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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                 <h1>
  56                   this blog post isnt ready yet. if you found it, congrats, i
  57                   like you. we can make out.
  58                 </h1>
  59                 <p>
  60                   The screenshot above looks pretty generic. Death Stranding 2
  61                   is a very beautiful game and its vistas are what make it. But
  62                   not all of them are particularly breathtaking, and I'll
  63                   happily admit the above image is one of them.
  64                 </p>
  65                 <p>
  66                   To me, though, it's very special. Because the spot in this
  67                   image is the very last road I needed to build to complete the
  68                   entire Australian highway. It's probably the greatest
  69                   achievement I've ever accomplished in a game. And it's
  70                   completely unremarked upon.
  71                 </p>
  72                 <p>
  73                   Completing the road network doesn't earn you a new tool, or a
  74                   playstation trophy. Hell, unlike opening all the monorails, it
  75                   doesn't even warrant a Social Strand Service post. I didn't
  76                   know this, before I set out on the endeavour to complete the
  77                   network. But it didn't matter if there was a reward - it was
  78                   <i>the right thing to do.</i>
  79                 </p>
  80                 <p>
  81                   Death Stranding 2 is a game all about
  82                   <i>the right thing to do.</i> It applies on the macro level,
  83                   of course; pummelling Higgs is
  84                   <i>the right thing to do.</i> But every order you take, every
  85                   action in the world, every ladder and anchor you place, is
  86                   <i>the right thing to do.</i>
  87                 </p>
  88                 <p>
  89                   Kojima called Death Stranding the first game in a new genre,
  90                   the 'strand-type' game and while that might be grandiose, I
  91                   don't think he's strictly wrong. No other genre is as focused
  92                   on encouraging collaboration both inside and outside the
  93                   fourth wall, and it is undeniably successful. The whole game
  94                   is a joy of discovering a bit of cargo is positioned awkwardly
  95                   on a high ledge, then spotting a ladder from xXCriminalNukeXx
  96                   right next to it. Of course you're gonna hit the like button.
  97                 </p>
  98                 <p>
  99                   And the roads are the zenith of that idea. Restoring a road
 100                   between two destinations is a huge, expensive, multi-step
 101                   effort. It requires everyone involved to be completely
 102                   invested in the game, to be making side-quest deliveries to
 103                   get access to more resources, to expand the network. But the
 104                   reward it offers is unlike anything else - that challenging,
 105                   rough terrain that you've battled over to get to the paver is
 106                   instantly nullified by a flat, powered road.
 107                 </p>
 108                 <p>
 109                   Finishing a road connection is instantly rewarding, yes, but
 110                   the game makes concerted efforts to reward it long-term, too.
 111                   You'll fairly regularly be asked to retrace your steps, to
 112                   make a delivery to a prior bunker. Without roads this is
 113                   challenging - albeit less challenging than the first time
 114                   through since the network will have other player's structures
 115                   populated in - but with a road, it feels like you're being
 116                   congratulated. "You have made this world better for everyone
 117                   who inhabits it. Take a victory lap."
 118                 </p>
 119                 <p>
 120                   I attached to the roads in the first game, and was rewarded
 121                   for it in a similar fashion - at the climax of DS, the chiral
 122                   network goes down, trashing all the structures you and others
 123                   have built. It's supposed to be one final test of what you've
 124                   learned. But if you built the roads, they remain and the
 125                   journey back to the start is trivial, that victory lap.
 126                 </p>
 127                 <p>
 128                   So I did the same in the second game, and it returned the
 129                   favour multiple times. But none of these events are a
 130                   traditional reward - it's purely generated from your own
 131                   knowledge of how much it would have sucked to backtrack
 132                   without it. It encourages you to <i>do the right thing.</i>
 133                 </p>
 134                 <p>
 135                   So I built out all the roads, continuing after the game ended,
 136                   when there was no chance of any backtracking missions. Because
 137                   building this infrastructure, for the people you meet, the
 138                   porters you have played alongside, and those who will come
 139                   after you, is <i>the right thing to do.</i>
 140                 </p>
 141                 <p>
 142                   You're probably thinking that's a bit pretentious. It's just a
 143                   video game, after all, and most of the characters in Death
 144                   Stranding are just holograms. But all of that artifice somehow
 145                   falls away, because you're making this world better, and
 146                   doesn't that feel good? Doesn't
 147                   <i>doing the right thing</i> feel good?
 148                 </p>
 149                 <p>
 150                   Of course it does. That's kind of the basis of most leftist
 151                   thinking, after all. The <i>right thing to do</i> may not be
 152                   the most optimal choice for you, personally - certainly
 153                   building every road was not optimal, the optimal choice would
 154                   be building roads just over the most tricky areas - but it
 155                   feels good to do it! It feels good to help others out!
 156                 </p>
 157                 <p>
 158                   There's only two strand-type games in existence, but another
 159                   2025 game actually comes... strangely close. It's a purely
 160                   single-player experience and it's called
 161                   <i>Promise Mascot Agency</i>, from the developers of
 162                   <i>Paradise Killer.</i>
 163                 </p>
 164                 <p>
 165                   The high-level concept is batshit. You're a disgraced yakuza
 166                   who must transform a mismanaged love hotel into a successful
 167                   'mascot agency,' that rent out giant mascots to events. Except
 168                   the mascots are sentient, not costumes. And also it's secretly
 169                   a game about leaving a run-down, corrupt and forgotten town
 170                   much better than you found it.
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