The Summer of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.

I step out, but hesitate while still under the distribution center's overhang, keeping me safe from the downpour just a few feet away. Take a moment to breathe in, gripping Lou's pod for reassurance, while Dollman looks up and gives me a comforting smile. Or at least I think it's a smile, it's hard to tell sometimes, but I'm happy he's here either way.

I look back forward, the sheet of rain a threshold to the world beyond. Each drop a bullet, taking years off whatever it touches, but I have a job to do. So I get moving, Timefall pounding my jacket's hood as I trudge onward. Turning around, because the delivery is the opposite direction from the center's exit. The journey isn't that far, so I'm intentionally traveling light. My companions aside, all I have are the bare minimum to make this delivery. Not far up the mountain, but over a few ridges, across some snowy fields, it certainly doesn't look like a tough journey from the map.

One step at a time, I keep moving. It's already cool out, but the higher I get, the colder it gets. The icy rain smashing down slowly replaced with flakes, gently floating down...but still just as dangerous. Despite being clad from head to toe, none of it is particularly warm, and my old boots are clearly giving way. Feel like their soles are wearing thin with every step, and the biting cold chewing through to my toes. The wet snow seeping down through my socks. Hands and fingers not fairing much better, no matter what I do. Every step crunching through the thick snow, every foot further in the freezing cold, just wears me out. Pull out my flask again and again, giving me the little extra oomph I need, even as I feel it getting lighter and lighter...

It's enough to keep me going, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, yet...

It's not enough, it's never enough. It's freezing. A deep cold clawing down to my core, no matter what I do. So I keep moving forward. What else can I do? What am I good for if I let a little snow, a little cold stop me from making a simple delivery? What else am I good for? My feet may be freezing, but the exoskeleton keeps my legs moving at a decent clip through the snow, leaving a trail behind that quickly fills back in as the snow only gets worse. Need to stay focused, stay moving forward, or I'll get lost in the blizzard. The path I take isn't winding, but the air is so thick I still need to keep scanning just to see a few feet ahead.

Battered, frozen, and all but exhausted, I see a few dots of light breaking through, and then the storm clears. I made it. I finally made it! Feeling relieved, fists pumping in triumph as I approach the terminal. Knowing that once this place connects to the Chiral Network, I can go pass out in the Magellan after it surfaces from the Tar nearby.

But...

When I step under the cover to this shelter, and talk through the static... I realize...

I'm talking to the son of who the delivery is for, and he's not allowed to let me connect this place to the network. His dad, “The Adventurer,” is out on one of his adventures, but hasn't checked in for a while. He went somewhere, further up the mountain, and the son asks if I can go look for him...

What other choice do I have?

What else am I good for?

By now it's dark out. So I sit down and rest, leaning back against the wall. Just beyond the door lies a safe haven, but it's locked. I don't blame him for not letting me in, but... A few feet in the other direction, it's below freezing, wind whipping snow to and fro. At least here there's some semblance of shelter. Close my eyes, gripping Lou close, just hoping I open my them again in the morning. I don't know how much time passes, but I wake, and with my stamina as “recovered” as it can be, I force myself up. Gird myself as I see the first rays of light peeking out over the peaks beyond, and set off again, with at least a few extra supplies to help.

Further up the mountain, just one foot in front of the other...

Doing what I do best.

Because what else am I good for?

By the time all was said and done, my shoes were completely destroyed, and I had to finish the journey in my much less sturdy stealth boots. Toes and fingers literally blackened with frostbite (which I genuinely cringed when I saw), shoulders raw from the straps digging in under the weight of an adult man, and so exhausted I could pass out at any moment. Thankfully, now we connect, one more Strand binding the network together, the Magellan pops up, and I go rest.

Six years ago when I wrote about Death Stranding, I opened with a similar bit, just more generalized, and much shorter. And to be honest, I took a few liberties with this one, to help better convey the vibe. DS1 was an experience that I really liked, but ultimately not one that left me with too many stories like this to tell. It was a game where it was very easy to fall into the habit of over-preparing for everything, and as a result never finding myself in need, or having to improvise much. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is, to be honest, much the same in that you absolutely can over-prepare, and many times I did. At a certain point I decided to start under-preparing, in the hopes it would lead to more interesting experiences. I should also note, that after thinking the first game was a bit too easy, I played DS2 from start to finish on its hardest setting, “Brutal.”

It is not difficult to guess this was not too long before my trek across the mountains to The Adventurer, and it was also in fact, the most Brutal part of the game, at least in the main story. The thing is, at this point in DS2 I'm not sure if there was too much I could have done for this specific trek to ease that burden. Bringing a totally fresh pair of a better type of shoe would have helped, but it's not like I ended in just socks, haha. Trucks are, on the whole, kind of this game's easy mode (and even on hard a lot of it is a little easy), but those have limitations too. At least at first. The steepest inclines will leaves trucks spinning their wheels in futility, but the upgraded tires had me feeling like this was the closest thing to the Mako that I've driven since Mass Effect 1. The anti-gravity packs even make its jumps feel a little Mako-y too!

Anyway, I'm not sure if an un-upgraded truck would have trivialized this journey, but I know they had trivialized my time in the desert. That has the opposite cause (the heat), but the same effect (constant stamina drain). Except I just drove a truck in and over those sand dunes right from the get go. Yes, I often had to snake my way up and around the steepest ones, but these are dunes, not mountains. They're not that tall.

Trucks or not, it's not until Sam Porter Bridges gets access to the heated thermal pads (that attach to his suit) that the freezing cold of the mountains is overcome. And the game doesn't unlock these as a part of the story! I had to keep doing sub-orders (side quests) by rescuing The Adventurer to unlock them. But the irony is despite the deep relief I felt when I finally got them, is that in making the mountains no longer feel so dangerous, traversing them became a lot less interesting. Especially so once I got the upgraded truck tires, now driving up and down, to and fro across the snowy peaks became routine.

What was once a harrowing, life-threatening story now became routine. Just another job.

It's remarkable, how in reading over what I wrote in 2019, I have almost exactly the same thoughts about the game part of DS2. How well it bridges that gap between feeling isolated, yet connected to so many other players across the world. How much I love the natural beauty of the world, DS2 in particular may be the most realistic looking game I've ever played. DS1 looked nice, but wasn't necessarily one of the best looking games of its time. DS2, on the other hand, really is astounding to look at. The micro details on all the scanned likenesses, the subtle animations, all the realism poured into every little rock along the way. But also how it all comes together, the vistas are genuinely breathtaking.

Both in terms of the realism, but also the aesthetic. There are moments, looking out into the distance, taking in all the rolling landscapes, the way the light, the fog, everything just comes together naturally...where it really genuinely starts to look real. And there's something about the quiet, almost haunting beauty of these landscapes that transcends “real” to give this game a look that I just can't get out of my head.

Much like the America of DS1, the Mexico and Australia of DS2 are not exact replicas of their real world counterparts, though I'd say a much better effort (and more resources) were put into making them actually resemble what they're based on. I said at the time that DS1's America felt primordial, almost alien, but here Mexico and Australia look and feel like Mexico and Australia. Well, aside from the giant mountain range in Australia, that's completely fictional, haha. I went and looked this up just to be sure, and while I don't necessarily trust dot gov websites like I used to, according to NASA it's the world's “flattest” continent. And also extremely dry, but that'd be too easy without Timefall. Maybe the whole game should have been set in Mexico if it needed the mountain range so badly.

One thing that really shocked me when I first saw it, was wildlife. DS1 was a game so barren (I mean that mostly positively) that aside from the occasional NPC porter, and MULEs, the only living things you ever saw were the Cryptobiotes. Weird little squishy bug critters that Sam could eat to restore blood. Now, in addition to new flavors of biotes, and weird Chiral critters, there's actual, living breathing animals! Wombats, koalas, echidnas, lyre birds, of course the iconic kangaroo, and more. I had to stop and confirm what I saw the first time, go and take a closer look. I love critters in general, and really appreciate the details that games put into them, but I was not expecting them here in the slightest. Good to see that even in a broken, time warped world like this, animals can still find ways to survive.

But they're not here just to breathe a little more life into the world, because there's wildlife conservation! At the behest of the members of CHVRCHES, any wild (non-Chiral) critter can be caught, and brought to the wildlife sanctuary to live in a happy, safe environment where they can frolic with other animal friends. Of course a tranquilizer dart can aid in capturing some of the more ornery animals, but many don't even bother running from Sam. Almost like they exist in a world without people, and haven't learned to fear them.

Of course, kangaroos and emus aren't exactly small, so their XXL size “packages” once they're captured take up a lot of space. A good thing to keep in mind when capturing, so you don't wind up needing to carry several other things by hand as you trudge your way to your destination. Luckily a lesson I learned very close to the sanctuary, so it wasn't too bad. Also thankfully, the animals do not needed to be ported all the way back to the sanctuary, any Drawbridge terminal at any location will do. Other porters will handle it the rest of the way.

The game is beautiful, yet just like in its predecessor, that beauty is kind of ruined the more we connect. More structures built along the way, more roads snaking along the continent, now with bonus monorails! I'm sure in a series so thick with layer after layer of meaning, and metaphor, that this is one hundred percent intentional. I can't help but feel a little pang of guilt even as I compulsively rebuild every last road across the continent, dark strands of tar dripping down beneath...

DS2 features a lot of new things, some of which I'm sure were first introduced in the first game's Director's Cut (which I did not play), but the most significant of which are entirely new. Now there are mines which use Chiral Crystals to dig up the basic resources needed for the various fabrication and refurbishment projects across Australia. Generally speaking, these mines are connected to the main distribution centers via...monorails! Yes, I sang the word in my head just like on The Simpsons many, many times across the two hundred plus hours I spent with the game.

I remember rebuilding all of the roads across DS1's America, which thus drove me to feel the need to rebuild all of them in DS2, along with all the monorails... A task that I have, finally completed. After connecting the last monorail line, I received a message through the Social Strand Service (SSS, or S3 (Plan), if you will) celebrating this... No such message was received after rebuilding the last road, however. I was left quite perplexed by this, thinking maybe I would need to fully upgrade every road with the Timefall resistant shields, but still no message. Then, I realized on one of the stats screens, there's little icons for completing certain sets of things, and I had them for the roads. Phew.

Thing is, even when I finish my task, I'm still left wanting more... Infrastructure is a cruel mistress. The worst part is, now that I've done it twice, if/when we get a Death Stranding 3, I'll have to do it a third time...

I don't quite remember how I got all those resources in the first game, other than requisitioning them from distribution centers, but the mines make that a much more structured, and reliable task. Take the monorail up to the mine (or just fast travel if someone has built a Beach Jump Transponder nearby), and let the power of rail lines do the hard work of getting the resources closer to where they're needed. Or more often, closer to the nearest spot with the Magellan, which I use to fast travel the materials as needed. Often, through the wonders of Strand technology, some other player elsewhere has already mined, and there's a big stack waiting for me. Even with contributions from other players adding up to the roads and monorails, across the whole of Australia, it takes a lot to rebuild everything, so every little bit adds up, and helps.

And that, right there, is the magic of this game. What DS2 is trying to say, at least from a game design perspective, is that the real, big changes we can't achieve on our own, but when we come together, we can overcome just about anything. Trekking across Australia, lugging all this cargo on my own would be all but impossible. Not even Sam, the Man Who Delivers could do it all without help. But whether it's a bridge across a river, a well placed Timefall shelter to wait out the rain, and mend my cargo, a vehicle on the side of the road that I can use for the last leg of my journey, or even some discarded gear, it all helps.

When our Strands Connect, just about anything is possible.

The number of times I felt a sigh of relief when I came across exactly what I need, right when I needed it, I truly couldn't count. Sometimes it was even stuff that I had built previously, and it just happened to be where I needed it hours and hours later! Like a safe house I built on a whim, in a spot that felt pretty out of the way. It later turned out to be right near where a side quest ended, and it was quite useful! But much more often, it was something that someone else, somewhere in the real world built that saved my behind right when I needed it. In the back half of the game, the Timefall becomes absolutely brutal (at least on “Brutal,” haha), so finding a shelter was always a relief.

There's enough different ways to contribute that we can all help in our own ways. Even just donating items or resources to the shared lockers across the game can help someone out right when they need it the most. I know it saved me more than a few times, and I feel good knowing my contributions helped other people along their journeys.

For me, my biggest contributions were activating Infrastructure Week to fix these roads/monorails, and building so many Timefall Shelters on the mountains that I ended up hitting the limit for what I could build! At least until I made more connections, and increased the bandwidth again. It was funny to read what I wrote in 2019, and see I got a little over four hundred thousand likes, while here in DS2...as of this writing I'm over 3.1 million. And still rising! 2.4 million of those from other porters (players) too! I don't know how the game determines what stuff gets sent where, or who gets credit (shared or otherwise) for rebuilding roads/monorails/mines, but it definitely felt like it accelerated the higher my likes got. And as interesting as it would be to know the game's logic, that would probably end up ruining the magic.

Like the first game, the likes from other players serve no practical purpose, but that's what makes them fun. I'm not gaming the system for a resource, I'm doing it to both help myself along the way, but to help others as well. The game keeps track of how many other players you've impacted, and last I checked I was over 5500. I'm sure that's small compared to some people, but it feels big to me. Knowing however little, however small, that I helped other players along their journeys is something that not many games can say. That's also well over a thousand more than when I first drafted this write-up, and who knows how many more I'll connect with after I get the Platinum and stop playing.

In addition to the Timefall rain and snow, DS2 adds other natural phenomena to shake things up. Literally in the case of the quakes. There's sandstorms, rivers can flood, and bush fires! Sadly, none of these ever feel as impactful as they should. Quakes can make Sam lose his footing if he's not careful, and will damage structures. Sandstorms, logically, only appear in specific (desert) areas, and so far as I can tell all they do is reduce visibility. They feel tense in the moment, with lightning strikes, at least. Flooded rivers are harder to traverse, and will damage anything caught in their wake, but they're not impassable. And the fires, well, the first time one happens in the story it's a really great sequence, but then outside of another couple times in the story, it's really only one spot in the game that can catch on fire. And “catch on fire” isn't accurate, as it feels more like it's perpetually smoldering.

Also the fires start because burning porpoises fall out of the sky?

Anyway, the most impactful phenomenon in the game is that sometimes (especially later on) the rain comes as a torrential downpour, thus making the Timefall significantly stronger. Made me have to hustle to keep my cargo from falling apart! It would have been fun if these other phenomena had been more impactful, and I also wish there were more positive things in the environment. Like caves or trees with particularly thick canopies to wait out the rain under. Or what if there was a drought, which meant no Timefall to deal with, but now water became scarce? I wish rain could turn dirt into mud, or that snow would genuinely accumulate and grow thicker, then later melt. Tornadoes, or big windstorms could be fun? Who can say, maybe these are ideas on a whiteboard for DS3 as I type this.

DS1 made me think about traversal in ways that no other game had. Most games let you barrel over and through just about any obstacle in your way, but here was a game that made you take almost every step with care. Too top heavy and Sam might trip over a rock. Run downhill too fast and and he'll fall ass over teakettle, BB screaming all the way while the cargo tumbles down. DS2 definitely feels the same, but...

I'm not sure how much of this is that the game is actually easier, or how much is that having played the first game extensively, I already knew the ins and outs going into DS2, but even early on, this felt like an easier game. Like I did not need to be as careful moving through the world as I remembered from the first game. I've seen other people say the sequel is easier, so it's not just me. The difficulty does affect stamina drain, but so far as I know it doesn't change anything about Sam's ability to keep upright, so it's entirely possible they really made him a little sturdier, and steadier. I know there's a stat for it in the menus that levels up the more rough terrain he crosses, so there's that.

Of course, it's absolutely still possible to fall ass over teakettle, BB screaming all the way as your cargo spills over the place. And there's ample upgrades, both in the form of Sam's innate skills improving the more you use them, and better gear. Boots, exoskeletons, gloves, headgear, and even backpack attachments can all improve Sam in one way or another.

The exoskeletons are vital, the Bokka (named after the Bokka porters of Japan, who served as the inspiration for the game part of Death Stranding) helping Sam carry comically heavy loads, and walk through snow, tar, and water with relative ease. The Booster, on the other hand, lets Sam sprint at great speeds, and leap long distances, which I found absolutely vital when fighting humans and Ghost Mechs (more on that later). There is also a combat focused exoskeleton (the first one), but I don't think I ever used it after unlocking Booster. The speed was just so much more helpful, and fun during fights than having a light shield.

As far as the backpack goes, I used the anti-gravity add-ons a lot early on, but eventually weened off them when I realized with the exoskeletons, I wasn't even coming close to my weight limits (volume/height is by far the limiting factor). Extra batteries, more ammo for weapons, and grenade pouches seemed more useful to me. Better to use a slot on the backpack than have to lug whole other guns on Sam's back into a firefight. The more traversal focused ones I never used, I figured if the little boosters on Sam's back can keep him upright, at that point am I even playing Death Stranding any more? Is it even Death Stranding if I don't have to be at least a little careful when going downhill?

But it's good and fun to have that stuff for the people who do want it. More options to customize each player's experience to their liking are almost always a great thing. Speaking of, now Sam has a skill tree, in the form of APAS enhancements, which can be turned on and off any time, so long as he's on the Chiral Network (they still function outside the network, you just can't adjust them). These range from increasing the...range of the Odradek (still a great name (thanks Kafka)) scanner, to energy bindings on Sam's cargo to prevent spillage (though it needs to recharge after use), to more time to like people's things, to “highly accurate but not infallible” weather reports. They're neat! Some I deliberately didn't use (like the auto-aid request), but for the most part I think this was a neat system, well worth investing into.

So, while I can't say DS2 is like nothing else I've ever played, something I said about the first one, I can still say there's nothing else outside this series that does it quite the same. Or, at least not that I've played, and certainly not with the production values afforded by being published by PlayStation Studios.

Here's the thing, the Strand type gameplay, the traversal, the deliveries, all that stuff was great in 2019, and it's still great here. Some of the novelty has worn off for sure, but it's still every bit as compelling, if not more so in some ways. DS1, however, was mediocre at best when it came to the combat, and struggled at best with the story. My hope with DS2 was they would abandon combat altogether, and make it a true simulation of walking, but instead they went the other route, going to great lengths to improve it, rather than give up entirely.

And, I'll be honest, I now think this was the right choice. Fairly early on, still in Mexico (the prologue area), while darting around an enemy camp, leaving my backpack in a patch of tall grass for greater agility, but also limiting my options, taking potshots at enemies from around cover, I had the strangest sensation...I was...having fun? Now, I don't know how many people at current Kojima Productions were at the previous Kojima Productions, but if there is any significant overlap, it really shouldn't surprise me that people who worked on MGSV could once again make good combat.

Yet, I was surprised! Both the combat and stealth, while not reaching the same pinnacle as the finest of Tactical Espionage, are so much better and more fun here. My memory of the first game was basically only using the bola gun and “Bind with Strand” during stealth, and “Parry with Strand” when the MULEs discovered me. That's probably not entirely accurate, but I genuinely don't remember what else that game had in terms of weapons. Probably guns? I didn't write about the combat at all in the first game, other than using a rocket launcher against the bigh BT bosses.

DS2 makes a big deal out of how most guns now use MP (multi-purpose) bullets, and are thus effective against all enemies, be they living, dead, or anything in between. I do still scratch my head at this, as Kojima's idea of what rubber bullets are is, “regular bullets except they knock people out.” Based on my understanding, that's not what real “rubber bullets” are (large metal shells with a rubber coating and they do a tremendous amount of damage to a human body even if they don't pierce through like a regular bullet).

I really start to question what the point of going so far out of your way to make sure players don't want to kill enemies (given corpses can lead to catastrophic Voidouts), but then also make the way you fight them indistinguishable from shooting enemies in most other games. The thing that really baffles me about the MP rounds is trying to think about how they work. They have to have some sort of synthetic blood component to work against BTs, and pack a considerable punch to damage the largely mechanical Ghost Mechs... Yet they only knock humans out? Here's the thing that really gets me: There's a secret code (that the game hints at via a post on the SSS) to turn off the safety, and make the bullets lethal. But...how??? Why does flipping a switch on the gun make the bullets kill?? I know at a point you need to suspend disbelief and just go along with it because “it's a video game,” but this one is just so odd to me.

That said, it's still entirely viable to forgo the MP guns and use other means to defeat, or bypass most enemies. The bola still knocks out any human enemy with a headshot, and there's an upgraded version that will knock them out with a hit anywhere on the body, plus it at least does some damage to mechs. They slow down BTs too, but I usually found myself sticking to blood based weapons for them. There's a ranged stun gun, and tranq pistol/rifle that will take out any human with a single headshot, so long as they're not wearing a helmet. The fully upgraded tranq rifle, complete with a suppressor and shrunk down to an S-sized piece of cargo, was so powerful early on that I had to force myself to stop using it. Just made it too easy.

Of course as the game goes on (at least on Brutal), eventually so many enemies are wearing helmets that it no longer trivializes the stealth. Plus other enemies will wake them up, which they can't if they're knocked out through other means, or kicked after being tranqed (I dunno, it's video game logic!). Other items certainly do though, the electric traps are ridiculous, especially if they're knocking out enemies in a spot that makes other enemies come to investigate, and they get knocked out too. The stun bombs at least require a little bit of skill with a good grenade throw.

My favorites though, were the holo-grenades. Stealth, Decoy, and BT, though I didn't end up using the BT one much. Stealth creates a big holographic rock that Sam can hide behind, or even in. It's a bit silly to think that the enemies wouldn't be suspicious of this big rock that didn't used to be there in their own camps, where they live, but it's fun. And since it's a hologram, they don't provide real cover for Sam, but that also means you can shoot through them. The first time I got a tranq headshot on an enemy right on the other side of the “rock,” that was a real fun moment!

Decoys work like the name suggests, they create a decoy. Either of Sam, or a cute little quokka, I think depending on how aware the enemies are of Sam. I swear when it's the quokka sometimes enemies will try to pet it, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it's a decoy, it works like you expect, and smart use can keep the enemies away from Sam, or lure them into a trap. And finally the BT grenades look like a BT, which makes the enemies panic, thus allowing Sam to either sneak by unnoticed, or knock them out.

Also I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Sam can throw Dollman into the air, and see through his eyes to scope out and mark enemies from a high distance. He just floats up there. Also sometimes the screen flashes black when Dollman blinks. Only Kojima Productions would implement this in a big budget game, haha. I just appreciate that rather than doing this with a drone like in a Clancy game, or a bird like in Assassin's Creed, it's a stop motion doll. Based on the likeness of some director Kojima likes.

In addition to Sam's arsenal being expanded and generally more fun to use, the enemies are a lot more interesting to fight. Now, as funny as the MULEs (people so addicted to the high of delivering that they steal cargo) are, they weren't really fun to fight. DS2, however, replaces them with post apocalyptic bandit type enemies. They still live in little camps, but now they're hostile on sight, as opposed to just being after cargo. They also get way more interesting tools to use against Sam as the game goes on, like their own exoskeletons, or holograms to obfuscate what enemies are real, or illusory.

There's also robotic “Ghost Mech” enemies, which mostly fight similarly to humans. They're generally tougher, and more aggressive, but not all of them take what I would call humanoid forms. Most importantly, they look cool. Not surprising given the art direction is great across the board (due in no small part to Yoji Shinkawa still working with Kojima after all these years), but still good to acknowledge good work when I see it. I'd say the biggest difference between fighting humans and Ghost Mechs is that since they're not living people, they can't be “killed,” so there's no reason to hold back and not use rocket launchers against them. And for the toughest ones, good luck if you're trying to fight without the heavy ordinance!

Even the BTs end up more fun to fight, once Sam is properly outfitted. Now he has a blood boomerang so he always has a BT effective ranged attack, at least so long as he has blood (preferably in a bag). The grenades are still the better option, but stealthily cutting the umbilical chord is usually the best, at least for normal BTs. Now there's new, larger BTs that can see, and I don't think they have umbilical chords to cut, so that changes things up. There's also one new addition to the BT combat that is just so silly, so ludicrous that I don't dare spoil it for anyone. I was flabbergasted when I unlocked it, and all I can say is that the people at Kojima Productions are unhinged in the best possible way.

Again, I cannot emphasize enough that while the first game left me wishing the sequel would forgo combat/stealth altogether, I found both a lot of fun here. It's still by far the lesser focus of the game compared to delivering, but it's no longer something that I do just because I have to. The actual objectives around dealing with enemies aren't very varied (take them out, recover cargo, disable a Chiral Jammer), but it never outstays its welcome. Plus, the inventory management aspect of the game makes it feel different from anything else out there, even Metal Gear.

Rather than completely limit your gear, here it's treated like any other cargo. Every weapon is a physical object that has weight, and takes up physical space. There's some getting around this, the grenade pouches hold stacks of five grenades (and the upgraded ones hold three five-stacks), but the weapons take up space. The more space, the heavier the load on Sam, and the higher the cargo goes on his back. Yes, DS2 has tall grass like every other open world game with stealth, but what good is it going to do when the cargo is poking up over the grass? How's he going to fare in a fight if the load is so heavy he can't run? What about when the objective is recovering cargo? Gonna make it even harder on yourself by going in with an already full backpack?

These make it more interesting, and are why things like being able to take off the backpack are fun. You don't have to just manage Sam, you need to keep the physicality of all the cargo, and his weapons in mind too! I don't particularly like inventory limits in most games, but here? This is what it's all about! Like anything else, being properly prepared and careful can alleviate a lot of it. A cargo carrier stashed away behind a rock, with only the essentials on Sam can save a lot of headaches, or heartaches when the fragile item in Sam's backpack gets ruined because they shot it while I was running back to cover.

The last thing about the combat I'll say, is that Sam can learn secret “acrobatic karate” techniques. No, I will not elaborate any further. You will not believe me even if I did. They are extremely funny, and very powerful. The (last) last thing I will say is there's a great pun associated with them too, and there's an incredible cutscene with the guy who teaches them to Sam. It's like Kojima went and put a Jackie Chan style comedy martial arts fight in the middle of this game, but decided to hide it in a side quest. Amazing.

So, the delivering is still great, the combat is good now, but what about the story? I know that how each person feels about any given story is as subjective as they get. But, as someone who thought DS1 had some interesting ideas buried underneath a lot of (bad) nonsense, I think DS2's story is much, much better. If I do decide to spend more time on the nitty gritty spoilery specifics, it will be in its own post, so I'll stick to broader stuff here.

By focusing on the characters, and making it much more personal, it ends up infinitely more compelling. Now, to be fair, the first game was probably trying to be personal, by making President Bridget Strand Sam's mom, and President Samantha America “Amelie” Strand his sister...but that story wasn't good. It was as much nonsense as it sounds just from typing out that one sentence. Plus it had that infamous monologue where Amelie just goes on...and on...and on for what feels like forever.

DS2, by contrast, is a game about losing the thing that matters most, and still finding a way, struggle though it is, to keep on keeping on. It's...I'm going to have to write more about it at length, I can't say much without spoiling. But just suffice it to say, I really enjoyed DS2's narrative, and would go so far as to call it pretty good. It not only kept my interest throughout, but actually motivated me to want to see it all the way through to the end. As opposed to just morbid curiosity about whatever nonsense would happen next.

I will also say, I did not particularly like the character of Sam Porter Bridges, or Norman Reedus' performance in that first game. Too gruff, too dry, too lacking in any sort of actual character, he had the personality of what may as well have been an almost silent protagonist in a create a character game. Okay, maybe that's a little hyperbolic, but given the game design themes, the gender neutral name, and how little characterization he had, it just left me wishing instead of a lovingly rendered Reedus we had a character creator.

Anyway, fast forward to DS2, while he's still far from the greatest of video game protagonists, I've come around on Sam, and Norman's performance as him. The more focused, personal story gives Sam more character, and Norman more to work with, so I came to like, and empathize with him. There is a point, very late in the game where Sam has a realization about something, which leaves him emotionally devastated, and it hit me pretty hard too.

The rest of the cast is still solid, I just wish some of the other characters, especially the new ones, had been given more screen time to flesh them out more. Tomorrow (Elle Fanning) in particular I would have liked to have more time in the game's spotlight, and specifically with Sam. There's also one character from DS1 who technically has some sort of appearance in 2, but is really more of a cameo than anything else. I wish they had a larger role like in the first game, but such is life. Maybe if we get Death Stranding 3?

When the release date was announced, and it being days after the start of summer, I started joking around. Saying it was going to be, “The Summer of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.” At the time, knowing it was likely going to be a long game, probably longer than the hundred hours I spent with the first one...yet having no clue how close to accurate it ended up being! No, not actually the whole summer, that goes until the end of September. Still, two months, during the heart and heat of summer, I'd say I ended up being right.

But the thing is, yes the game has a lot in it, but it doesn't need to be a two hundred plus hour epic. Plenty of people finished it faster, and plenty even got the Platinum a lot quicker. The point I'm trying to make isn't about the game's length, it's that the game compelled me to play it slowly. To stop and smell the roses. Yes, I did plenty of trucking, what else was I going to do after rebuilding the roads? But I spent more time, much more time walking. Trudging up and down snowy mountains, strolling along calm fields, taking it step by step along rocky ledges.

It goes back to what I wrote in 2019. There is something about the spaces between in games that really compels me. Tears of the Kingdom, Shadow of the Colossus, even Mass Effect 1 (Mako sections), so many of my favorite games have spaces like these. Not always done as well, or with as much intent as the others (considering how Mass Effect moved away from it, I dunno that they appreciated the barren, desolation as much as I did), but regardless of the intent, it compelled me. And while I wouldn't go so far as to say Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is quite on the same level of these other games, it definitely evokes those same feelings. (I'll need to sit and think on how DS2 ranks amongst the greats in my mind...)

And other feelings, because of the Strandness of it. It is remarkable to travel through barren wildness, then watch it transform after connecting to the network. See structures pop up, roads rebuild, and paths form the more people travel them. Trucking cargo back and forth along these lonely roads doesn't feel the same as slowly walking around rocks, but there's still something compelling about it. It's calming, and relaxing. Areas that once intimidated now become familiar. Routes I had to plan out step by step, I now know by heart, and can almost follow with my eyes closed. They might not always be the fastest, or most efficient routes, but they're the ones I like. There's something fun about the physicality of moving items from one place to another, no matter what path you take. Even riding the monorails gives me a chance to relax, and watch the scenery roll by.

But it's also kinda lonely and sad, just in a way that I like. Even if Sam does have a companion or two for the bulk of the game, he still feels like he's alone, and that's...relatable.

I don't know that I've ever really figured out why it is that these empty spaces speak so deeply to me. Maybe that's it, it reflects something deep inside me, something sad, and probably depressing, but something real. And renders it in a way that, through however many layers of abstraction, speaks true to me.

I think as I was writing this I had a profound realization about not just this game's themes, but also myself, and it gave me an even greater appreciation for it than I had.

Thank you for reading. Hopefully I can do a more spoiler focused deep dive into the game's story and (some of its) themes in the not too distant future, so look out for that if you've finished DS2's story!

Outside of that, I have a large backlog of games, and there's new stuff on the horizon I want to play too, so hopefully I can write a little more frequently than I have been? I've been focusing almost entirely on DS2 for months, so this is what I've had to write about. I know I hate going silent for so long, but sometimes that's just how it goes. I have plans! I have things I want to say about games both old and new, so I'll be back!

Thanks again for reading, and keep on keeping on. <3