Braving the 'strand-type' experiences

A couple of years back I played the first Death Stranding game on a PC and was rather dismissive of it; I called it a "relaxing game where you arrange things in a backpack".

- Anusha Ganapathi

A lot has already been said by many about the series being a glorified delivery simulator, but I don't hold any of those opinions today. In the 60+ hours of playing the game, Death Stranding 2 has come to mean something so much more to me.

I think a lot about public infrastructure, maybe more than the average person. I wonder if the bridge that I cross every day will still stand a hundred years from now. I think about the effort it takes to create a tunnel for a metro line beneath the city's surface, and the thousands of lives that pass through it without ever seeing the rock and earth that were moved to make it possible.

But I also notice the smaller things. Like the dirt path cutting diagonally across the grass in my neighbourhood park, made by repeated walking. The heavy cement slabs a nearby shop laid out by the flooded roadside—an improvised solution to a recurring problem. It's an insignificant make-shift contribution that each of us make over an imperfect landscape. But somehow, all necessary. We're all better for it.