a social message, Death Stranding is no different. The developer claims that Death Stranding is thematically tied to the world as it is right now, with feelings of loneliness and social alienation prevalent among “gamers”. US President Donald Trump’s “Build the Wall” Campaign and UK’s “Brexit” has also provided inspiration for the game, which revolves around reuniting a fragmented United States. In the end, Kojima says that he made the game for people to “take a step back – and relearn how to be kind to others”.
Death Stranding launches for the PlayStation 4 on November 8.
