Death Stranding’s Naming System Is Worse Than Metal Gear Solid’s
Metal Gear Solid is often laughed at for its absurd character names. However, miraculously, Death Stranding has even worse naming conventions.
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A recurring element of Hideo Kojima’s games, specifically Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid, is the absurd names given to everyone and everything. A lot of character names are incredibly on the nose, or even just generally describe the person. Some highlights from the Metal Gear Solid games include Fatman, Hot Coldman, and Skullface. There’s also Big Boss – who is, typically, the big boss of a private military organization. However, the names in Death Stranding are even more laughably absurd.
Death Stranding doesn’t have the luxury of Metal Gear Solid’s ridiculously convoluted story. Sure, Death Stranding’s narrative is incredibly weird and obtuse, but it’s actually very well put together once all the pieces start falling into place. For some reason, Kojima presumably decided Death Stranding needed even worse names than Metal Gear Solid. In case the baby strapped to the protagonist’s chest or the rain that makes people rapidly age weren’t enough odd elements to remind the player it’s a Kojima game, a chat with a man named Die-Hardman certainly will.
Perhaps partly because of its weirdness, Death Stranding is definitely a game players want to start with as little foreknowledge as possible. The weirdness makes it better, and the names may be ludicrous, but some still have narrative relevance. For instance, protagonist Sam Porter Bridges’ name is absurd but ties to the narrative. Aside from the episodic Death Stranding being about reconnecting America (like a bridge) and Sam being one of the most common American names, his middle name is Porter, an occupation that involves carrying luggage or other packages. He also works for a company named Bridges, which builds bridges (both literally and figuratively) across America. Later on, his real last name is revealed to be Strand, which in and of itself is a narrative strand. It also parallels the game’s name, as well as that of the first weapon given to the player: a strand.
Death Stranding’s Absurd Character & City Names
There’s also the similar names of cities in Death Stranding: Capital Knot City, Lake Knot City, Edge Knot City, etc. The player is connecting the remaining strands of humanity by tying all of the population center together into one network. The cities are kind of like knots in the strands. It’s not very subtle. To connect all these knots/Knots, Sam has to traverse America to ultimately find his sister, Amelie. Amelie is a nickname for America. So, the game is about crossing America to find America.
There are plenty of other absurd names as well. There’s a woman named Fragile, for instance, who operates another package delivery service. Mama, whose real name is Målingen, is called this because she’s a mother. Bridges’ resident medical expert Deadman frequently helps Sam when problems with his pod-bound Bridge Baby arise. Deadman refers to himself as “Frankenstein’s monster” because his entire body has been put together from various cadaver pieces and body parts grown through stem cells. A character known as Heartman kills and resuscitates himself roughly 60 times a day so he can search for his dead family members in the Beach. He does this, of course, by self-induced cardiac arrest.
It’s fairly well-known that Hideo Kojima is a big movie buff. He frequently runs in film circles, as evidenced by Hollywood actors Norman Reedus and Léa Seydoux playing roles in Death Stranding. One of Kojima’s favorite movies (many of which he notes influence Metal Gear Solid) is action classic Die Hard. Because of this, Die-Hardman (who was even born John McClane) takes the cake for ridiculous Death Stranding names.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/death-stranding-naming-system-worse-metal-gear-solid/