At scattered moments during your journeys across the rocks and rivers of Death Stranding, your player character Sam Porter Bridges will mutter little encouragements to himself, or simply scattered half-thoughts. “Sam, Sam, he’s our man,” a slogan uttered with an edge of bitterness, as he was essentially manipulated into this job of carrying endless packages of cargo across a broken America. Sometimes it’s more straightforward motivational exercises, like “one foot in front of the other,” or at one point, “I’ve scaled higher mountains than this.” And sometimes it’s a rare acknowledgment that he actually finds joy in this work – checking in with the companion strapped across his chest, or staring out across a forbidding yet beautiful wasteland and remarking “I always liked the quiet.”

These moments of incidental, unnecessary, entirely overlookable characterization and humor are the essence of Death Stranding, a game which also includes characters with names like “Die-Hardman” and “Amelie America Bridges.” The camp excess of Death Stranding’s overt narrative is charming in its own way, and even Kojima’s tendency to write in four lines what could be conveyed in four words eventually won me over. But what truly spoke to me in Death Stranding was the space in between – those vast, inhospitable wastelands, and the act of putting one foot in front of the other, again and again, until the work is done.

2019 has been a hard year for most people, I assume. On a global level, the unsustainable trajectory of unfettered capitalism is resulting in widespread tragedy on a number of fronts, from the devastating effects global warming is already having across the globe, to the resulting wave of nationalism and authoritarianism prompted by desperate, accelerating immigration. Many of our most ostensibly forward-thinking nations are currently led by cretinous, authoritarian strongmen, and our response to the approaching climate apocalypse has been utterly neutered by the interests of global capital. On a more personal front, the burning down of Kyoto Animation felt like a knife in my chest, and severely muted my hopes for the future of anime. And in August, my father passed away, and I’ve been living in the shadow of his absence ever since.

I’m certainly not the only one feeling the intense pressure of this seemingly hopeless era. Stories that once spoke of rebelling against an oppressive order and triumphing over it, now often seem to instead accept that society will always be terrible, that our end is undoubtedly approaching, and that the best we can do is hope to make peace with the end of the world. I related heavily to last year’s Girls’ Last Tour, a show all about “getting along with the hopelessness,” and the current proliferation of “transported to another world” isekai anime seems to speak to an audience that sees no hope of a better future in our own world. Mass media is being increasingly directed through Disney’s nostalgia faucet, one more way of hoping for a different world – but at the same time, we also get works like Death Stranding, which embody this moment fully, and yet still maintain a glimmer of hope.

Death Stranding is not a generally uplifting game – at times, it’s not even really “fun.” There are few of the immediate, punchy effort-to-reward loops that work to keep players’ interest over long stretches of gameplay, and you very rarely feel actually powerful. In fact, Sam feels perhaps more vulnerable than any player avatar I’ve controlled; there are buttons simply for using your arms to stabilize your cargo more securely, and basic obstacles like a rushing stream or a rocky hill can at times feel like impassable barriers. Tools for surpassing these obstacles include such powerful instruments as “a ladder” and “a rope” – you eventually gain tools to better master your environment, but it’s a long road to that point.

In terms of art design as well, Death Stranding is not intended to be an uplifting experience. Beautiful, yes – atmospheric, of course. But Death Stranding’s gorgeously realized world is not intended to evoke the buoyant thrill of a coming adventure; it is a cold, wet, inhospitable place, full of dangers both incidental and actively malevolent, and crossing it will take a long, long time. Traversing the hills and valleys of Death Stranding took my breath away again and again, but it is a cold beauty this game possesses – austere, humbling, and sometimes overwhelmingly isolating.

But of course, Sam always liked the quiet. He himself is perhaps the only quiet member of the cast, better able to appreciate the silent beauty of this world, better able to echo the player’s own feelings of quiet struggle, quiet triumph. Sam doesn’t cheer or smile when he delivers a package; he places the heavy burdens on their intended shelf with a heavy grunt, and re-shoulders his payload with a long sigh. One foot in front of the other. Step by stop, rock over rock, he continues to trudge forward.

Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid franchise was largely centered on the existential, world-shaping threat of martial superpowers, as well as the danger of believing too much in a dream like America. They were games that reflected a world suffering under America’s status as the sole superpower, the scars left by our interference across the globe, and the cycles of violence prompted by the age of colonialism’s shift into our modern military-industrial complex. Metal Gear Solid V’s antagonist saw all our colonial superpowers as equally culpable, and intended to release a vaccine he felt would kill the corruption entirely: a virus that spread through language, paying back all of the crimes the english-speaking world had inflicted on their neighbors.

In 2019, the United States is a crumbling empire, stretched thin by pointless wars, and held captive by an oligarchical few who’ve conditioned an anti-intellectual many into betraying their own class interests. The actual reality of America is a country that can no longer triumph based solely on its 20th century positional advantage, and which is increasingly seen as a joke or active liability within the international community. At this point, the dream of America might be the only America that exists – and from a focus on condemning America for its uncountable sins outright, Kojima has changed as well. On the apocalyptic edge of 2019, Kojima created a game that desperately wants to believe a good America can exist – a fervent, impossibly idealistic plea for connection.

Death Stranding contains more than its share of shocking twists and betrayals, but the game’s entire ethos, and all of its greatest narrative rewards, involve connecting with others, bringing hope to those who’ve learned only distrust, and embracing the fact that we are stronger together. Death Stranding doesn’t necessarily make you feel “powerful,” but it does make you feel useful, and at times desperately needed. There are few enemies to triumph over but the rocks in your path; and at the end of that path, you might just find the old man who was so cold before has warmed up a little, and acknowledges just how far you’ve come to help him survive.

The pieces Death Stranding pulls from other recent gaming triumphs all support that human connection thesis. “Collaboration” in Death Stranding comes in a form similar to Dark Souls’ messages – you don’t see other players, but you can see their words of encouragement, and even the structures they’ve built to forge easier paths. Those structures contribute to a collective and more overtly challenge-based version of Minecraft’s appeal, as thousands of disconnected porters all add bridges and ladders to the collective whole, mastering a world that fights back even through its prematurely aging rain. And the ultimate effect results in a world that echoes Breath of the Wild’s simply joy of exploration, where completing preassigned challenges is less of a motivation than simply pursuing the goals you assign for yourself. All of these pieces contribute to a gameplay experience that feels uniquely modern in its approach to open worlds, while inherently supporting the game’s “goddamnit we gotta stick together” thesis.

Most of Death Stranding’s best moments of “storytelling” take place out in the world, conveyed incidentally, through the ongoing course of your experience. In Death Stranding, people who die swiftly reanimate as “BTs,” dangerous spirits trapped between this world and the next – and thus your first official mission is to carry your own mother’s corpse, out of the city and up into the mountains, where it can safely be disposed of at the incinerator. As you begin your journey, you realize in moments just how cumbersome a corpse can be, and then look forward, suddenly cognizant of the true scale of your task.

Stepping over rocks and stones, you shudder under the body’s weight, as one of the game’s many incidental songs rises to compliment your strange mourning process. Not all of your package deliveries are so heavy, but they all possess a similar tonal majesty – fatigue, resignation, determination, triumph, and solace. No other game will make you feel so thankful someone else left a simple ladder behind; no other game can make you feel so proud for having climbed a mountain, or fulfilled by the long journey back down.

In the post-apocalypse Kojima presents, both the promise and failings of our modern connected world are laid bare. Sam’s task is to connect a wide variety of cities, distribution centers, scientists, and apocalyptic preppers, all secure in individual bunkers, all divided by the vast tracts of inhospitable land between them. Sam is working to connect them all to the “chiral network,” a relatively conservative scifi invention whose promise is basically “what if the internet existed. What if we could all connect instantly, regardless of distance. Wouldn’t that be grand?” The game begs us to understand the power of the gift we possess, while simultaneously acknowledging how many people will abuse that power. The chiral network that is humanity’s force of connection is also their source of destruction, and for those who simply want to be agents of chaos, it is always easy to abuse the kindness of strangers.

But still, Sam puts one foot in front of the other. Honest, endless labor, with little hope of reward but the smile of a grateful package recipient. The player is rewarded for their efforts in “Likes,” which can contribute to growing recipient trust, but mostly don’t mean anything unless you want them to mean something. Of course, these Likes do mean something – your interactions and support of actual humans are cataloged in the same currency, meaning the Likes really do convey a sense of your positive impact on not just your own world, but the collective courier community. Having traversed all these horrible ravines and ghost-haunted gulleys, logging on and being notified that someone else was able to use your bridge instead is an oddly gratifying feeling.

Every play experience of Death Stranding works to foster that oddly gratifying feeling – the feeling not of triumphing over an obstacle for your own sake, but of making things a little easier for the next person. There are few feelings more heartening than struggling to the end of a difficult area, only to find someone before you has left a generator and a shelter, all the tools to keep yourself safe. I will almost certainly never meet this person, but they saved me all the same. That is the potential of modern connectivity – not the limitless, anonymous, hip-fired cruelty we often see, but random acts of collective, communal kindness.

This is likely what Kojima meant when he described his “Strand Gameplay,” what he claimed would be a new type of gameplay altogether. This gameplay is not about proving your supremacy – it is about contributing to a greater whole, and making the route behind you easier than the route ahead. The fact that Death Stranding’s gameplay is so untethered from traditional systems of conflict and victory is the strongest expression of its core themes, and the feelings it so desperately wants to impress upon the player. Don’t prove your supremacy – demonstrate your vulnerability. Don’t destroy – rebuild, reconnect, and rejoice in our greater collective identity.

It’s not easy. It’s not necessarily satisfying. And there’s no real hope of reward. But Sam does it, and does it, and does it again. He’s not a very personable kind of guy; in fact, he’d mostly rather be left alone. But sometimes, the view is beautiful. Sometimes you trip, and it’s so funny and so stupid that you have to laugh. Sometimes a recipient who only scowled before has softened their approach, or might even admit they’re glad to see you. Sometimes the route you struggled through last time feels a little easier this time, because someone else left a rope and a ladder. Sometimes you’ll get a notification that five people used your generator, and know five players had a slightly easier, gentler time because you existed.

One foot in front of the other, across rivers and over mountains, against a rain that continuously decays all we hope to rebuild. Those are the stakes, unvarnished by assumed glory, unadorned by false promises. We might not make it – hell, we probably won’t make it. The world might still end in flames, and our small acts of charity and kindness cannot single-handedly dismantle a failing world order. But the paths we trace, as we let those feet fall one after the other, impress a route that is slightly more gentle, slightly more sure for each footstep that follows. Apocalypse or not, we still have our connections. We still have each other.

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