Similar to my post taking about Elden Ring: Nightreign, I’m not super sure if I should consider this post a Discussion or a Review… I mainly wanted to use this post to talk about why I loved Death Stranding so much now that the sequel has a release date! One that is surprisingly close. So while this may not be a long post as I won’t go as in depth as I do with my actual reviews, I still wanted to talk about this strange, weird game and why I loved it!

I first played Death Stranding all the way back when it originally launched in November of 2019 but I didn’t actually fully finish the game until a couple weeks ago! And that is honestly more due to how I sometimes put a game down and struggle to pick it back up after starting something new, so no fault of Death Stranding itself! That being said, it is a very weird game that can be a struggle to get into. We saw a lot of people struggling like that back when it first launched.

Death Stranding, at its core, is really a game about building connections with other people and helping each other. And how that translates to game play is basically having you be a delivery person going around between people picking up orders that have you going back and forth, over and over again. A lot of people describe Death Stranding as a delivery simulator as a joke but they aren’t exactly wrong in saying that.

Now I’m not going to go into details, because this game’s story is crazy and would take ages to explain, but basically people aren’t able to go outside as freely anymore. They need to stay in bunkers and rely pretty heavily on people like the main character, Sam, to deliver things around. The cargo itself can vary drastically. It could be something small and fragile or extremely heavy and bulky! Depending on what you’re delivering you have to prepare in different ways. While only some orders are actually timed, you’ll still want to complete orders pretty quickly so that you can get to even more orders! This results in one of the other big aspects of the game, making different kinds of structures and tools to aid you in your deliveries. While the tools are pretty basic, like ladders and ropes and other such things, the structures you can make vary pretty heavily! You can make something simple like a post box or a shelter to hide from the rain, all the way to zip lines, bridges, and even roads! And I’m not even mentioning that you can make different vehicles, carts to help you carry more, and weapons to defend yourself.

Of course, these things always come at the cost of materials. Each place you can deliver to and take deliveries from has some materials for you to help you craft things. Depending on the structure or tool, the material cost will vary. Most of the time you’ll probably always have enough to make what you want to build without thinking about it. However, if you’re going to make something like a bridge or a road? That’s going to take a lot! You can get more materials by completely more deliveries, further encouraging you to keep repeating deliveries even though the list of deliveries you need to do is honestly pretty short.

So! To sum things up, the basic game play loop of Death Stranding is making deliveries, taking materials back and forth, and having to make changes depending on what kind of cargo you’re carrying. Like if you have an especially big order, or take on multiple orders at a time, it’s good to have a car or some carts to help with that heavy load! You’ll be crafting different structures and tools to help make these deliveries easier, especially repeat deliveries! Just think about how fast a delivery will be when you don’t need to hike over a mountain and can instead drive a car on a road to where you need to go.

You can probably understand now why people joke about this game being a delivery man simulator. It also probably sounds really repetitive too. And that’s because it is! But it’s also still so much fun… And one of the biggest reasons why has to do with the community!

Like I said before, the main theme of Death Stranding is coming together and building connections with others and how you do that in game isn’t simply by making deliveries back and forth between people. Despite being a single player game, Death Stranding does have online functionality. This comes in the form of other players’ structures appearing in your world! The game puts this front and center too. On your very first mission, the game will generate some rope and other tools to help you. While these things aren’t actually from another player, the game does this to show you how the system works basically. It’ll start simple. You’ll be walking around and probably notice a few different structures you didn’t build like a rainfall shelter or a battery charger along with things like ladders and what not. You’ll know these things were left by the community as well since the game will actually tell you who left them! On PlayStation, which is the platform I played on, the game will tell you the player’s PlayStation Network name. It’ll also show you their Death Stranding profile too if you care enough to look!

While a lot of the times the tools and such people leave behind are just there from when they personally used them, it’s very clear that a lot of structures were made with the intent of helping other players. Like when someone goes out of there way to get enough materials to build a bridge over a pretty annoying gap for instance. Or when people make a string of zip lines in order to give people a clear path! And this right here is honestly what I loved the most about Death Stranding. This sense of people helping each other and going out of their way to do so!

I honestly can’t even count the number of times I was thankful for someone else’s help… From a car being left out for someone else to use, to a bridge making it way easier to cross over a gap, to even just a well placed ladder helping me get up a mountain a little faster. It’s seriously amazing how Death Stranding makes you feel like you’re a part of a team without you ever needing to actually see another player. I should also note that there isn’t really an incentive to make these things and help out your fellow players. All other players can do to give back is give a like or few when using your structure. And while likes can help you raise your over all Porter Level that doesn’t really do much for you in the grand scheme of things. That’s not to say that getting a like doesn’t feel amazing in it’s own way but it’s not like getting one gives you more materials or more health or anything like that. Meaning helping the community is really all it’s about. And that’s just amazing!

To put it in a bit more perspective, Death Stranding isn’t that long of a game. It’s certainly not a short one but my play time clocked in at about sometime over 100 hours and that is way more than is required to just finish the game! I’d say if you just focused on completely the story required orders, you could probably finish the game in like 20 or 30 hours. Which obviously begs the question of what I was doing with all those extra hours. Beyond just doing side deliveries, repeating said deliveries, and leveling up my relationship with all the people you deliver to, one of the most time consuming things I did was making structures for others to use. And easily the most time consuming of those structures had to be the literal high way I helped make.

In Death Stranding there are two major areas you’re going to be running around in. The first area is much smaller than the second and basically serves as more of a tutorial spot to help you learn the ropes of deliveries. The second area is much larger and where you’ll be spending most of your time. In this area, there are auto builders that can build a high way if given enough materials. And you need a lot of materials… Like I said before, materials come from the bunkers you deliver to that house the people who are making these orders for you. And they only have so many materials to spare. The only way to help them get more materials is to level up your relationship with them and by completing more deliveries as well. So with that in mind, it was pretty tough getting enough materials together in order to make all these roads! Because you don’t just make the high way with one single auto builder, you have to make each section of it until they all eventually connect! The process was long and time consuming… I spent so much time dragging materials to those auto builders and completely delivers to get more materials and all the while basically ignoring the main quest. In the end though, after so many hours, I made that high way. The whole thing! And it felt… Amazing!

I’ve always been someone who enjoys helping others in games, but never have I felt so good to help other players! Seeing those likes fly in, knowing I was helping thousands of different players drive around and make deliveries is something that is hard to describe. It made me feel like I was honestly a part of something bigger despite Death Stranding being a kind of lonely game. Like sure, you are always traveling with BB, the baby on your chest that helps you navigate around BTs, and there are plenty of other side characters, but for the most part you’ll be traveling in silence. Despite that, I never felt alone in the game. Not when I could see so many other players’ creations helping me get from point A to B! Even if it was just a rope to help me climb down a little safer.

Without a doubt, this sense of togetherness really was my favorite part of Death Stranding. Which is saying a lot since the rest of the game is amazing too! It has a crazy story very fitting for Hideo Kojima, lots of fun characters that are insanely well acted, an amazing soundtrack, and the game still looks beautiful despite being released in 2019. While the game is very much not for everyone, you need to be really into the main game play loop and not mind some wonky shooting and driving controls, I still think it’s a game everyone should at least try! Death Stranding is such a weird and unique experience which is why it’s so hard to recommend but I do hope this post got some people interested in trying it out, especially with the sequel on the way.

Regardless, that’s why I love Death Stranding so much! I’m really looking forward to the sequel and getting to feel that sense of community again, and hopefully more people will jump in with it and understand why it’s such a fun and unique experience too.

But those are just my thoughts! What are some of yours? Have you ever played Death Stranding? After reading this post, are you thinking about checking it out before the sequel? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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