PASSIVE COLLABORATION AND CONNECTIONS IN A ‘STRAND GAME’: CHANGING THE WAY WE PLAY

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in new modes of online player interactions that rely on passive and asynchronous collaborations rather than immediate action-based competitive gameplay. Especially after the COVID-19 period of lockdown, quarantine, and resulting isolation, it becomes momentous to examine the new modes of interaction and association that video games offer to connect people in untraditional ways. Accordingly, we perform a close reading on the 2019 game Death Stranding which is based on the themes and gameplay mechanics of connection, collaboration, and new paradigms around social bonding. We identify five domains wherein the themes of the game manifest: narrative infrastructure; mechanics that discourage violence; building connections with other players; bonding with virtual characters; and construction of the self as a social agent. These findings are discussed with the possibility of defining a new genre, named by the game’s creator as a “strand game” (Kojima 2019a, 2019b).