Death Stranding has been the subject of more questions and speculations than any other upcoming game as of late. We only just learned more about its gameplay and what the whole game is actually about during a reveal from its creator, Hideo Kojima, but while some questions were answered, many more took their place. One of these questions asks what genre Death Stranding even fits into since it’s got everything from shooting to stealth to some wild new multiplayer mechanics that aren’t fully understood yet. According to Kojima, Death Stranding is part of a “totally brand new genre” even though it does feature some elements from more familiar types of games.
Kojima addressed the genre topic on Twitter recently as more people asked about Death Stranding and whether or not it’d be a stealth game. We’ve certainly seen stealth play a part in the Metal Gear games, and Death Stranding’s protagonist, Sam, didn’t always seem equipped to go toe-to-toe with other humans or otherworldly entities judging from what we’ve seen in the trailer above. Despite there being times when it appears beneficial for Sam to hide, Kojima said in the past that Death Stranding is “not a stealth game.” His latest comments expand on this statement and talk about some of the various elements that are at play in Death Stranding that come together to create an “action game/strand game,” also called a “social strand system” by the creator.
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As I’m getting similar questions so I shall re-post. DS is not a stealth game. Could move subjectively but not a FPS shooting game either. By incorporating with the concept of connection(strand), it’s totally brand new genre called action game/strand game(social strand system). pic.twitter.com/1KaQUVH9zL
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) June 5, 2019
So it’s not a shooter, but it does have a bit of FPS action in it that we also saw briefly in the trailer. It’s also not a stealth game, though it does have a few sneaky sequences in there.
Like the rest of Death Stranding, there are still questions about how players will connect these strands and socialize with others, but we at least have a genre descriptor to go off of now. Death Stranding’s earliest descriptions from the first trailer ands previews said it would be a genre-defining experience, and it looks like it’ll be doing that by crating its own genre. Perhaps in a few years we’ll see other “social strand system” games that people will call Death Stranding-likes.
