Post Script
Sorry we missed you: pondering the implications of the Edge review that wasn’t
We had not, honestly, expected our initial decision not to review Death Stranding in E339 to be so controversial. Perhaps we should have seen it coming: Hideo Kojima’s legend means he attracts an avid fanbase, whose passion for his work is rivalled only by the fervour of his legion of detractors. Depending on who you asked, our decision was either the work of a publication that didn’t understand Kojima’s genius, or the one that saw through the façade and unmasked the hack within; we were either the brave outlet taking a stand, or a timid one sliding into irrelevancy. The truth, as ever, lies somewhere in the middle of it all, and rather more tamely than has been received. Now the game is in the wild, our review has been completed and our Twitter mentions have calmed down, we think it’s worth unpacking.
First, as we said in a Dispatches response last month, developers and publishers are free to ask whatever they like of publications to which they are supplying free review code in advance of release. While we cannot recall an offer of early code ever previously being contingent on a promise to finish the game, it is not so outlandish a request; if we are to review something, we naturally intend to complete it. The overwhelming majority of games Edge reviews each issue get finished before we turn our attention to the page. The request, in and of itself, is fine.
Yet things are a little knottier in Death Stranding’s case, since we didn’t know what we were letting ourselves in for. It had been shrouded in secrecy ever since announcement. When we sit down with a new Final Fantasy, we know it’ll be 50 or more hours before the credits roll. Equally, we know some hot new indie narrative adventure will likely be done and dusted by teatime. Yes, the smart money was on Death Stranding being some sprawling epic, but right up until the last people were speculating whether Kojima was pulling the wool over the industry’s eyes and was actually making the most lavish walking sim the world had ever seen. Maybe it would be somewhere in between, given that Sony’s firstparty output throughout the PS4 era has tended to come in at around the 20-hour mark.
None of this is to say that Sony was late with review code. Indeed, it has been one of the better companies for getting games into reviewers’ hands in a timely manner this generation, particularly – though not exclusively – when it is a game about which it is confident. Death Stranding is not a game to be sprinted through; indeed, the faster you try to go, the more frustrating it becomes. As it assesses the game’s mixed critical reception,
Sony may wonder what might have been had it given the press another week or two.
The game was slightly different back then, too, the idea of networked players invisibly helping each other out by collaboratively building a transport network underserved by the modest number of players that were reviewing it. And if you can bring yourself to drop a few likes on a generator built by a YouTuber with some outspoken views on the intersection of videogames and social justice, you’re made of stronger stuff than us.
If there’s a lesson in all of this, it’s that perhaps Kojima was given a little too much control. Not over how the game was designed or developed – though there’s another Post Script or six in that – but in how it was marketed, or not. For all his desire to build a sense of mystery around the game, a few more preview beats might have been useful to shape expectations; given the size and pace of the thing, marketing should perhaps have insisted the press be given longer to review it – or held it back until launch, given the importance of a busy live network to how the game feels to play. We’ve learned from it too, and while we have always sought to be as timely in our reviews as a print publication can be, we will not be so hasty in future. We hope any future delayed deliveries will be worth the wait.