Content warnings have become, if not standard, then at least more common in entertainment media over the past decade. Films and video games dealing with sensitive topics add small messages alerting viewers and players that they might encounter something troubling. Two highly sensitive topics that would fit the bill are an integral part of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach’s opening hours, but there are no such warnings in sight. This decision is not just irresponsible — it’s counterproductive to Death Stranding 2’s storytelling in general.
[Ed. note: Spoilers for the end of Death Stranding 2’s first episode and the entire second episode follow.]
At the end of Death Stranding 2’s first episode, main character Sam Bridges receives a message from his home’s security system saying it’s under attack. An empty home and signs of a struggle greet Sam upon his arrival, and you use Sam’s scanner to follow the footprints of someone who fled the scene on a motorcycle. Death Stranding 2 gives you little time to ponder the discrepancy, though, as Sam quickly finds his friend Fragile — but no Lou, Sam’s adopted child who Fragile was minding. Fragile temporarily transported Lou to a Beach (Death Stranding-speak for the land of the dead) to try and save her, and the child died there, or seemed to.
Whether Lou permanently dies or gets revived later by the same Death Stranding magic that makes Sam almost unkillable isn’t the point. The point is you see a baby, alone, whimpering, and crying, and then she falls still without warning and stops breathing. Regardless of what happens later, a child dies suddenly at this moment. Then, Sam shoots himself in the head, either out of despair or a misguided attempt to find and revive Lou. The next scene shows him emptying spent shells from a handgun — half a dozen more attempted suicides.
Image: Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon
Don’t get me wrong. These scenes are written, staged, and performed with a depth and maturity you don’t see in most media, let alone video games. There’s no melodrama, no swelling music or wailing and gnashing of teeth to make sure you know how to feel. There’s only silence, punctuated by the sound of sticky hands crawling across the floor as the spirit that was Lou crawls into her Bridge Baby pod, and Sam realizes she’s not coming back, not in any form that matters.
One of the fundamental purposes of storytelling is to make emotional connections with people, to create the sense of understanding and empathy that comes from seeing something you experienced portrayed by someone who gets it. That connection is even more important if you’ve gone through something traumatic, so it’s not just helpful to have stories that examine challenging topics like the death of a child or the choices people make when they’re lost in despair and see no way out. It’s necessary. When you’re caught unaware by seeing this trauma pop up unexpectedly, though, it risks the opposite effect, of trapping and isolating you in that moment again where it’s impossible to see or feel anything else.
Maybe that’s not the case for you, and that’s okay! It doesn’t mean others shouldn’t get that consideration, though. Speaking personally, my mom and I were full-time caregivers for her parents, both of whom had dementia, for five years until they grew too violent and unpredictable to care for at home. I’m fine seeing shows or movies that depict someone with dementia or families slowly realizing their loved ones are developing a problem. My mom is not. Just knowing that a story touches on those topics makes the difference between the show having a therapeutic effect for her or making her suffer from flashbacks, anxiety attacks, and the depression that follows them.
Image: Inkle via Polygon
Content warnings don’t have to be extensive, dramatic, or even mandatory to view. The more notice a developer draws to it, the worse of an impact it can have. Take Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as a negative example. It begins with an unskippable notice that the story includes scenes of attempted suicide, along with a few other issues such as depictions of violence. The violence is hardly surprising for an M-rated game where fighting plays a crucial role, and the way events unfold at the start of the game make it evident how and when the other warned scenario will happen. As much as I appreciate the heads-up about what might be in store, the presentation is clunky and silly, and it works against the drama Sandfall Interactive tried creating in Expedition 33’s pivotal early moments.
On the other hand, Expelled, from indie developer Inkle, deals with a broader range of serious topics, topics more likely to catch people off guard thanks to the game’s deceptively lighthearted nature. Inkle puts a content warning section on the top left of the main menu in Expelled, and if you select it, you get a general rundown of the (many) heavy and potentially disturbing subjects that might come up in some of the game’s branching paths. If you don’t want to know any of it, you can skip this entirely. If you think you might need to brace yourself, you can scan the list and form a vague idea of what to expect without having major story beats spoiled.
It’s that simple. Just a little, unobtrusive notice is all it takes to make sure more people can appreciate a story and benefit from it, and it doesn’t even have to interrupt anyone else’s enjoyment of it. Other studios have patched in small warnings after their games are live, as CD Projekt Red did with Cyberpunk 2077. Hopefully, Kojima Productions considers doing the same for Death Stranding 2. We’ve reached out to see if the studio has any plans to do so and will update if we hear back.
