Death Stranding 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.