History YMMV / DeathStranding

** The E3 2016 trailer certainly has a bunch of stomach-churning imagery: the dead sea life, the newborn bawling on the beach while attached to an obviously artificial umbilical cord, Sam's [[NakedPeopleAreFunny bare ass]] covered in handprints and boasting a cross-shaped scar on his stomach hinting at some possible MisterSeahorse shenanigans. This is definitely going to be one of Kojima's weirder games, which given [[Franchise/MetalGear his]] [[VideoGame/SilentHills pedigree]] is certainly saying something.

** Creator/HideoKojima stated that the theme of the game was making connections, and the game is not at all subtle about slamming the player over the head with a truckload of cargo worth of symbolism in the form of the multitude of rope and hand imagery. This seems to have been deliberate on Kojima's part, given his previous lamentations about how ''Franchise/MetalGear'''s themes about how WarIsHell and the dangers of nuclear weapons [[MisaimedFandom went over the heads of a lot of gamers who]] [[RuleOfCool just liked the cool futuristic weaponry]].

** What is Amelie specifically? [[spoiler:Is she a human who was selected by a higher power to be an Extinction Entity? Is she is God of Death that watches over life and death?]]

** Storywise, most can agree that it's [[WidgetSeries a story so over the top that it could only have been written by Hideo Kojima.]] Whether it's the ''good'' kind of weird, with a likable cast of eccentrics and a [[NarmCharm charmingly awkward]] approach to the complicated themes, or the ''bad'' kind, with a nonsensical stew littered with obnoxiously {{Anvilicious}} references and uncharismatic protagonists, is up to debate.

%%* HarsherInHindsight: The game's themes were already extremely relevant to contemporary political and social issues, but things got even more on-the-nose a few months after release. A major aspect of the game's setting is that the Death Stranding has led to the survivors bunkering down in safe locations and avoiding physical contact with one another, mostly relying on digital avatars to communicate, while transport of physical goods would be handled by deliverymen decked out in protective gear. Mere months after the game's release the UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic eventually led affected countries to pursue the policy of social distancing to minimize further spread of illness, in which people were encouraged to sequester themselves in safe locations to avoid physical contact with each other and rely on digital media to communicate, while transport of physical goods would be handled by deliverymen decked out in protective gear.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: The plot being difficult to understand and very open to interpretation, lending itself to a veritable orchard of EpilepticTrees and epic amounts of WildMassGuessing, is mentioned quite a bit in reviews both good and bad. Negative reviews tend to call it poor storytelling while positive ones will generally invoke this trope.

** The extreme connection between Mama and Lockne is already...odd (for instance, how they refer to the baby as ''theirs'', when Mama is actually Lockne's surrogate), but things get even weirder when they combine their souls, giving Lockne heterochromia. Then Lockne caresses her own face as a way to "hug" Mama...

* EndingFatigue: The story makes it seem as if Sam's confrontation with Higgs on the West Coast will be the endgame, but then it just keeps going with Sam having to go all the way back to Capital Knot City for a final confrontation with [[spoiler: Amelie]] who then proceeds to give revelation after revelation until the credits roll. ''Then'' you have to make one last delivery after the credits where you are treated to more revelations about [[spoiler: Cliff and his relationship to Sam]] ''and then'' the credits roll one final time...which are then followed by a final, gracefully short cutscene and the set up for the PlayableEpilogue.