Kojima Says That Death Stranding’s Likes System Is All About “Giving Unconditional Love”
Death Stranding is going to be a game with a lot of systems to interact with from its traversal mechanics to its side activities. Curiously though, one of those systems includes a social media style “likes” system that’s one of the game’s online features.
Though this will be a singleplayer-focused game, an online mechanic allows players to leave behind helpful objects for each other such as ladders or bridges that can be used to traverse over wide gaps and rivers. Players can reward this considerate behavior by “liking” it in-game.
When asked by Game Informer about what Death Stranding’s likes actually do, Kojima explained that the likes are their own reward. At first, the rest of his developer team argued against implementing this feature because players might not understand it and there was no significant benefit but Kojima insisted that likes should just be likes.
“But, of course you can see how many likes you get, so that’s maybe a little reward,” Kojima added. “If you just use [something another player placed], one like will be sent automatically. But also you can send more, like a tip.”
“I don’t want to say I’m brilliant for thinking of this idea,” he continued, “because it’s really a mix of the Japanese way; we don’t have tips, but you know you get really good service in Japan. Whereas in America, there’s a tip system where waiters try their best because they want to be tipped. So it’s a cross lateral in the game.”
According to Kojima, left behind objects that don’t have many likes “might disappear” while “the ones with lots of thumbs up will remain”.
Notably, there’s no way for players to give a “thumbs down” to each other’s objects since Kojima wants Death Stranding to be a “positive” game about working together.