So did past dying Cliff send baby Sam's soul to the future/present? Is there an element of time travel or am I misunderstanding?
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
DEATH STRANDING - Spoiler Thread
- Thread starter vestan
- Start date
What? No.
Pretty sure to get that you need to intentionally take off your boots and walk around without them and thus damage your feet.
Finished it last night finally, I have to say I absolutely loved the gameplay and honestly wanted the end to hurry up so I can jump back in to the game world and keep playing, however man chapter 13 ending on the beach really got annoying. I played all the mgs and you know they had really long cut scenes and weird twists and what not but I always just assumed it was kojima trying to put together over 30 years of lore but nope, he just really sucks at writing. That's not to say I didn't like the story, cliff was probably my favorite character and honestly only kojima could come up with some of these plot devices but just the hours long expose really felt unnecessary at the end and only served to annoy me.
There's no answer to it, at least not yet. If you go by Amelie/Bridget's example, it means 5 people were born as Has on their Beach with ther Ka isolated, and somehow that sets an extinction event in motion.
The confusing thing is that we think Death Stranding is what caused the creation of the beaches and the Has (I mean the soul, that's the 'ha' right???) but I think what the game is going for is that there's always been souls in a real physical way, somewhat, and only the Death Stranding has enabled more people to see that, whereas the rare EE people are the first who gets to individually discover it.
So here's a rough sequence of events to understand some things
- Bridget has always had dreams about the world coming to an end.
- Bridget is 20, has an operation, and this is the first time she finds herself on the beach. This is when she splits into Bridget and Amelie.
- In trying to figure out wtf these dreams are about, she starts researching the beach and finds out it has info from all of time. They decide it can be used to transmit and reconstruct data through the beach. Which she wants to use to piece together all the ancient knowledge of the universe to try and figure out a way to stop the next extinction event.
- Not long after, the first voidout occurs (not the death stranding), Amelie freaks out and was like Oh shit I'm running out of time, the dreams I had are starting to become a reality. I really need to complete the chiral network so I can unlock the secrets of the universe and prevent this next extinction, which starts off the Bridge Baby research (the things that help connect the world with the beach, and basically the secret to why the chiral network works at all)
- BB-Sam is born and he's a really good candidate for this program
- Cliff is like, "No, don't take my BB for this shit." and steals Sam. Amelie shoots cliff and accidentally catches BB-Sam in the crossfire.
- Amelie on the beach finds dead BB-Sam and decides to send him back to the living world.
- For whatever reason this caused the dead to want to go to the living world, so they all flooded over through Amelie's beach, which causes the Death Stranding.
- According to Amelie the universe wants no life to exist, and it should have blipped out with matter/anti-matter cancellation during the big bang, but something survived. Every once in a while the universe tries to get back to that nothingness state by trying to kill off everything, but something always survives, but there's supposed to be a final last extinction at some point. Amelie decides fuck it, what's the point, lets make the last one happen rather than painfully drawing it out waiting for the inevitable.
- Amelie, conflicted with her feelings for Sam or humanity or whatever also realizes that maybe it's worth prolonging and says that they can survive if they cut her off and leave her stranded on her beach, disconnected from everyone. Sam returns to the real world with Amelie's beach disconnected.
- For whatever reason there are still BT Bridge Babies when Sam tries to wake up Lou even though Amelie's beach was supposedly severed. I also don't get how two weeks before the inaguration you're playing post game with BTs still in the world because that's after Amelie too and she says herself that's how BTs got into the living world. Maybe they're stuck there or something. I have no clue.
No, from what I understood, the memories you see are Sam's own. Not his BB's. Sam was always Cliff's BB and connecting himself with Lou triggers Sam to view his own past memories instead of Lou's.
So I beat higgs by throwing empty cargo boxes at him, anyone try that with cliff to see if it would work? When I fought cliff I just threw rounds at him.
OP
OP
What does everyone think about Trump and talk of the wall being canon in Death Stranding? Considering DS is meant to be a 'warning' of what happens when we built literal and figurative walls between each other as Kojima puts it, I think it works out in the end.
Last edited:
I do mostly agree with the thoughts on Amelie. Their relationship was a wtf all the way through to the end, but its not really the cryptic part that bothered me just the exposition and way its explained.
This ending recap was good and informative: https://www.gamesradar.com/death-stranding-ending-story-explained-meaning/
It changed my perspective on Amelie as a character. I like the implication of the five figures and Amelie being an anomaly 6th entity.
Honestly really curious how long Kojima & team has been sitting on this idea/story of a game. The whole world and concepts are absolutely bonkers and unlike anything i've experienced.
So, are these 5 floating figures supposed to represent the past 5 EE's or Sam's team ?
The way they are portrayed in the opening implies the former, but the way Amelie points at them in the ending makes it seem like they're supposed to represent Sam's 5 allies (Deadman, Diehardman, Lockne/Mama, Heartman, Fragile).
OP
OP
I mentioned this before, but probably at least since 2012. Below is the post I made on it.
Kojima probably had an idea of this game's general story premise or at least the world and its concepts like Beaches (the afterlife), extinction and resurrection in his head since at least 2012. The game's history feels really dense so him working on the concept for this long doesn't surprise me.
"I was thinking about how I could make a game centered around the Higgs field and travelling through dimensions and various different realities" - Kojima probably
Quotiong in case someone has some clarification and didn't see it.
Bridgets objective was to hasten the end of the world by corrupting the world of the living in various ways. One of the things she did to achieve this goal was to bring certain strong individuals to her in order to control them. The doll was the gateway key to her Beach.
As for Cliff showing up at the end the way I interpret it is that he senses that BB/Sam is close to Bridget and so he travels to her Beach in order to deal with him. Die-Hardman does the same (also with the help of the doll) but his objective is to confront Bridget as he has now seen past her lies and corruption.
Yeah, I guess something like that could be it. Bridget have access to every other beach, right? or at least some sorte of comm, that way she could plant the doll at Cliff's, then Clff acts on his own because of Sam being close.
What confuses me is when dying Cliff somehow sees and interacts with present Sam. I guess because Cliff is in the process of dying, so he can see Sam due to his Seam-travelling/repatriation powers?
Is Lou Sam? Or is Lou her own being?
I think Lou is her own being.
I think (correct me if I'm wrong) the only thing special about Lou is that she is a BB who has serviced longer than BB's are supposed to (kind of like how Cortana has been around longer than an AI's supposed to in the Halo universe), so it's causing unusual behavior (like triggering Sam's own memories etc).
She is also probably one of the rare few BB's who may have survived a full-on void out (in the prologue).
I guess it's time to start scouring youtube for in-depth analysis videos lol.
Strongly disagree with this. There is literally no difference seeing holograms or an NPC "in person". Charscter model is character model.
The world building perfectly reasons why people do not come above ground, and there is no need to see the city at all.
The characters in the game are all situated many miles apart from each other (the distance in game is not 1:1 with the lore, it is all shrunk down and sped up for gameplay purpose), so the need to use holograms is justified.
The characters come together or meet in person in moments of necessity, we never needed to see any more than we did imo.
Yes, Lou is a random baby and it justified imo with Deadman saying that there's still a lot they don't know about BBs, he also explains how it can trigger memories but I didn't understand that very much, I just took it as plausible.
Don't take that scene literally, it's most likely a reenacting in the present made by Sam from his own memories using his beach powers. At some point Ghost Cliff entered the recreation to bid his final farawell to his son.
Big thing that bothered me through the whole game and never got explained: what the fuck is that early scene on the beach where the baby disappears in Sam's hands. The first reveal trailer. I really don't know what that was supposed to be. I assume the five floating figures were the other EEs but why do they show up there? also, he has the q-pid in that scene even though he hasn't been given it yet?
I don't recall... but I do seem to remember the quid thing... could it be some kind of flash forward?
Never thought about the Qpid... probably some future time mind fuckery lol.
I'm gonna say this here as well as I said in the main topic.
The ending of the game really resonated with me on an emotional level as a new parent. I was sitting in complete silence watching the last few minutes and pretty sure I let out an audible "nooooo" when Cliff drops Sam/BB on the ground after he is accidentally shot.
Then the whole incinerator scene. Lou starting to form a strand cord and seeing other floating BB's signifying all the other BB's that were burned in the incinerator got me real fucking good. Lou waking up and crying was probably the happiest narrative moment in any medium I've had in a long while.
Is it overly melodramatic ? Sure.
Was it an effective ending ? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Of course everyone's personal mileage may vary.
That was right after a big void out, I think it was just some beach shenanigans. The floating figures aren't fully explained but the way Bridget is pointing towards them at the end as talking happily about them in the same sentence as Sam's allies coming to rescue him made it sound like they were supposed to represent Sam's connection to the real world.
(realistically I think Kojima just wanted to render the whole reveal-trailer scene in the game itself just as a "see, it's a real thing" kinda thing)
The ending of the game really resonated with me on an emotional level as a new parent. I was sitting in complete silence watching the last few minutes and pretty sure I let out an audible "nooooo" when Cliff drops Sam/BB on the ground after he is accidentally shot.
Then the whole incinerator scene. Lou starting to form a strand cord and seeing other floating BB's signifying all the other BB's that were burned in the incinerator got me real fucking good. Lou waking up and crying was probably the happiest narrative moment in any medium I've had in a long while.
Is it overly melodramatic ? Sure.
Was it an effective ending ? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Of course everyone's personal mileage may vary.
That was right after a big void out, I think it was just some beach shenanigans. The floating figures aren't fully explained but the way Bridget is pointing towards them at the end as talking happily about them in the same sentence as Sam's allies coming to rescue him made it sound like they were supposed to represent Sam's connection to the real world.
(realistically I think Kojima just wanted to render the whole reveal-trailer scene in the game itself just as a "see, it's a real thing" kinda thing)
Some of those scenes seem to be a reference to future developments, so I guess Sam is able to dream about the future?
I was ready to shout a the screen if he'd let Lou incinerate without taking her out if the pod.I'm gonna say this here as well as I said in the main topic.
The ending of the game really resonated with me on an emotional level as a new parent. I was sitting in complete silence watching the last few minutes and pretty sure I let out an audible "nooooo" when Cliff drops Sam/BB on the ground after he is accidentally shot.
Then the whole incinerator scene. Lou starting to form a strand cord and seeing other floating BB's signifying all the other BB's that were burned in the incinerator got me real fucking good. Lou waking up and crying was probably the happiest narrative moment in any medium I've had in a long while.
Is it overly melodramatic ? Sure.
Was it an effective ending ? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Of course everyone's personal mileage may vary.
Saying that, as soon as Deadman said to take her out and we heard the "70% failure rate" thing, I knew she'd make it.
Still, that scene was a rollercoaster. The final hour of this game form the replay fo Cliff's scenes to the post credit scene made this game something really special, imo.
I touched on it on the last page but Kojima's understanding of this issue and his solution to it are wildly problematic.What does everyone think about Trump and talk of the wall being canon in Death Stranding? Considering DS is meant to be a 'warning' of what happens when we built literal and figurative walls between each other as Kojima puts it, I think it works out in the end.
Since there's no photography thread (or I can't find one), posting some pictures from near the end game. The game has fantastic visual cues.
Let it be known that Mads is a badass.
There's a lot of Evangelion imagery in the ending. Probably intentional.
and Fragile is probably one of the best written/acted female characters in a Kojima game.
Let it be known that Mads is a badass.
There's a lot of Evangelion imagery in the ending. Probably intentional.
and Fragile is probably one of the best written/acted female characters in a Kojima game.
I like the idea of the quote but it's somehow always delivered weirdly.
I also took it as some kind of foreshadowing. The 5 figures for the revelation of the EEs' existance and BB disappears from the Beach because in the very End, Louise is disconnected from the Afterlife and Begins a normal life, untethered to the Beach (so her disappearing is actually a "good" sign)
She fucked it up every time kept saying it different. In the end it was Reedus who said it right.
I guess it's both. I thought the latter at first but after reading more about it, i think it's meant to be the five EE. I like that it's still a mystery...after all the theories and assumptions made since the game reveal lol.
Got a performance nomination just for that lol. (kidding, I loved Reedus performance).
The last time they do it I fucking laughed. The game genuinely tried to do the "repeat-quote-agreement" thing to show how much Fragile and Sam get each other, but it just seemed out of character for this mellow world to be doing that.
I wondered if Kojima would be crazy enough to have John's last name be McClane and thought, "Naw that's too stupid and on the nose even for Kojima".
lol
I didn't bother Sam, it actually made a lot of sense in the context of what Amelie was saying but Mario and Princess Beach was too much for me, followed by the running on the shore... oh boy, what a terrible moment lol.
What a game. Went in after a VERY disappointing MGS5 doubting Kojima and thinking I hate the delivery gameplay.
I am absolutely hooked on the gameplay and want to do the Platin now.
Also the Story, acting, production values and graphics are through the roof on this one. The last 2,5 hours were absolutely insane and I never saw this well acted and animated cutscenes in any game ever. The whole stuff with BB was also very emotional and when BB's theme started playing it was sooooo good. Thank god the game got greenlit and they let Kojima do his thing. I hope it is an insane success and we get more games like this with AAA production values.
I am absolutely hooked on the gameplay and want to do the Platin now.
Also the Story, acting, production values and graphics are through the roof on this one. The last 2,5 hours were absolutely insane and I never saw this well acted and animated cutscenes in any game ever. The whole stuff with BB was also very emotional and when BB's theme started playing it was sooooo good. Thank god the game got greenlit and they let Kojima do his thing. I hope it is an insane success and we get more games like this with AAA production values.