Deaf Stranding

For some, it represents a stroke of genius that breaks with gaming conventions; a reduction to the mundane, in which the focus is on the world and as only god designer Kojima could conceive it. For others, it's a postal simulator in which parcels have to be transported from A to B in a deserted wasteland. At least that's how I would summarize the general debate about Death Stranding as an outsider who, for lack of insight, doesn't want to take either side.

Having not played the game, let's move on to the soundtrack. As befits an artsy-fartsy intellectual game, it is available in different versions, two of which I would like to present here: Since Death Stranding [Songs from the Video Game] quickly turns out to be a collection of pieces by the Icelandic band Low Roar and the Japanese electro duo Silent Poets that are well worth listening to, with their synthpop beats somewhere between beautiful and snoring, I would rather talk about the actual OST. After all, scores that can be described more as a band album than a video game album are less exciting due to their conventional nature.

So let's quickly move on to the original soundtrack album by Ludvig Forssell. To fully appreciate it, you probably also have to be a fan of the game's premise in a musical sense: Desolation, loneliness, reduction, freedom - to throw a few buzzwords into the room. The composition is very stringent and offers an interesting mixture of gloomy, oppressive synth vibes reminiscent of Stranger Things (Soulless Meat Puppet, Heartman) and optimistic space opera à la Mass Effect (Once, There Was an Explosion, The Face of Our New Hope).

The instrumental front ranges from individual players such as the aforementioned synth sounds or strings (A Final Waltz), joint performers piano + vocals (Alone We Have No Future) to Battlefield-meets-Dark Souls-esque orchestral drone (Decentralized by Nature, Porter Syndrome, Mules). I like the sound of that, but to be honest it's a bit too boring for me. You probably need the Icelandic panorama when listening in order to enjoy the interplay of audio and image. I therefore give it an average grade, but as is so often the case, this is a matter of taste. Some people like Norwegian eunuch choirs, others listen to German rap.