Games journalist have been salivating over a recent interview that Hideo Koijma had about Death Stranding with Game Informer. In the interview Kojima references President Donald Trump and the European Union in relation to some of the sociopolitical themes that the game covers, and now journalists are using it as a way to prop up their own political agendas.
In the Game Informer interview, Kojima was asked about how players will reconnect America using Bridges’ Chiral Network, and Kojima stated the following…
“There’s actually three steps to that chiral network. For Bridges’ sake, you’re connecting from east to west and they want you to join the UCA – the United Cities of America. When you connect, you can use UCA services, but at the same time, they’re retrieving your information 24 hours a day. It’s like 1984. Some people may not like that, and say “I’m not going to connect to UCA, because we’re going to repeat the same thing that we did.” Like Trump, or the EU, these things. It’s a metaphor. However, if you get really close, they start to say, “Okay, I’ll connect.”
“A lot of preppers just sign a contract to be connected to Bridges. The network is there, but there’s no communication or other actions – that’s why they can’t use the chiral printers and things like that. If they say they will join the UCA, then you can use the chiral network, the chiral printers, things like that. In the game, the mission is to really reconnect America again – but I haven’t said whether that is correct or not.”
He also goes on to talk about the game world being called America but it’s really just a stand-in for a fictional world that’s supposed to represent everywhere and nowhere in particular. Kojima explained…
“It’s about America, but I made that map deliberately not correctly America. Maybe it looks like Japan from that angle. I want people to not think “America,” but “where you are.” Because it depends on who is seeing it. And of course, it’s in the future, and everyone’s connected by internet, but everyone is fragmented. That’s kind of a metaphor as well. So Sam is not hip-hip-hooray for connecting America; his motivation is to save Amelie, and a whole fleet of sensitive people will share the same attitude. They have to, because they are on a mission. They always don’t want to. Sam actually moans a lot on this journey, saying “Why am I doing this?” And it’s actually the same position the players can be in. “Why am I doing this? It’s so rough, so lonely, and so solitary!” When you play, and connect, there’s drama, there’s preppers, there’s storyline; you start to feel like connection might really feel good. But I’m not saying it’s positive or negative to connect. It’s really up to the players to see how they feel while playing the game.”
Game journalists nearly fell out of their soy-stained Fanbyn chairs from IKEA after reading the Game Informer interview, with the male journalists squeezing their bosoms together in anticipation for dropping headlines about Trump, and the female journalists twirling the whiskers above their upper-lip with frightful glee.
While IGN’s take was fairly milquetoast, mostly just reiterating Kojima’s talking points about Trump and the European Union, other sites couldn’t hold back the spaghetti like Clinton couldn’t hold back his thirst for lolitas on Epstein’s island.
This obsession with politicizing everything was leveraged by the journalists to screw over anyone hoping to steer clear from politics in Death Stranding the way Aya Hirano’s bassist got screwed out of free nookie.
ComicBook opened up their article to hammer home their interpretation of Kojima’s words as relating to “Trump’s America”, writing…
“According to Hideo Kojima, Death Stranding is partially inspired by President Trump, the current state of America, and even the EU. That’s right, most games are inspired by the classics or maybe other forms of entertainment, but Death Stranding is, somehow, related to Trump’s America.”
Other sites read more into Kojima’s statements, painting them as more an anti-Trump message being delivered in Death Stranding, with Rely On Horror writing…
“If you haven’t noticed by now, Death Stranding carries a lot of… let’s be nice and call it symbolism, regarding the idea of connecting to our fellow man. Extending bridges (get it?) to each other to connect great divides (like actual bridges) between peoples and tear down the walls (get it!?) that separate us as humans. If I had to extrapolate from these thoughts in particular (about Trump, America, and the EU), they seem to be in reference to the general attitude of wanting to have nothing to do with the rest of the world and build legal (and literal) walls to keep separated from others. Kojima is saying “connection good, exclusion bad”. That’s just my take though.”
If you were looking to play Death Stranding as a gateway for escapism away from the Clown World antics that have ruined Western civilization, I don’t think you’ll find the solace of fun you were looking for if the game continues to hammer home political points that would make the Left grin and the Right cringe.
Then again, maybe Death Stranding may not be that bad by itself, but the way woke journalists talk about the game one might be left apathetic about it once they see all the silliness spawning from media publications engaged in their Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Expect this to only get worse leading up to the game’s release on November 8th, 2019 for the PS4.
(Thanks for the news tip Scott)
