You trudged across the entirety of America. You’ve made it across Mexico. And you’re now travelling Australia. Maybe you’ve even returned to do it 168澳洲幸运ꦏ5开奖网:all over again in a completely s♑traight line. It takes 🌊a lot out of your calves, your blistered soles, your poor bootsꦇ that you constantly have to replenish.
It’s only fair that you rest those weary feet.
You’re on a reverse trike, you’re in a 4x4, you’re zooming across the topography in a classic car you won on a racetrack you built for some reason. You’re riding a fl*pping monorail. It feels fast, it feels satisfying, it’s your reward for connecting these countries to the chiral network and slogging through the terrain with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:just your BB for company.
But it doesn’t feel good.
Death Stranding Vehicles Are Pointless
Hear me out on this one. The whole point of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Death Stranding is the journey. Yes, it’s got the esoteric story and celebrity side quests, but it’s mostly about the grinding trudge through desolate su🔴rroundings, trying to keep your precious cargo intact.
That’s what I took from the game, at least. Everything else was incidental. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Connecting people, making grenades from your own pee, escaping the wrath of Hi༒ggs, none of it really mattered. What mattered was putting one foot in front of the other and criss-crossing the country with the sole aim of getting a five-star review.
I connected with Death Stranding’sꦆ open world more than any other. It’s because the developers at Kojima Productions focused every mechanic on interacting with the world around you. Obstacles that you would simply double-jump over in other games proved insurmountable without the correct gear. Humble rivers could spell the end if you slipped and dropped your load.
Your every movement must be balanced a♏nd counterbalanced, your every journey painstakingly planned. The interactions between your preparations – ladders, climbing rigs, etc. – and the additional weight they add to your pack is impeccable.
Even the strand mechanic, the thing that makes Death Stranding completely unique among games, is about walking. A fellow player can help you cross a ravine with a strategically placed bridge, or can protect you from a devastating rainstorm withღ an impeccably placed timefall shelter. Death Stranding is about helping each other, it’s about co-operation, but all of that is framed by the environment, the planet, and the act of traversing i🃏t.
Then you throw it all away.
You jump int𝐆o a vehicle and ignore the rocks and rivers standing in your way. You build a giant motorway in the sky and float past the Mules, immune to their relentless pursuit. BTs causing you a problem? Charge through them, drive around them, it’s not like they can do anything about it.
Suddenly, all of the challenge of Dea♓th Strandiꦫng disappears. The game’s purpose disappears.
Why Are Vehicles In Death Stranding?
I get why the vehicles are in the 🃏game. After every hard slog forward, you’re given side quests in a new area. New missions in the location you’ve just connected to the chiral network. Five-star ratings t♋o earn by looking back. Director Hideo Kojima embraces abrasive mechanics more than most developers, but forcing you to backtrack entirely on foot is beyond even him. Still, driving circumvents all the things I love about this game.
I understand that games need a sense of progression. I get that players want to feel like their character is better than they were when the game started, that they’ve learned a skill or improved their abilities in some way. That’s why we have skill trees and levels. But🎃 vehicles don’t really play into that. Unlocking better gear does, including exoskeletons to improve your stamina and the aforementioned p*ss grenades to scare away the monsters with the stench of Norman Reedus’ excretions. These items upskill our protagonist, give him more tools with which to conquer the countryside.
Vehicles deskill Sam. Spend too long behind the wheel of a truck and you’ll forget to grab hold of your b🥃ackpack straps the next time you stumble on foot. You’ll forget the caution of making your way across a river, or the preparation needed to remember to pack enough ladders.
I don’t wish Death Stranding had omitted its vehicles. I can choose not to drive them, after all – and I do. I understand why they exist: to make the postgame suffer🌺able and backtracking bearable. But they ruin the gameplay loop. They rend your relationship with the world, tearing apart that closeness that you’ve developed after too many treacherous hikes. If you’re a completionist looking to get a five-star rating from every NPC in the game, then building a car is the only way to do so while keeping your sanity intact.
But if you’re playing through in a more linear fashion, engaging more deeply with the game’s themes and messages, then racing over gorge and through river creates ludonarrative dissonance that is more difficul⛄t to overcome than any geogra👍phical obstacle in Sam’s way.
Sorry Kojima, But I Prefer Death Stranding Without All ⛎The Strand-like Stuff 𓂃
It’s dangerous to go alone, but I’m doing it⛦ anyway.
