After the absurdity of the reveal trailer of Death Stranding 2...this new one goes so much harder. Let's talk.
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00:00But then there's Hideo Kojima, who refuses to do anything but set examples of excellence
00:20on a level that it actually makes publishers mad sometimes.
00:24Which brings us back to the beach, Death Stranding 2.
00:27Hi folks, it's Falcon, and today on Gameranx, this is how AAA games should look like.
00:36Man, have you guys seen the new Death Stranding 2 trailer?
00:39After the absurdity of the Reveal trailer last year, this one goes so much harder.
00:43It's proof positive that nobody freaking does trailers like Kojima.
00:48I remember the trailers for Metal Gear Solid V blowing my mind back when that was coming out,
00:53and while that game didn't exactly deliver on what the trailers promised,
00:56I'm still pretty damn hopeful about Death Stranding 2.
01:00Like, where do you even start when you're talking about this thing?
01:02There's not a lot of concrete information out there about, you know,
01:06what exactly we're gonna be doing in the sequel, but there's no denying that it looks awesome.
01:11And with the newest trailer, we get our best look yet at the gameplay,
01:14and it looks pretty different compared to the first game.
01:16Yeah, we get some of that lonesomeness of the first game in here, and there's,
01:20you know, the vibe isn't so far removed you don't get it, but there's a lot more going on.
01:25There's combat and crazy tar monsters and cities and high technology.
01:30The game does, to a lot of extent, look like a different beast.
01:34Some wild Metal Gear Solid references as well.
01:37I mean, when I first saw the mobile base of Magellan,
01:39everybody said it looked like the top half of Metal Gear.
01:42Little did we know that that's literally what it was,
01:45as revealed at the end of the trailer where Hartman, the man with the heart-shaped heart,
01:49which, Kojima, come on, man.
01:52But he apparently builds a golem or something out of tar,
01:54and the ship becomes the head.
02:02Everyone, hold on tight.
02:05It's now literally a Metal Gear.
02:07And this new character, Neil, goes full Solid Snake by putting on a bandana.
02:12Everyone always talks about how much Hideo wanted out of Metal Gear,
02:15how every game after two is gonna be his last.
02:17He just kept doing more.
02:19They kept putting him back into it.
02:20But I think that's turning true as the truth finally revealed.
02:24He can't give up on Metal Gear.
02:26Even after leaving Konami and starting his own studio,
02:28he can't help but throw in multiple blatant homages to that series in there.
02:31He can't stop.
02:32And I'm not complaining because that's what makes it one hell of a trailer moment.
02:39A distinctly American philosophy,
02:42and one which would appear to have spread to this continent.
02:46Everything about this sequel looks bigger and better.
02:48I can't say anything certain about it,
02:50but it definitely looks like they're trying to sell this
02:52as much more of an action game compared to the original,
02:54which was like 80% quiet walking around, 20% action.
02:58The dynamic looks pretty different here.
03:00The ratio is, it's changed.
03:03Multiple moments in the newest trailer show combat with humans and BTs,
03:07which look even more grotesque this time around.
03:09There even appears to be like man-made BTs,
03:12like machine BTs or something.
03:14I don't know.
03:14Honestly, I have no idea what some of these things are, but they look awesome.
03:17Diverse death stranding was divisive, especially when it first came out.
03:20And a big reason for that is people just didn't know what to make of it.
03:23It was a delivery game, mostly about navigating difficult terrain.
03:27And that's what you were doing most of the time.
03:29Wasn't an open world stealth game,
03:30even if it had little bits of that MGS5 DNA in there.
03:33It was primarily about walking from one place to another.
03:36It was a brilliantly designed walking simulator.
03:38It was groundbreaking back when it first came out,
03:41but it wasn't necessarily what people wanted from a Kojima game.
03:44The impressions from this trailer is that Death Stranding 2 looks a lot more
03:48like what people would have wanted out of Kojima productions.
03:52Just straight up looks a lot more like Metal Gear.
03:54There's honest-to-God bases, there's enemy patrols, vehicles,
03:57which was a thing in the first game,
03:59but it appears like the humans you fight are just...
04:01They're more than guys who really, really want to steal cargo now.
04:04It looks like there's dedicated enemy factions this time around
04:07who have some kind of coherent goal or motivation.
04:09They're not just inconsequential distractions
04:11like how the human enemies were depicted in the first game.
04:14Everything in the trailer makes this game look like a true successor to Metal Gear,
04:18the story is as nuts as ever,
04:20but there are crazy, whacked-out bad guys,
04:22including at least one mysterious armored samurai character
04:25who's very cyborg ninja-esque,
04:27with more gear reference to add to the pile, I suppose.
04:29There's more human allies this time around, too,
04:32and one guy who's literally a doll.
04:34The gameplay still appears to be mission-based,
04:36probably still doing deliveries like in the first game.
04:40That seems to be there,
04:41but the minute-to-minute gameplay looks like
04:43it's more about stealth and infiltration.
04:45Where the theme of the first game is connections,
04:47this game seems like it's going the opposite direction,
04:49so it's possible the whole community-building aspect might not be here.
04:54Are we still expanding the network to build roads or ziplines,
04:57or is getting around easier?
04:58I don't know what Kojima isn't telling us, obviously.
05:02I'm thinking this aspect of the game might be at least de-emphasized,
05:06but that would be disappointing if the whole thing was thrown out,
05:09because, I don't know, there's just something really satisfying
05:11about entering a barren world that's hard to get around,
05:14slowly building it up so it's safer and easier to travel through,
05:16but the environments also look a lot more built up this time around,
05:20so it's hard to say how much of that gameplay will carry over to the sequel.
05:23There does seem to still be a man-versus-environment theme going on here, though.
05:27Some of the most impressive and intriguing parts of the trailer show
05:30the ways the environment can potentially change and challenge you,
05:33with things like a new river draining into a lake,
05:36or a wildfire spreading with trees burning down.
05:38Like, look at this section.
05:39There's these roads and cars and electrical wires,
05:42stuff you really never saw in the first game,
05:45and this gigantic electrical storm brewing in the distance.
05:48They just bombard you with stuff at this point.
05:51Now, there's a lot to glean from these first few seconds.
05:53For one thing, there's way more variety in terms of locations this time around.
05:57There's the usual Icelandic rocky places from the original game,
06:00but there's also jungles, deserts, snowy mountains.
06:03There can be avalanches in the snowy mountains,
06:05which, amazing visual, but is it an actual part of the gameplay?
06:08Is it just a set piece, or does it happen naturally sometimes,
06:12like if you make too much noise or shoot rockets to the mountains or something?
06:14I don't know.
06:15I'm very intrigued, though.
06:16Let's circle back to that clip of water draining into a lake or pond.
06:20At first, it might not seem noteworthy,
06:21but look at the way the water's draining.
06:23It's spreading out like this is a newly formed river,
06:26or that the water's flowing into it.
06:28It's new.
06:29It's somehow new.
06:30Is this some kind of gameplay mechanic they haven't revealed yet?
06:32Can you do things to the environment to make ice melt or make water drain,
06:37or is this something that happens when it rains, or what?
06:40I honestly don't know what's going on here,
06:42but there's more going on here than it seems.
06:45You can see Sam carrying stuff on his back still,
06:47so deliveries are likely a central part of the experience.
06:50It just looks like there's a lot more going on now,
06:52and that's what's exciting.
06:53There appears to be a car chase.
06:55Looks like there's big boss fights with BTs.
06:57There's a part that suggests the BTs might be fighting each other.
07:00I don't know what's going on here.
07:02And then we get the big reveal of the Magellan Man.
07:04I can only hope and pray this isn't some cutscene thing,
07:07and we actually get to control that.
07:10I am a little salty about the battle gear from the MGS5.
07:13Kojima better not pull a fast one on us again here.
07:15Some of these new enemies look gnarly as hell, though.
07:18It's like something out of Bloodborne.
07:19But the thing that stands out most to me is
07:21it gets shown for just a split second,
07:23this robot-like floating tentacle thing.
07:25I don't know what this is.
07:27I don't know what the deal with it is.
07:28Looks like you're fighting it
07:30in some kind of built-up human settlement, though,
07:33which is a far cry from what we saw in the original game,
07:35which is 90% empty rocky fields and stuff like this.
07:38It makes me think the game's gonna be
07:40a lot more combat-focused.
07:41Obviously, it's just conjecture,
07:43because as usual, Kojima is not saying anything concrete.
07:46He loves the ambiguity, this man.
07:49I even watched that entire 45-minute
07:51South by Southwest thing,
07:52and they talked to Kojima.
07:53He didn't say a damn thing other than hawking a watch,
07:57which is still kind of an interesting watch
07:59if you can stand actors talking about acting.
08:01But there's no gameplay here
08:03other than a vague segment
08:05about there being more guns and weapons.
08:07This trailer is our first real glimpse
08:09at what Death Stranding 2 is all about,
08:11and I'm still mostly clueless,
08:12but that's not a bad thing,
08:14because the game looks very exciting.
08:16For as much as we've all collectively agreed
08:18that Death Stranding is a good game,
08:20it's a very unusual one,
08:21and this looks a little closer
08:22to what MGS fans are looking for.
08:25It's got it all, the baffling melodrama,
08:27the crazy technobabble,
08:28some amazing set pieces and moments,
08:30and that's just the story.
08:31There's also the innovative side to these games,
08:33the gameplay fundamentals that push the industry forward
08:35while still being fun.
08:37That's what I'm seeing a lot of in this trailer,
08:38and I can't help but just get really hyped.
08:40There's an ocean of information that I do not know,
08:43like how many of the new characters fit into things.
08:46The most intriguing new addition is Neil,
08:48Mr. Not-Solid-Snake,
08:50who gets a lot of the trailer dedicated to him.
08:52I don't know how he actually figures into the story,
08:55but it appears that his scenes take place in the past,
08:58seems to be filling the same role
08:59as Mads Mikkelsen in the first game,
09:01where he's this military specter
09:03who controls soldier ghosts
09:05and gets a lot of flashbacks.
09:06But who he is and why he's here is a total mystery,
09:10and the snippets of dialogue and story we get here
09:12do not help.
09:14Overall, what we're seeing
09:15does look a lot more like a traditional narrative
09:18compared to the first game,
09:19which was like a long series of info dumps
09:21from various talking heads,
09:22including Conan O'Brien.
09:23They'd float in and out of the story.
09:26There really wasn't a lot of forward momentum
09:28until the final hours.
09:29This looks different.
09:30It looks like we're getting drama and mystery
09:31by the boatload,
09:32like there's a cat with wings
09:34that forms from the hand of a guy named Tar Man.
09:37By the way, looks like George Miller,
09:38the guy who directed the Mad Max movies.
09:40Anyway, game looks crazy in all the right ways.
09:43Maybe I'm projecting a little bit,
09:45but it seems more varied, more action-packed,
09:48but still a version of the original.
09:49It looks like an evolution of the formula,
09:51not content to be the same thing over again,
09:53but to take the basic framework
09:55and do something different with it
09:56that might just be slightly more conventional.
10:00I don't know, because action and shooting
10:02is kind of what video games do,
10:03but it's also death-stranding.
10:05There's a girl named Tamara with superpowers,
10:07and the already mentioned Doll Man,
10:09who I can't get over.
10:11He is so ridiculous.
10:12Every time he pops up,
10:13I cannot believe they're actually doing that.
10:15I'm not complaining.
10:16I'm actually, it's far from it.
10:17I respect the insanity,
10:19but even for Kojima, it looks audacious.
10:21A little more fun though,
10:22like an intentionally goofy kind of way.
10:24I don't know.
10:25That's something a lot of people ignore
10:26about Kojima games,
10:27and I think it's really the secret sauce
10:29that makes them great.
10:30The goofy stuff,
10:31many intentional fourth wall breaks,
10:33the purposefully humorous dialogue,
10:36weird little secrets, oddball Easter eggs.
10:38Goofy Kojima's the best Kojima,
10:40and while there was some of that
10:41in the first death-stranding,
10:42the man is really embracing the absurd
10:44this time around,
10:45and I can't believe I'm saying this
10:46because did you play the first death-stranding?
10:49The game with the otter hat
10:50that makes you swim like an otter?
10:52It was nuts,
10:53and this game looks,
10:54it's making me say,
10:55well, it looks like they're going for something
10:56a little more absurd this time.
10:58I've got high hopes for death-stranding 2.
11:00It's coming shockingly soon on June 26th,
11:02exclusively for PS5.
11:04For as long as these trailers have been,
11:07seems like I really barely know
11:08what to expect from this game.
11:09At least here,
11:10we got some real gameplay
11:11to back up the cutscene clips.
11:12That's good.
11:13What they're showing here looks incredible.
11:15It's all visually stunning,
11:16and the action looks on point.
11:18It's one of the rare games
11:19that looks truly next-gen.
11:20In an age where AAA studios
11:22are playing it pretty safe,
11:23it's nice to see Kojima still around,
11:25just casually blowing our minds
11:26with ideas that actually feel new
11:28and innovative.
11:29That's all I've got for you today.
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