I step out, and the desert stretches before me. Sand and rocks, undulating, going and going, eventually turning into grassy hills, rivers, more deserts, and far off, way in the distance, snowy mountains looming on the horizon. But I don't focus on that, I just pay attention to what's ahead of me. Take it slow down this hill, walk around these rocks, force myself through this river, one laborious footstep after another.

I keep going. Nothing else to do, just need to keep moving forward. Moving toward my goal, just me, the BB on my front, the packages piled high on my back (digging into my shoulders), and the world around me.

So I keep going.

I've played a lot of Death Stranding. I mean, a lot. Over 100 hours of it. I know I could have beaten the game is less than half that, but there is something about it that compels me to keep going, keep making deliveries, forging new paths, seeing new sights, discovering new things. To keep walking until I have nowhere else to go. Part of that is the design of the game itself, it's incredibly easy to think, "just one more delivery," and then go, "but I might as well take all this stuff too, it's right on the way," and spend another hour with the game.

But it's not just that. This game compels me in a way only a handful of other games really have over the years. I've long found something fascinating about empty spaces in games. About games that are willing to put me in giant open spaces with basically nothing to do in them. Except move through them. Spaces that exist unto themselves, rather than as just filler between the game's "real content," or set dressing for said content.

For years I've thought about writing why it is that these compel me so, but I never really got around to it. I had the perfect opportunity when I played the remake of Shadow of the Colossus (an all time favorite of mine), but instead that just got relegated to a quick paragraph between two newer games I played at the time. The last time a game evoked similar feelings in me was Breath of the Wild, which had so much other stuff going on that it wasn't just that sort of thing.

Death Stranding is the next best opportunity to write about this, and I'm not letting it go to waste this time. It's not as dedicated to that concept as Shadow of the Colossus was, there are camps of human enemies to sneak around/fight, swathes of ghostly BTs to sneak around/fight, and lost packages to find along the way. That stuff is all fine, and I do quite appreciate the creepiness of the BTs (perhaps a leftover idea from Silent Hills?), even if they lose their bite as the game can't help but unlock access to bigger and bigger weapons. But this game at its purest, and arguably at its best, is when it's about a lone person, trudging through the world, just trying to get from point A to point B.

At least mostly alone, as the Strands that bind players tighten, and more traces of them connect us together. A lost package here or there becomes a new bridge, a well placed generator, a shelter from the time advancing rain, a Zipline just out of reach, or a vehicle placed in front of a Prepper's house in just the wrong way to make me wonder if they did it to annoy others, or just out of carelessness. The vast majority of the time it's helpful stuff, and I can't really blame people for trying to be funny with it. A strategically placed, "No peeing" sign is harmless fun, after all. And it's all a reminder that I'm not really alone, that we're all in this together, as these barren lands become fuller and fuller, and the path from point A to B becomes easier and easier.

As much as I do genuinely love the feeling of lonely camaraderie the game creates, as much as it is a genuine relief to find a bridge right where I need it when I'm rushing to deliver a pizza and bottle of extremely fragile wine, this game was compelling to me from the word go. I'd seen so many people saying that the opening hours are a slog, that it really takes a lot of time for the game to get "fun." Even Kojima himself said it, but I was having fun right from the start.

This game makes me think, really think about the spaces around me in ways that I sincerely think no other game ever has (which may be on me for not playing the right sorts of games). I don't think I've ever played a game where a steep slope was as much of a challenge, but specifically, a surmountable challenge as in Death Stranding. I don't just mean going up, I mean going down. Going up places is challenging in a great many games, countless platformers are just about that challenge. But how many games are there where you need to be just as mindful going down? Not jumping down, but just walking down a steep incline?

Run down a hill with your back loaded up with cargo, especially if it's too top heavy, and you'll probably lose balance and fall. Move too fast over a pile of rocks, and the same will happen. Push yourself too far too fast in a river, and you'll be swept away. It sounds punishing when I just say it outright like this, but it's what compelled me to keep playing this game for so long. Compelled me to keep going when the story didn't, at least not until very far in.

I told myself I wasn't going to write about the story, and originally I just had a single sentence here saying I wasn't sure how I felt about the story. Well, I had to go and ruin it for myself by thinking about it until I wrote a whole other blog about it, which you can find here. Read that one at your own risk, it's full of spoilers and also a mess. Not unlike the game's story.

Death Stranding makes me think about moving through spaces more like real life than any other game I've played. It's not exact, I could never have the stamina of Sam Porter Bridges, the fortitude to lug so much around, the strength to pull myself up so many ropes, or even just the will to keep going in such a desolate world. That need to really think about my every step drove me forward, it made the simple act of walking engaging like no other game I'd played. Even Shadow of the Colossus, still the reigning champ in Big Desolate Games, is a game with very little thought needed for any movement, other than ascending and navigating the Colossi (which is a huge part of the game, I know, but none of that factors into navigating the world itself).

I reach the top of the hill, as much as it felt more like a small mountain than a hill, and realize I just need to go back down again. I probably could have gone around the whole thing, but I had to see what was up here. The view is nice, and I take a moment to sit, drink some Monster® Energy Drink, and just collect my thoughts. But before too long the rain starts again, so I get up, and go down. Not the way I came, on the other side, still moving forward. Step by step, gripping my backpack tight, weaving around the rocks, taking it slow. The last thing I need is to slip on some mud and careen down, losing all my cargo, and making the BB cry. No one wants to make their BB cry.

It's really hard to convey in text exactly how this game makes me feel. I thought about just writing a short story, as you could see, but even there I kinda fudge some of the details. There's tons of videos out there of people messing up comically. Falling down mountains, ladders not supporting the weight of vehicles, cargo just falling off when someone walked under an overhang. Tripping and all their cargo falls off a bridge while they stay on, and it all just...floats...away... I had a few mishaps, a bad descent off a Zipline, misjudging how much damage a truck would take when I drove off a cliff, or thinking I could out drive BTs when not on a paved road. But none of them funny enough to warrant being put in a video. Especially when it just ends with the BB crying.

Most of my time spent with the game was just moving through the world. Walking from point A to B, making paths, or taking other people's paths. Setting up a generator or post box where I think people might need them, or taking breaks where other people had. Spending hours lugging materials to and fro so I could repave the roads, and make travel easier for us all. Trucking back and forth, cruising along the highway, it felt like progress. Every upgrade to my gear, or Sam's stats, every little change to the world I, or another player made, it was real, tangible progress to connecting every little corner together. It felt like I, and the other people playing the game, had really come together, as indirect as it was, and started rebuilding the country. Tomorrow is in our hands, and we did our best to get it in as good a shape as we could for the next generation.

Even if a part of me, any time the stuff got a bit easier, started to miss the trudging. Missed having to be really, really careful walking down steep slopes, because my exoskeleton helped me keep my balance, and my better boots kept their grip so much more. Missed needing to plan out a journey every step of the way, instead of just loading up as much cargo as I could carry, and taking a path of Ziplines directly between locations. Missed preparing for a long journey that just became a short drive.

I missed the idyllic, desolate beauty of the land. The paved roads made travel to and fro so, so much easier. An hour long trek up and around arduous terrain, weaving around enemy camps and BT zones, became a few minutes of driving. Just cruising past human enemies, or BTs without a care in the world (aside from one time when the "BTs are near so you lose control of your truck" animation left me with one wheel dangling off the edge of a highway, almost toppling off to an explosion-y death below). But the more progress we all made, the more the world changed. Even just footpaths, the same paths that sincerely make it easier to walk through the world, they cut across the landscapes, filling beautiful grasslands with tracts of lifeless dirt. The highways snake up and around, with insidious looking tendrils hanging below any time they go upward, over rivers, ravines, etc. They look cool, but in an evil sort of way, that again, detracts from the natural beauty of a world trying to wash away the remnants of what once was.

But that's progress, I guess.

Even so, progress still feels good. Helping others does too. But those moments in Death Stranding of forging a path into a new area, where it really is just me, the BB, and the world, are my favorites. Where the simple act of moving through a space is a challenge, and knowing I found my way through is enough of a reward on its own. This is what's going to stick with me for years to come. When I think back on Death Stranding, I'll remember the joy, the simple pleasure of walking, of making my way through the world, and wishing I had another game that made me feel that way again.

Because the world in the game has changed. I'm happy to have helped everyone I did along the way (my four hundred thousand plus Likes are a testament to that), and grateful for everyone who helped me, whether they realized it or not. But in the end, I did it for the journey, not the destination.

Thank you for reading.