Death Stranding, the upcoming game from Metal Gear Solid designer Hideo Kojima, has been a source of bafflement for several years now. Its trailers have shown digital versions of actors like Norman Reedus, Léa Seydoux, and Mads Mikkelsen hanging out with babies in weird tubes (and human throats), munching on bugs, and slipping between dimensions. Commentary from Kojima on his work, wherein he’s clarified its genre as a “Strand Game,” hasn’t offered any other very helpful details.
As nice as it is to simply enjoy the mystery, much more was just revealed of the game through a series of videos—including the fact that a “Strand Game,” while it may refer to many things, is obviously an oblique reference to the fact that the game’s protagonist Sam—played by Reedus—can piss all over the place at the press of a button.
In a bunch of clips shown at this week’s Gamescom, Kojima presented videos that introduce some of the game’s cast members and show off what it looks like to explore Death Stranding’s science fiction version of the world. The most important by far is a feature highlighted in one of these videos that shows how, by navigating to a menu option that reads “Urinate,” players can make Reedus whiz all over the grass as a milliliter gauge representing his bladder’s fullness counts down to zero.
IGN’s Matt Kim broke down this last, extremely intriguing bit of cutting-edge game design by transcribing what Kojima said after the clip was played for a live audience of grateful fans, drunk on the fumes of digital piss.
“Yes, it could be used as a weapon,” Kojima said of the feature. “But also it can be one of the keys, and you’ll find out later.”
He points out how, in the video, a mushroom popped up from the ground after Reedus watered it with his life-giving waste, saying that if lots of players take a leak “in the same spot you will have something good later on.” This, of course, means that Death Stranding will, in a roundabout way, be a co-operative game—an asynchronous, friendly, internet-age pissing match.
Having achieved such great heights by displaying this feature, Kojima soon brought viewers back down to earth by assuring them that there’s no way to angle the camera to see Reedus’ digital wiener or to “release yourself like that if people are near you.” While Death Stranding continues to look intriguing to most of us, take a moment to remember the many absolute perverts whose dreams have never been so close to being fulfilled, only to be heartlessly snatched away an instant later.
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