Death Stranding 2 Asks Less Of Its Players, But Requires More From Its Community

“Come on now, if we all pull together, we can lift up the weight of the world from your shoulders.”

This is a line from the song “Glorious You” by one of my favorite musical artists, Frank Turner, and it’s a lyric that constantly comes to mind as I play Death Stranding 2: On The Beach.

For those who haven’t played either of the games, you are, regardless, likely already familiar with the series’ core concept: You play as a porter who delivers packages between outposts in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Ahead of the first entry’s launch in 2019, game director Hideo Kojima stated that Death Stranding was to kickstart a new “Strand” genre. “By incorporating the concept of connection(strand), it’s [a] totally brand-new genre called action game/strand game(social strand system),” tweeted Kojima earlier that summer.

What that nonsense translates to in terms of gameplay is actually something quite unique. In order to help quickly and safely deliver all of your packages, you can fabricate a variety of tools and infrastructure: something as simple as a climbing anchor to swiftly rappel down the side of a cliff face, or something as extravagant as a long stretch of road between two outposts.

As you advance through the world and story, your constructs begin to seep into other players’ experiences, aiding them as they progress through their own games. At the same time, the structures others build transform your world, too. You might approach a perilous edge and a climbing anchor is already there, having been placed by another player in their own game world. You could bring a slew of resources to a road-constructing terminal, only to find that you don’t need as many supplies as you thought you did because other players have already contributed a nice chunk of the required materials.

Not only does this save you a ton of time and help you get a leg up on your deliveries, but it incentivizes you into also paying into the system, knowing that when, for example, you place a zipline to rapidly descend down a mountain, that very same zipline will likely appear in another player’s game, ready for them to use.

The first game already expanded the tools and infrastructure on offer with the release of its Director’s Cut, which meant, of course, that Death Stranding 2 needed to develop those systems even further. However, this has resulted in numerous players feeling that the sequel is lacking a lot of the “friction” that made Death Stranding what it is. Some feel that, whereas the first game had a nice balance of systems in place to help you along the way, Death Stranding 2 literally paves over its cracks with too many apparatuses that overtly streamline the process of making deliveries.

I don’t disagree with this analysis. In Death Stranding, I absolutely was transporting–more often than not by foot–far fewer packages and materials, and had fewer options for helpful tools and infrastructure. In On The Beach, I’ve pretty much just driven around in my truck that not only can store a lot more stuff than my backpack can carry, but also protects said stuff from the environmental hazards and Timefall, the name for rain and snow in the game that rapidly degrades whatever it touches. And yes, that truck is battery powered, leading to some tension if I’m unable to locate a charging station while out and about. But fortunately, I’m usually never too far from a charging pole someone else has constructed.

The game tries to add some friction back into the experience with heightened dangers. You are more frequently asked to face off against enemies who now also have more tools and infrastructure of their own to confront you with, and the environment itself has become deadlier, with natural disasters like flooding and landslides. However, it still feels as if the additions to and changes from the first game greatly favor the player in the second.

But as the saying goes: more money, more problems. Just substitute chiral chrystals for dollar bills.

In the original Death Stranding, every task seemed monumental, especially as the game progressed and deliveries started to require you to transport a package within a limited time frame or without crossing over a certain damage threshold. The “strand” aspect of the game, in which you help other players and in turn they help you, became far less of a priority. When I placed a ladder down somewhere, it was because I needed a ladder there–and if that helped someone else out, great. I’d contribute to the creation of certain roads because I needed the last leg of my journey to go as smoothly as possible. If my actions helped complete a larger section of highway, fantastic, but that wasn’t my objective.

In On The Beach, however, because I have so much potential to move more materials with greater ease, I’m finding myself compelled to complete the game’s highway and monorail systems for the sake of completing them. I’m finding myself more strategically deciding where to place a shelter in the wild that provides the most optimal point in the region to take a breather not only for myself and to mitigate any immediate “friction,” but for every other player who might have that shelter pop into their game.

All of this was seemingly on the mind of the developers at Kojima Productions during production of the game, as Death Stranding 2 has an entirely new branch of side missions known as Aid Requests. While these include the familiar side cargo deliveries and pickup requests of the first game, they also include asks such as building a specific kind of infrastructure or placing a certain kind of tool in a particular location. The game doesn’t just want you to do deliveries; it wants you to fix the world. And in this there’s a new kind of friction to be found–one that takes the micro decision making of the first game and blows it up to a macro scale.

“I know you’ve been working, as hard as you can. To preempt the question, the expectation, and I understand.”

This overarching mission further incentivizes you to make additional deliveries, as doing so improves your standing with the various recipients, who will in turn allow you to take greater amounts of materials from their supplies. The game’s new mining facilities and monorail tracks, which allow you to fabricate a large amount of materials and then deliver them via rail, also contribute this new goal, as they give you the ability to multitask and more quickly generate the means to help others.

But these stakes and transporting larger quantities of deliveries and materials come with inherent dangers too, as you are placing all your proverbial eggs in one basket. The terrain featured in the game feels even more dynamic than that of the first, requiring you to smartly navigate its, at points, treacherous paths. I have, on more than one occasion, been so reckless while trying to get somewhere quickly that my truck sustained enough bumps to severely damage my cargo, or in some cases, completely destroy it.

And when I do lose those materials, the sting is even greater, because now, I’ve not only let myself down, but myriad other players as well. It’s a feeling that resonates even harder thanks to the times we live in, where the institutions meant to help and protect us are either weaponized against us or being stripped for parts. It’s clear to me that the only path to a brighter future is one forged by individuals coming together to protect their loved ones and having empathy for complete strangers who are just trying to do the same. Death Stranding 2 brings that mission front and center, and when I fail it, I can’t help but be reminded of what happens if we fail in the same way in our own lives where, to me, failure is not an option.

“So don’t you worry. All things must end. There are sunlit uplands around the riverbend.”

While I agree that there might be less asked of the player in each individual delivery, I personally appreciate how the game has expanded on the foundation of the first Death Stranding. It pushes its various systems in appropriate directions that feel like a natural progression, placing additional emphasis and importance on its collaborative gameplay. I imagine that expansion felt like an expectation to the game’s development team, but I wonder if they expected that direction to stir up such feelings. Given Kojima’s track record of prescience regarding societal progression and understanding of the human condition, striking that chord of emotion was likely also a natural side effect of this destined gameplay evolution. In the narrative, even more responsibility to save the world is placed on the shoulders of its protagonist, which is then mirrored in the literal placement of even more objects on Sam’s back. But Death Stranding 2 makes it clear that if we all pull together, that weight can be lifted.