PS5: Thanks to a patent, Death Stranding could serve as a model for more exclusives

Death Stranding had a special gameplay element that Sony has now patented.

Death Stranding may not have convinced everyone of its story or gameplay, but it’s definitely a game that tried something new. A gameplay element that has broken new ground is the asynchronous cooperation of players in order to jointly build better infrastructures in the world of the game.

This is exactly the system Sony has now secured with a patent. So it could be a glimpse into the future and let us see even more of the “beach gameplay”.

More PS5 games could in part be like Death Stranding

The Patent applied for in July 2019 and now approved is called “Terrain radar and gradual building of a route in a virtual environment of a video game”. Behind this is the technology, how video games determine where in the world a path can be gradually built. In addition, the whole thing should be seamlessly created jointly by several players via asynchrony in the game world. This means that the players do not have to meet in-game and do not have to work on a path at the same time. The inventor behind the patent is Hideo Kojima, the director of Death Stranding.

This is how it was implemented in Death Stranding: To understand the very abstract concept, we need to take a closer look at Death Stranding. There were points there where players could spend resources, for example to build a piece of a motorway.

As the game progressed, this was expanded again and again, even if you didn’t do anything more yourself. That was because the resources were collected from several players together. If enough resources were collected, it could be completed in the game by everyone involved.

EThis trailer gives you an insight into the gameplay of Death Stranding:

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Death Stranding Director’s Cut – The PS5 version gets a final trailer

What is so important about the patent for other games? With Sony securing the whole concept behind the “beach gameplay”, we could soon see even more PS5 exclusives that are either partially or completely based on the principle of the divided world. Even if we continue to follow the story in the single player, new elements are unlocked if other players have simultaneously invested resources in the expansion of a motorway, for example.

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It is not yet known how Sony will actually use the patent in the end. But it definitely indicates a direction the publisher has already taken with Death Stranding. But it could also simply be that Sony bunkers the technology behind it for itself so that no similar games can come onto the market.

Would you like to see more games with the co-op approach from Death Stranding?