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  11       content="Most games are colonial, about conquering a harsh world. But some, very special ones are about leaving the world better than you found it."
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  43               <h3 class="blog-title">Breathing Life Back To Paradise</h3>
  44               <h3 class="datestamp">20/07/2025</h3>
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  48                 <a href="../img/entries/deathstranding2.jpg">
  49                   <img
  50                     class="blog-img-lrg"
  51                     src="../img/entries/deathstranding2.jpg"
  52                     alt="A screenshot of Death Stranding 2. Sam is sat on a road looking out over a foggy, valleyed horizon. His pick-up truck is parked next to him. The image could have been taken anywhere in the game's world, but for me, it was taken somewhere very, very special."
  53                   />
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  55                 <h3>This post has minor spoilers for Death Stranding 2.</h3>
  56                 <p>
  57                   The screenshot above looks pretty generic. Death Stranding 2
  58                   is a very beautiful game and its vistas are what make it. But
  59                   not all of them are particularly breathtaking, and I'll
  60                   happily admit the above image is one of them.
  61                 </p>
  62                 <p>
  63                   To me, though, it's very special. Because the spot in this
  64                   image is the very last road I needed to build to complete the
  65                   entire Australian highway. It's probably the greatest
  66                   achievement I've ever accomplished in a game. And it's
  67                   completely unremarked upon.
  68                 </p>
  69                 <p>
  70                   Completing the road network doesn't earn you a new tool, or a
  71                   playstation trophy. Hell, unlike opening all the monorails, it
  72                   doesn't even warrant a Social Strand Service post. I didn't
  73                   know this, before I set out on the endeavour to complete the
  74                   network. But it didn't matter if there was a reward - it was
  75                   <i>the right thing to do.</i>
  76                 </p>
  77                 <p>
  78                   Death Stranding 2 is a game all about
  79                   <i>the right thing to do.</i> It applies on the macro level,
  80                   of course; pummelling Higgs is
  81                   <i>the right thing to do.</i> But every order you take, every
  82                   action in the world, every ladder and anchor you place, is
  83                   <i>the right thing to do.</i>
  84                 </p>
  85                 <p>
  86                   Kojima called Death Stranding the first game in a new genre,
  87                   the 'strand-type' game and while that might be grandiose, I
  88                   don't think he's strictly wrong. No other genre is as focused
  89                   on encouraging collaboration both inside and outside the
  90                   fourth wall, and it is undeniably successful. The whole game
  91                   is a joy of discovering a bit of cargo is positioned awkwardly
  92                   on a high ledge, then spotting a ladder from xXCriminalNukeXx
  93                   right next to it. Of course you're gonna hit the like button.
  94                 </p>
  95                 <p>
  96                   And the roads are the zenith of that idea. Restoring a road
  97                   between two destinations is a huge, expensive, multi-step
  98                   effort. It requires everyone involved to be completely
  99                   invested in the game, to be making side-quest deliveries to
 100                   get access to more resources, to expand the network. But the
 101                   reward it offers is unlike anything else - that challenging,
 102                   rough terrain that you've battled over to get to the paver is
 103                   instantly nullified by a flat, powered road.
 104                 </p>
 105                 <p>
 106                   Finishing a road connection is instantly rewarding, yes, but
 107                   the game makes concerted efforts to reward it long-term, too.
 108                   You'll fairly regularly be asked to retrace your steps, to
 109                   make a delivery to a prior bunker. Without roads this is
 110                   challenging - albeit less challenging than the first time
 111                   through since the network will have other player's structures
 112                   populated in - but with a road, it feels like you're being
 113                   congratulated. "You have made this world better for everyone
 114                   who inhabits it. Take a victory lap."
 115                 </p>
 116                 <p>
 117                   I attached to the roads in the first game, and was rewarded
 118                   for it in a similar fashion - at the climax of DS, the chiral
 119                   network goes down, trashing all the structures you and others
 120                   have built. It's supposed to be one final test of what you've
 121                   learned. But if you built the roads, they remain and the
 122                   journey back to the start is trivial, that victory lap.
 123                 </p>
 124                 <p>
 125                   So I did the same in the second game, and it returned the
 126                   favour multiple times. But none of these events are a
 127                   traditional reward - it's purely generated from your own
 128                   knowledge of how much it would have sucked to backtrack
 129                   without it. It encourages you to <i>do the right thing.</i>
 130                 </p>
 131                 <p>
 132                   So I built out all the roads, continuing after the game ended,
 133                   when there was no chance of any backtracking missions. Because
 134                   building this infrastructure, for the people you meet, the
 135                   porters you have played alongside, and those who will come
 136                   after you, is <i>the right thing to do.</i>
 137                 </p>
 138                 <p>
 139                   You're probably thinking that's a bit pretentious. It's just a
 140                   video game, after all, and most of the characters in Death
 141                   Stranding are just holograms. But all of that artifice somehow
 142                   falls away, because you're making this world better, and
 143                   doesn't that feel good? Doesn't
 144                   <i>doing the right thing</i> feel good?
 145                 </p>
 146                 <p>
 147                   Of course it does. That's kind of the basis of most leftist
 148                   thinking, after all. The <i>right thing to do</i> may not be
 149                   the most optimal choice for you, personally - certainly
 150                   building every road was not optimal, the optimal choice would
 151                   be building roads just over the most tricky areas - but it
 152                   feels good to do it! It feels good to help others out!
 153                 </p>
 154                 <p>
 155                   There's only two strand-type games in existence, but another
 156                   2025 game actually comes... strangely close. It's a purely
 157                   single-player experience and it's called
 158                   <i>Promise Mascot Agency</i>, from the developers of
 159                   <i>Paradise Killer.</i>
 160                 </p>
 161                 <p>
 162                   The high-level concept is batshit. You're a disgraced yakuza
 163                   (voiced by the same VA who portrays Kiryu!) who must transform
 164                   a mismanaged love hotel into a successful 'mascot agency,'
 165                   that rent out giant mascots to events. Except the mascots are
 166                   sentient, not costumes. And also it's secretly a game about
 167                   leaving a run-down, corrupt and forgotten town much better
 168                   than you found it.
 169                 </p>
 170                 <p>
 171                   Every side quest is about restoring the town in some way.
 172                   Whether it's cleaning up shrines, smashing through trash bags,
 173                   or laying vengeful spirits to rest, everything you do makes
 174                   this town better. It's full of characters who you come to know
 175                   and understand as you do jobs for them. They lead full lives
 176                   in this little town, and want it to get better. And it rubs
 177                   off! You, the player, want to make this town better! You make
 178                   these connections, offering out the rope to help others climb.
 179                   It's magical.
 180                 </p>
 181                 <p>
 182                   Kaizen Gameworks' previous title was the venerable
 183                   <i>PARADISE KILLER,</i> a murder mystery that you
 184                   <i>actually have to solve.</i> The case you're solving is the
 185                   murder of the leaders of a cult, and you're also a member of
 186                   that cult. Which you'd think wouldn't give much room for
 187                   maneuveur on making that world better, especially since to
 188                   craft Paradise, the island it takes place on, thousands of
 189                   human proles must be sacrificed.
 190                 </p>
 191                 <p>
 192                   But even within that restrictive frame, you can make the world
 193                   a tiny bit better. Fix up vending machines. Venerate wrongly
 194                   accused subjects. Repair a marriage. Make out with a goat
 195                   woman. Admittedly, that last one is just good for me.
 196                 </p>
 197                 <p>
 198                   And I think that speaks to how Kaizen just <i>get it.</i> The
 199                   world we live in is dark, darker by the day, but we as people
 200                   need to fight to make it better, in even the smallest of ways.
 201                   And Promise Mascot Agency and Paradise Killer understand that.
 202                 </p>
 203                 <p>
 204                   As Death Stranding 2 goes on, you meet Tomorrow, a Mysterious
 205                   Kojima Woman who has the power to accelerate aging of things
 206                   she touches. When you first meet her, Fragile hands her an
 207                   apple, and it rots and crumbles in her hand. As you journey
 208                   across Australia she is taught many things about the world by
 209                   Rainy, another of your allies - another Mysterious Kojima
 210                   Woman who, whenever she steps outside, summons timefall rain,
 211                   which does much the same thing as Tomorrow's aging touch.
 212                 </p>
 213                 <p>
 214                   Every so often, when you re-enter your base, Tomorrow will be
 215                   there, with an apple. Each time, it's less aged. She's
 216                   learning to ripen them. By the end of the game, she can ripen
 217                   them perfectly, giving Sam a little snack. As you play you
 218                   discover that Rainy's ability has a wonderful side-effect -
 219                   wherever she emerges, wherever the DHV Magellan surfaces from
 220                   the tar, her rain falls, and new plants grow.
 221                 </p>
 222                 <p>
 223                   The crew are breathing life back into paradise, and we can do
 224                   it too. With small actions, we can make the world better. So
 225                   let's do it.
 226                 </p>
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