Death Stranding Can Put Its Spin on Psycho Mantis’ Memory Card Trick

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home November 19, 2024 7 Views 5 Min Read
Death Stranding Can Put Its Spin on Psycho Mantis’ Memory Card Trick



Among the many strengths of Hideo Kojima as a game maker is his willingness to fully embrace the hardware of the era. In the case of Death Stranding, this translates to utilizing features like the DualShock 4’s motion controls as a surrogate for Sam Porter Bridge’s own hands, with players rocking the controller in real life to soothe BB out of a tantrum, for instance. It will be interesting to see how future Kojima games handle this hardware-centric design philosophy, especially as games like Death Stranding 2 become available on more than just PlayStation consoles.




Kojima has made use of motion controls, haptics, and 3D audio in novel ways, but perhaps the most iconic instance of this holistic design approach can be seen in the first Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation 1: the famous Psycho Mantis fight. True to his name, Psycho Mantis toys with Snake’s mind, and these manipulations manifest as fourth-wall-breaking maneuvers like forcing the player to switch their controller to the player 2 slot and reading their memory card to produce curated jeers and teasing from Mantis. The ubiquity of wireless controllers makes the first tactic essentially impossible in the modern age, but the latter may be able to be replicated in a unique way on contemporary devices, perhaps in Death Stranding 2 or other Kojima games down the road.

Death Stranding Xbox Release OD PlayStation Port

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What Death Stranding’s Xbox Release Could Mean for OD

The recent release of Death Stranding: Director’s Cut on Xbox consoles may have some major implications for the upcoming Xbox game, OD.

How Death Stranding 2 (or Other Kojima Games) Can Modernize Psycho Mantis’ Memory Card Reading


Trophies and Achievements Are Akin to Modern Memory Cards

With the advent of trends like cloud saving and purely digital gaming, memory cards and their equivalents, with the exception of SD cards on certain devices, have essentially fallen by the wayside. Of course, these systems still save users’ data, making it theoretically possible for a future Kojima game to repeat Psycho Mantis’ memorable tricks, though this would of course be somewhat predictable and runs the risk of retreading old ground.

A more exciting technique could, however, hinge on trophies and achievements, which are nearly inescapable in modern games. Perhaps a character like Higgs or some other enigmatic antagonist could reach past the fourth wall through these means, drawing upon a player’s gaming history and ironically praising them for platinuming certain games or obtaining hard-to-earn achievements. Conversely, this character could berate players for not earning all the achievements in a certain game, or missing out on particularly easy ones. This might be tricky to implement on devices like the Switch 2, which may not feature an achievements feature, but it’s not even clear whether future Kojima games will be brought to this platform.


Why Focusing On Achievements Could Be a Fun Way for Kojima Games to Break the Fourth Wall

The Psycho Mantis fight in Metal Gear Solid persists in the gaming zeitgeist mostly because of its fourth-wall-breaking elements. There’s something about an antagonist reaching out directly to the player that makes them particularly intimidating and frightening, as it immediately asserts them as being somehow omniscient. It eliminates the comfortable boundary between the player and the narrative conflict, dragging them in and making them feel less safely detached.

It’s an effective intimidation tactic that more games should make use of. This goes double for Kojima games like Death Stranding, which establish themselves as cerebral and mystical stories conveyed through unconventional means. Kojima Productions is clearly not shying away from unconventional techniques, and with Death Stranding 2 possibly coming to Xbox and PC, reading achievements would be a unique, non-platform-specific way to discomfort a new generation of players.


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