Playstation has announced that something called The Death Stranding Experience is coming to London’s Stables Market in Camden next month. The event will run for five days, the 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 9th, and 10th of November 2019, but on the 2nd, between 11.30am and 12pm, there will be an opportunity for anyone to meet Death Stranding’s creator, Hideo Kojima. No details about the event have been released, apart from the fact that the experience draws upon the environments from the game. In addition to whatever this experience is, fans will be able to purchase limited edition merchandise at The Death Stranding Experience too.
While I love the mystery of this event, and Death Stranding as a whole, I can’t help but imagine a couple of things that I’d love to see at the event, as someone who wants to be fully immersed in the Death Stranding universe. So here’s a list of my ideas.
War Time Recreation With a Death Stranding Twist
This first idea is fairly simple. The Stables Market is a prime location for recreating a field hospital in World War 1 or 2. You could dress the whole market up and make it truly immersive, just like being in a ruined building that’s been made into some sort of medical unit in the middle of a battlefield. The reason for this is because we know that players are both stranded physically, and in time in Death Stranding. We’ve seen protagonist Sam shooting soldiers in an unnamed war in the game’s trailers, but what you may not have noticed is that those soldiers look like they’re from the past, the era of World War 1 or 2.
However, dressing the set as a war hospital is only one step of this idea. As we’ve also seen in the trailers for Death Stranding, Mads Mikkelsen will be leading a group of scary looking troops through a battlefield, which I’d guess is this same battlefield that Sam finds himself in. It would be brilliant if this war time hospital recreation at the Stables Market was suddenly overrun with these soldiers, all connected by those black strands we see in the trailers.
The soldiers could come rushing in, accost everyone in the experience, pushing them up against walls or down to the ground, and then Mads Mikkelsen could casually stroll in. That’s where my idea ends, because I have no idea what Mikkelsen’s character’s motives are in Death Stranding, but I assume he’s looking for Sam. Maybe Mikkelsen could walk around asking people where Sam is, threatening them, and generally being quite scary.
Falling Through Water
If you remember the very early trailers for Death Stranding, you might be familiar with the concept of Sam falling through water. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but it seems like people are pulled into another world when they are caught in the black tar-like substance that the main enemies seem to summon in the game. We’ve seen Sam floating in water after being pulled into the substance, but then he’s lying on a shore surrounded by dead animals.
I don’t like the idea of being pulled into a black tar-like substance, but having an area where people could be suddenly pulled through black water, emerging underneath on a fake beach with fake dead crabs around them, would be brilliant. This is what I imagine when I read the words, The Death Stranding Experience. It’s mental enough that Hideo Kojima might endorse it, but I imagine that the health and safety for this sort of experience is just crazy.
Delivering Packages
What we do know about Death Stranding is that it’s all about delivering packages in order to connect people. The Stables Market is home to a bunch of different businesses, so why would people not take the opportunity to become Sam and deliver packages?
I imagine this experience to see people suited up as Sam is in Death Stranding gameplay videos, with a big suit on, and a huge space on his back for carrying stuff. People would then need to walk around the Market, delivering packages and maybe even getting instructions from the business owners, all of which lead to a prize at the end of the experience. It is know n that there will be merchandise at the experience, so maybe one piece of merch in particular could be the prize for people taking part.
Putting up Ladders and Peeing on Mushrooms
The only other activities we’ve seen Sam do in Death Stranding are put up ladders, and pee on the ground to produce a mushroom. While I don’t see anyone being up for peeing in front of a crowd just to get some sort of mushroom from an event, I could see ladders being used.
For this idea I see the Stables Market made up as an obstacle course. People would need to use ladders in order to progress through the experience, climbing in through windows or doors used to move stock into a shop. I think this would be quite safe, and therefore likely, as long as Playstation can get every business in the area to agree to it.
Playing the Game in a Dark Room
I recently went to EXG 2019, and there was a booth for Death Stranding there. When I say booth, I mean a container where people went in and then came out having done something related to Death Stranding. With the game launching over the course of The Death Stranding Experience, I imagine that there could be a similar container at the Stables Market where people can play Death Stranding. It’s simple, and easy for Playstation to do since they have it all set up, I imagine.
This idea isn’t very exciting, but it’s probably the most likely. At the very least, anyone who attends will get to play the game, and that’s quite the bonus considering the reviews for the game go up on the 1st of November, and we then have to wait a week to play it.