Direct quote 2023-06
“The player is the only one making the connections, so the sense of loneliness is torturous at the start.”
What it documents
Kojima described the emotional design of the start of Death Stranding: the player begins feeling completely alone on a very dangerous path, and that loneliness is torturous because the player is the only one making the connections. Afterward the player begins to see traces of others doing the same in the world — the other Sams — understands they are not the only one who felt this way, and the game opens out from there.
Source
Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds (documentary by Glen Milner; PlayStation Productions / Kojima Productions); official English SDH subtitles, 2023-06 (00:09:18,458–00:10:27,333). View source ↗
“At the very start, they will feel a sense of being completely alone on a very dangerous path. ... They can't see each other but they start to see traces and realize, "I'm not the only one who felt this way". And it opens out from there.”