Death Stranding NPCs will be affected by your actions, says Hideo Kojima

(Image credit: Kojima Productions)

Death Stranding's release date is right around the corner, and in the lead-up to release Hideo Kojima has talked about the upcoming "strand" game in Moscow, Russia. In a public talk at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Kojima went into detail about how players choices will have consequences in Death Stranding's world. It's important to note that the talk was in Russian and Japanese, and we're going off a translation on Reddit to get the gist of what was said.

Kojima has said in the past that Death Stranding is a game all about connections, but during this talk the game director and developer expanded on how the connections we build and the actions we take can lead to different consequences. Kojima gave an example of a character we'll meet how lives deep underground. The character is sick old man who's in need of medicine, and Sam can deliver it. "Since this happens at the beginning of the story, this is a must," Kojima explains. After completing the quest, as Kojima goes on to say, players can choose to perform different actions including continually going back to man with medicine, delivering other items, or listening to the man's stories from the past.

"But the player is constantly moving forward and moving away from the character. And I'm sure that there are gamers who forget about this old man," Kojima says, "And then they will remember and return to it. Since they have not carried medicine to him all this time, he will die by this moment."

So to clarify, if you forget to return to the old man, it will have direct consequences. In this instance, he'll die without his medicine delivery if you forget to return. Going back to the idea of Death Stranding being a game all about connections, Kojima explains that through your actions, "a connection arises," and expressed his hope that players will be interested in the significance of the connections you form. "We really hope that the significance of the connection between people - how it is formed, how it develops - will be revealed," Kojima says, "and it will be interesting for you to play it."

Death Stranding is due to release on the November 8, 2019, and with every talk and helping of news, we're more and more intrigued by Kojima Productions game coming to PS4. It'll be interesting to see just how these connection are formed and how our choices will shape our experience.

Catching up on the latest Death Stranding news? Check out the latest Death Stranding 'The Drop' trailer to see how it lays out your mission.

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Heather Wald is the Evergreen Editor, Games at GamesRadar+. Her writing career began on a student-led magazine at Bath Spa University, where she earned a BA (Hons) in English literature. Heather landed her first role writing about tech and games for Stuff Magazine shortly after graduating with an MA in magazine journalism at Cardiff University. Now with almost seven years of experience working with GamesRadar+ on the features team, Heather helps to develop, maintain, and expand the evergreen features that exist on the site for games, as well as spearhead the Indie Spotlight series. You'll also see her contribute op-eds, interview-led features, and more. In her spare time, you'll likely find Heather tucking into RPGs and indie games, reading romance novels, and drinking lots of tea.