Death Stranding Director's Cut, when it doesn't take much to get excited

Death Stranding Director's Cut

Death Stranding Director's Cut. This is the name of the new version of the latest work by Hideo Kojima, which is preparing to make its debut on PlayStation 5.

It took just a few minutes of trailers and a relatively short period of time to already witness a rather precise fragmentation of users: there are those who can't wait to find out more and get their hands on it and those, on the other hand, were rather cold from this announcement and would have liked the presence of a new game. For our part, the announcement of this expanded and remastered edition of Death Stranding does not exclude possible news coming for the future of the studio; This announcement, in short, does not mean that we will not hear about Kojima's new game for quite some time.

Having said that, although the information in our possession is still quite limited, let's try to take stock of the situation.

A constantly evolving creative vision

Before seeing the new Death Stranding trailer (with a good dose of amazement), Hideo Kojima, questioned by Geoff Keighley, talked about his vision creative and what we can expect in the future.

First of all, the author reiterated that in his creative process there has always been the desire to anticipate the next 5, 10, 15 or 20 years of society. But the absurd thing is that, with Death Stranding, it all happened very quickly. We also talked about it in an article in which we highlighted the innumerable coincidences between the game and the pandemic situation that we are all trying to overcome. An implication that struck Kojima himself and that will push him to review his creative process, reaffirming - as always - the desire to transmit messages and to learn something to its users.

In this regard, it is not entirely crazy to argue that it may take a long time to see the new project, given Kojima's reasoned creative evolution. However, it seems that in the future of the studio there will be at least one other project with social features beyond Death Stranding, at least according to Keighley's interview.

A trailer and a declaration of intent

Hideo Kojima, we know, is a trollone. The Japanese creative, when he presents something, loves to do it his way, often going beyond the typical canons and igniting the interest of the community, passionate or otherwise.

The trailer for the Director's Cut of Death Stranding had, more or less, the effect of a stun grenade: Sam Porter Bridges, the protagonist of the game, infiltrates an underground base that recalls in all respects Shadow Moses, while the music confirms the connection with Metal Gear Solid and the game seems to detach itself more and more from what we remembered it was. But one detail, on which the author also dwelt a lot, was enough to make us understand the desire to use the trailer to convey a message. We cannot be sure, and we are not even arrogant to the point of believing it, but given the recent rumors about Silent Hill and a good slice of the public that associates and still remembers the author for what were his past with the saga of Metal Gear, we believe that Kojima, with Sam's gag coming in and out of the box and then putting it back in place, wanted to communicate an interest in “laying down” the past and focusing on the future. A future that is not yet very clear but which, obviously, is all contained in Death Stranding. And if, as the title of this article states, Antonio took so little to excite me, there is a reason. Especially in the last period, and with this we do not want to point the finger at anyone, there is a certain coldness in the opinions that have arisen as a result of what has been seen. A detachment that we could define as dangerous, in some ways, which perhaps denotes the absence of warmth and enthusiasm towards a product. Furthermore, as evidenced by a good slice of the public that can be found in chat in the main Italian videogame newspapers, some have been born with a real obsession for the graphics sector, accompanied by phrases such as "it looks like a PS3 graphics". A disease, a ridiculous obsession.

Beauty and Danger There are also, of course, those who simply remain in the middle, not completely exalted by what they have seen but on guard and anxious to know more details. The important thing, in fact, is not to make a bundle of all the grass, also because, who are we to fully understand the emotions you may have felt? In my case, and I repeat once again, I could not help but feel particularly involved, first of all because absolutely attracted by the author's vision, secondly because we are still talking about Death Stranding, a title that, precisely on these pages, I have defined a masterpiece.

The gist of the discussion, in order to avoid misunderstandings, is that, despite our work and the responsibility we have in telling the products we play, the passion and love for some projects should never be lacking, and if in some cases, perhaps even in articles, there is a visceral love for a product and an author, it is not for lack of professionalism, it happens because behind every analytical text there is a person with a heart and preferences.

What to expect from the Director's Cut?

The title is strange, there is no need to go around it. This operation does not have the air of being a simple revival of the game in a next-gen sauce, and the twitter post confirms it: expanded and remastered for PS5. Regarding the second point, it is not difficult to hypothesize a 1: 1 porting of the PC version with native support for 4K resolution and dualsense (which could amplify the sensations transmitted, pad in hand, by the different conformations of the terrain); what the author means by "expanded" is instead a good question. Considering director Nicolas Winding Refn's recent social media appearances, and a now somewhat dated post that said "Heartman will return", Hideo Kojima could have a big expansion in store for us, just like the latest PS5 release of Final. Fantasy 7 Remake, by the way.

Pure speculation, nothing confirmed. What we do know is that the release shouldn't be too long and that, in the coming weeks, we will find out more details about the operation, perhaps as part of the much talked about Sony event.