I love that Death Stranding is just all of Kojima’s artistic inspirations connected to a Spintires game, and that somehow this has ended up cohesive. There is genius in that. It’s almost sophomoric, but that’s endearing. 10s of millions of dollars soul food.

Not to sound reductive but almost every near-disjointed element is music/aesthetic/cinema glued together, and not at all seamlessly, but it just works because the sources of inspiration are *good* - it’s eclectic and better for it. The glue is just style. Only in games.

You see this a lot in Eastern European hip-hop. Russian carpets. Designer clothes. Petrol stations. Horses. It’s the juxtaposition (intentional or otherwise) that makes it work. It’s always uncomfortable, but always stylish.

(I can only imagine being in the inside at Sony as someone is delivering non-final builds without all the elements. 10s of millions being played with. Who could have guessed how it would feel? It’s really the sum of its parts. Remove a single thing and none of it makes sense).

A great many games are built around pillars, but for sure this is one where the pillars are the sum of its parts. Bit like Darkest Dungeon. Can’t name a whole lot, to be honest. It’s not about originality, it’s about process.

I’m carrying a corpse on my back for a mile, and a player before me has left a ladder, and another a rope. And I’m thinking “oh, thank god for other people”. That *is* applaudable. A ladder and a network connection makes you feel something for people.

AAA has been trying to connect you to people emotionally through cut-scenes, dialogue, and emotional connections to characters in games, and the dude does it with a ladder, network connection, and a song. That’s pretty good, isn’t it?