If you take Kojima games at surface value, then yeah, nothing makes sense and he seems insane. Even the most die-hard fans will admit the plot of the Metal Gear games was incomprehensible batshit. If you look at his games the same way you would an art film that is obsessed with understanding why the modern world feels so inhuman, they start making a lot more sense.
He's basically showing us what impressionism / magical realism looks like dressed up as a AAA video game. He focuses on themes and emotion rather than then who/what/why of the story. His games are subversive as fuck; Death Stranding is a game about how the modern world has isolated us from other people, and the only way out of that grey and black world is by reconnecting with individuals. By doing so, you can literally carry more weight -- the "weight" you have to carry around and balance is literally a stand-in for emotional weight. The more people you connect to, the more you can withstand. Every funky random mechanic that seems random in his games is a metaphor for something.
Death Stranding does nothing for me as a game, but yeah, the metaphors are not subtle. Itβs odd that so many folks in the games space had trouble picking up on the references and metaphors because they hit you in the head with a brick about them for hours on end.
I often say that Kojima takes metaphors to the extreme; either he makes something super abstract, or so intensely direct calling it "metaphor" is a stretch.
There's a line of dialogue in Death Stranding that exemplifies this and wouldn't exactly be spoiler-ish, but I'll err on the side of not including it just in case.
Yeah, Metal Gear wasn't exactly subtle either. I think whether you pick up on the metaphors is a sort of confirmation bias based on your previous exposure to the theme he's addressing.
He's basically showing us what impressionism / magical realism looks like dressed up as a AAA video game. He focuses on themes and emotion rather than then who/what/why of the story. His games are subversive as fuck; Death Stranding is a game about how the modern world has isolated us from other people, and the only way out of that grey and black world is by reconnecting with individuals. By doing so, you can literally carry more weight -- the "weight" you have to carry around and balance is literally a stand-in for emotional weight. The more people you connect to, the more you can withstand. Every funky random mechanic that seems random in his games is a metaphor for something.