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Express Tribune
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Hideo Kojima reimagines Australian outback in Death Stranding 2
In Death Stranding 2, Hideo Kojima once again delivers a rich and immersive world, this time reimagining the Australian outback as a mysterious, ever-changing post-apocalyptic landscape. Writing for The Guardian, Keith Stuart reflects on how the game echoes the mythic tones of classic Australian cinema, drawing comparisons to films such as Walkabout, Mad Max, and Picnic at Hanging Rock. Set in a ruined version of Australia following a catastrophic event, Death Stranding 2 tasks players with traversing vast, desolate terrain to deliver supplies to isolated communities. The environment, marked by supernatural disruptions and haunting beauty, shifts constantly—dust storms rise, avalanches strike, and roads evolve thanks to contributions from other players. Kojima's Australia stands apart from typical open-world maps—shifting constantly, it builds a persistent sense of unease and wonder. Stuart, who has spent over 45 hours in the game, notes that Death Stranding 2 prioritizes mood and rhythm over linear storytelling. Its hypnotic gameplay echoes director Peter Weir's vision for Picnic at Hanging Rock—a deliberately immersive and unsettling experience that suspends logic in favor of atmosphere. The influence of George Miller's Mad Max is also evident, with its chaotic energy, sparse resources, and tribal elements shaping the world's aesthetic and tone. Kojima, a self-proclaimed admirer of Miller, uses these inspirations to craft a version of Australia that feels both alien and familiar. Ultimately, Death Stranding 2 offers players a surreal journey through a land filled with beauty, menace, and mystery. Through its evolving terrain and shared-player infrastructure, Kojima succeeds in creating not just a game, but a meditative experience—one that Stuart says may take months to truly escape.
The Guardian
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
How Hideo Kojima created yet another weird, wonderful world in Death Stranding 2
As a teenager in the late 1980s, I became obsessed with Australian new wave cinema, thanks partly to the Mad Max trilogy, and partly to an English teacher at my high school, who rolled out the TV trolley one afternoon and showed us Nicolas Roeg's masterpiece Walkabout. We were mesmerised. Forty years later, I am playing Death Stranding 2, Hideo Kojima's sprawling apocalyptic adventure, and there are times I feel as if I'm back in that classroom. Most of the game takes place in a ruined Australia, the cities gone, the landscape as stark, beautiful and foreboding as it was in Roeg's film. I've been playing for 45 hours and have barely made an impact on the story. Instead, I have wandered the wilderness, delivering packages to the game's isolated communities. The game is set after a catastrophic event has decimated humanity and scarred the landscape with supernatural explosions. Now you pass through vast ochre deserts and on toward the coast, watching the sun set behind glowing mountains, the tide rolling in on empty bays. Usually in open-world games, the landscape is permanent and unchanging, apart from day/night cycles and seasonal rotations. But the Australia of Death Stranding 2 is mysterious and amorphous. Earthquakes bring rocks tumbling down hillsides, vast dust storms blow up and avalanches bury you in snow. As you go, you are able to build roads, electricity generators and even jump-ramps for cars. These can be found and used by other players, so each time you visit a place you may find new ways to traverse. Nothing is ever really still. Kojima named George Miller as his idol and the influence of the Mad Max movies and their crazed, desolate energy is everywhere in this game: its interplay of technology and isolation; its feudal tribes and scarce resources, its weird sense of adrenaline. He has also seen Walkabout, and that film's mythic energy is here, too, though perhaps lacking the strong undertone of colonial guilt. There is a rocky outcrop in a remote corner of the game map that reminds me a little of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, with its labyrinthine crevices, the reddish glow, the unnerving silence. I've spent hours driving along highways in this game, picking up parcels and taking them to strange, inaccessible places – why? How have I been seduced into sitting in front of my screen until 2am ensuring an animal shelter gets its delivery of fluffy pyjamas? The answer is, in creating a version of Australia that is timeless yet subject to moments of extreme change, Kojima has played the same trick Weir did: this world is beguiling and threatening – and that's what makes it seductive. Years ago, Weir said this about Picnic at Hanging Rock: 'What I attempted was to develop the oppressive atmosphere of something which has no solution: to bring out a tension and claustrophobia in the locations and the relationships. We worked very hard at creating an hallucinatory mesmeric rhythm, so that you lost awareness of facts, you stopped adding things up, and got into this enclosed atmosphere. I did everything in my power to hypnotise the audience away from the possibility of solution.' That, in short, is my experience of Death Stranding 2. It is a game of hallucinatory mesmeric rhythms; you drive and drive, then hours later you're back in the same place – except now there is a road, or a sign left by another player who passed in the night. What Grand Theft Auto has always tried to do with American cities, Kojima has succeeded at with the Australian outback: to interpret and distill the feeling of a place from an outsider perspective. That's why, when I do actually make progress in the game and open up a new area for exploration, I get the same feeling I had when I first saw Walkabout on that rainy afternoon in Manchester as a teenager – it feels as if I am seeing an impossible alien landscape, rife with beauty, possibility and danger. I think it will be months before I escape. A few months ago, I interviewed the creator of Quantum Witch, a wildly idiosyncratic pixel art adventure about a shepherdess who loses her flock and then gets tossed into a metaphysical battle between duelling gods. Nikki Jay was raised in a religious cult, but escaped to live her own life – and this game is heavily inspired by her experiences. Created with a little help from Paul Rose, who wrote Channel 4's famed teletext gaming zine Digitiser, it's partly a point-and-click adventure but also a postmodern deconstruction of genre, with queer undertones. If you loved the irreverent humour of Thank Goodness You're Here, or just want to play something wonderfully offbeat, you have come to the right place. Available on: PC Estimated playtime: Five hours-plus More bad news for games industry employees – MindsEye developer Build a Rocket Boy is making significant job cuts after the game's disastrous launch. Plagued by bugs and AI glitches, the title drew negative reviews from both gaming sites and players, and according to IGN, up to 100 staff could now be laid off. What a mess. Eurogamer has an excellent interview with voice actor Ashly Burch, looking at the vital question: can video games have a positive impact on mental health? Burch talks about her own experiences with obsessive compulsive disorder and how one game, Harvest Moon 64, helped her to cope. We love a classic video game deep dive, and GameSpot has a great piece on how one game designer created the best level in the Deus Ex – the legendary role-playing adventure from Dallas studio, Ion Storm. It's filled with fascinating detail about the game's rendition of an alternative Hong Kong. Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion The Outer Worlds 2, the most expensive Xbox game yet Death Stranding 2: On the Beach – a hypnotising art-house game with an A-list cast | ★★★★★ 'We're all connected – but it's not the connection I imagined': Hideo Kojima on Death Stranding 2 From Street Fighter to Final Fantasy: Yoko Shimomura, the composer who put the classical in gaming's classics 'Trauma is messy, but music will come of it': Jessica Curry on her new album, Shielding Songs This one comes from Adam: 'I've recently been playing Be Brave, Barb, the new game by the developer of the delightful Dadish series. I'm enjoying the simple, bite-sized gameplay and have had the same feeling in recent play-throughs of the Game Boy Kirby games. I was wondering: what are the team's favourite snack-sized games?' Ever since first playing the short and terrifying horror game Slender, I have been obsessed with weird mini horror titles, so I'll also add Mouthwashing, Murder House and PT. I also love old PlayStation mini game titles such as Bishi Bashi Special and Point Blank. As for the rest of the team: Keza has gone for Wario Ware, Lonely Mountains and Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket ('yes, still,' she says): Tom Regan says, 'In terms of short games to complete: What Remains of Edith Finch, Florence and Inside; in terms of games that you can play in short bursts: Loop Hero, Tetris Effect, Sifu and Cult of the Lamb.' Christian Donlan says Drop7, Into the Breach, Marvel Snap and Spelunky (he also loyally added 'The Quick Cryptic on the Guardian is my fav 10 minutes of the week.') Sarah Maria Griffin said, 'I love, love love A Short Hike. And of course, Untitled Goose Game. Perfect little games.' If you've got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@
Daily Mail
29-04-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Britain's biggest pub chain hikes prices of drinks by 4% with could add up to 20p onto the cost of a pint
Britain's biggest pub chain has hiked prices of drinks by four per cent - in a move that could add 20p onto the cost of a pint. Stonegate Group, which owns bars including Slug & Lettuce, Walkabout, Be At One and Popworld, is set to increase prices for its leased and tenanted pubs to get booze from May 2. The prices are likely to then be put onto customers, which could add as much as 25p onto the price of a pint. The weighted average duty inclusive selling price - a calculation determining the average cost of goods considering their weight and tax - will rise by 8.2 per cent for cider. Wine and spirits will also both be hiked by more than 6.5 per cent. Stonegate Group, who operate more than 4,500 sites across the country, blamed price rises on 'considerable economic uncertainty' as they said boozers continue to be 'disproportionately impacted' by energy and staff costs. They told pub trade outlet The Morning Advertiser: 'This increase reflects the significant inflationary pressures and ongoing challenges faced by our sector, as well as our ongoing commitment to partner with our publicans to enable them to continue to play a vital role in the communities they serve.' A spokesman for Stonegate added to MailOnline that they expected other chains to also be putting the price of beer up by at least 10-15p. He said: 'Our annual price review this year reflects the significant cost pressures and challenges faced by our sector over the last 12 months. 'We are absolutely committed to supporting our publicans, enabling them to continue to play the vital role in the communities they serve.' It comes despite the Chancellor cutting draught duty by a meagre 1.7 per cent in the October budget, with cash-strapped Brits branding it a 'f***ing joke'. Industry bosses accused Labour of 'betraying' businesses and rowing back on its election pledges - with new celebrity publican Jeremy Clarkson calling Keir Starmer's government 'hopeless'. In a scathing critique Mr Clarkson, who opened his £1million pub in the Cotswolds last year, wrote on X: 'Rachel Reeves. I literally daren't comment,' before adding. 'We have a new government. It's turning out to be hopeless.' And his former Top Gear co-host James May lamented: 'Cripes: a penny off a pint of beer. This is a small step to putting the 'great' back in to United Kingdom.' It comes just a month after Guinness manufacturers Diageo revealed the price of a pint of the black stuff would be hiked by 4.2 per cent from May 1. It will affect Guinness sold in a keg, microdraught and Guinness Surger - although 0.0 and Guiness Draght in a can will not be affected.
Straits Times
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
GE2025: PAP's Denise Phua defends relevance of mayors amid criticism of the role
PAP Jalan Besar candidates Shawn Loh. ;Josephine Teo, Denise Phua and Wan Rizal taking a wefie with Ms Tan Leng Hong, 60 during the Walkabout at Upper Boon Keng Market on April 27, 2025 . ST Photo : Desmond Wee. The Straits Times SINGAPORE - PAP candidate for Jalan Besar GRC Denise Phua said the roles of mayors and the Community Development Councils (CDCs) continue to be important as they serve regional roles that are separate from those of MPs or grassroot advisors. While most people know the CDC as the lead agency to come up with the CDC vouchers, the CDCs actually do a lot more than that, said Ms Phua, noting that many of the programmes are also led by the five mayors in charge of the five districts. 'We operate as a regional office that does not take over the role of the MP or the grassroot advisors, but really looking at the entire district so that CDCs and the mayors are able to aggregate the needs of the district, find some common areas,' she told reporters during a media doorstop interview at Upper Boon Keng Market and Food Centre on April 27. For example, in her district, the CDC runs more than 50 programmes to address the needs of residents. Ms Phua has served as the Mayor of Central Singapore District since 2014. She was responding to questions about the role of mayors, which was raised by opposition parties like the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and the People's Alliance for Reform (PAR). In rallies on April 26, both parties had called for the abolishing of such mayor positions should they be elected. Referring to the CDCs as an 'ideas bank', Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo, who is helming the PAP's Jalan Besar GRC team, said that many programmes in her constituency that are targeted at vulnerable families, mid-career workers and the youth have benefited from the support of the CDC. 'The profiles of our residents have changed from time to time, and when you have new resident groups moving in, it takes time to learn about their needs, understand their aspirations, and then design programmes that they will find useful,' she said. 'The CDCs have often stepped in to share best practices in other constituencies, so that shortens the learning curve, and allows us to learn from others what works, what does not work, and how we can actually innovate in a way that serves the residents,' added Mrs Teo. Fellow Jalan Besar candidates Dr Wan Rizal Wan Zakariah and Mr Shawn Loh also joined Mrs Teo and Ms Phua at the April 27 media doorstop. The incumbent PAP team will go head-to-head with the PAR in a battle for Jalan Besar GRC in the May 3 polls. Dr Wan Rizal also told the media that racial and religious harmony in Singapore has come a long way, and its related challenges cannot be taken lightly. PAP Jalan Besar candidate Wan Rizal said his approach had always been to serve both the Malay/Muslim community and the broader community. The Straits Times The Singapore government had, on April 25, moved to block Singapore users' access to several instances of online election advertising (OEA) posted on Facebook by foreigners. These posts were made by two Malaysian politicians and a former Internal Security Act (ISA) detainee who is now an Australian citizen, who criticised the Singapore government's handling of sensitive religious issues, and urged Singaporeans to vote along religious lines. They, along with a Singaporean self-styled religious teacher based in Malaysia known as Mr Noor Deros, had spotlighted several opposition politicians in social media posts, including incumbent Aljunied MP Faisal Manap, who is contesting Tampines GRC this year under the WP banner. When asked for his views on recent reports over attempted foreign interference in Singapore's general election, Dr Wan Rizal emphasised that the party 'outrightly rejects such interferences'. 'I think it's our responsibility, as good politicians, to make sure that this does not affect our politics here in Singapore. We truly believe that at the end of the day … Singaporeans must be our focus and attention as we go forward,' he said. As a former mosque leader for 10 years, Dr Wan Rizal also said that his approach has always been to serve both the Malay/Muslim community and the broader community. 'I think that is how we should view religion in Singapore, it is actually a way to uplift and help one another in Singapore, and we should see it in that context rather than just a very myopic way of just focusing on one community over the other,' he added. Building on that, Ms Phua said that the five-year Jalan Besar Masterplan that they hope to implement is a plan 'for all' , and includes both public and private residents. 'When we say we have plans for Jalan Besar GRC, we are looking at a Jalan Besar for all, regardless of age, abilities, home - whether in public or private estates - and backgrounds. We are excited about being given a chance to build an even more vibrant, sustainable town, and definitely a more caring community for all,' she said. Political newcomer Mr Loh also shared his experience on the ground, saying that 'every single handshake, every smile, every word of encouragement, every word of support' is important. 'I think it's a reflection of the good work that the team has done in the past, and it's a reflection of the good work that we will continue to do if we get elected into Parliament,' he said. Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.
