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New Death Stranding Trailer Still Leaves Us Plenty Confused

Last Updated September 23, 2020 1:01 PM
Thomas Bardwell
Last Updated September 23, 2020 1:01 PM

Hideo Kojima, in his infinite wisdom, dropped the new Death Stranding ‘Briefing Trailer’ at the Tokyo Game Show earlier today. It’s the very one shown  to attendant members of the press at Gamescom last month.

At first glance, it appears to be a cut-scene extracted from the game itself rather than a carefully woven cinematic, and as such is laden with a healthy smattering of spoilers.

It does away with the drip-fed mystic of what we’ve seen to date in favor of far move clear-cut exposition on the overarching plot driving Death Standing forward.

No longer are we privy to disparate snippets of cameos from Hollywood stars, highfalutin imagery, and excessive shots of that weird rotating blade-droid thing that detects BTs – we finally get a meat and potatoes serving of more or less decryptable story. Or do we?

In Death Stranding You Play As A Glorified BT Technician

From what I can gather, Sam is a bit like a glorified British Telecom Open Reach technician. Instead of driving around in a branded truck wading through the labyrinthine wires of the green boxes stationed at the end of every street in Britain, he’s traipsing across America fixing the United Cities of America’s dodgy chiral web. The Chiral web being a unifying network of nods dotted across isolated human conclaves spread throughout the continent from East to West.

So what’s Sam go to do with all this carry on? Well, it’s not too clear why he’s the chosen one, but the trailer does provide a bit of backstory.

New Death Stranding Trailer Is as Intriguing as It Is Confusing
Source: Death Stranding/Kojima Productions

Amelie and The Homo Demens

Amelie, a mother earth-like figure and budding presidential hopeful, set off on a haphazard expedition across America to unite the Chiral network. But, upon reaching the West coast city of Edge Knot City – presumably Death Stranding’s take on Los Angeles – a band of separatist militants known as the Homo Demens capture her.

These cloaked mercenaries are up to no good channeling their inner Viking and pillaging cities while being staunchly opposed to allying with the UCA. To avoid having to ply themselves to the demands of peaceful unification, they are keeping Amelie under lock and key as a kind of insurance policy. The UCA won’t come marching into Edge Knot City if they threaten to harm Amelie, will they? Little do they know, plucky Sam’s on his way, and he means business, however overburdened he may be with packages.

To summarize, Sam needs to fix America’s Internet and save Amelie’s physical form so she can unite a country that’s on a collision course with disaster. Got it?

Alright, so it’s a damn sight more information that we’ve had up until now, but golly does it raise a whole new assortment of questions. Death Stranding still isn’t making much sense, but I’ve never wanted to play as much as I do after watching the Briefing Trailer.