I am barely an hour into Death Stranding, and I absolutely love it.

Death Stranding is a terrible game for me to play. It's the perfect storm of "Ooh, lots of side deliveries to distract me!" and my desire to help others. " Oh, someone dropped this case. Guess I should deliver it for them. No problem."

Basically: I'm never going to leave first area of the game. Ever. I will become this region's best porter and never go any further west.

I'll run out of standard orders and just keep finding lost cargo of physical media, seeds, and medical equipment from other players who have long since moved on.

At some point, I'll make my 1000th puny delivery to Capitol Knot City and Die-Hardman will put me in whatever passes for an asylum in this game. Or a medal. Or both.

Oooh. The standard orders repeat. Well. I guess I'm going to move on sooner than I thought.

Just starting episode 3. I am very annoyed I'm not allowed to bring my reverse trike on this gigantic boat.

I have spent more time trying to build a highway than I have making deliveries, I think

Part of me really respects William Lake for needing so many likes to level up. "Sam, buddy, it's your job to bring us things. How many cookies do you actually need?" However, I really want that last star, dammit.

I brought a piece of lost cargo worth 400 likes and William just went, "Yeah, OK, whatever."

Updates:
1) Finally got that fifth star from William. After trudging a huge load of cargo from the film director's shelter.

2) Built another section of highway and destroyed a bridge I actually helped complete. At least getting to the weather station will be easier-ish.

Eeeuuugh. Fell in a fast-moving river while trying to get on a ladder bridge and lost a ton of high-value cargo.

I also drove a truck over an unfinished road today. It landed on a cropping of tall stones, and I didn't bother trying to get it off the rocks.

Which ties in nicely to me discussing driving in two video games & not driving in the real world in the newsletter this week https://spaghettiontuesday.substack.com/p/serving-no-74-life-is-a-highway?r=145gk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

Found Conan. I can probably quit playing at this point. My work here is done.

(I completed some narrative orders so I could get the truck so I could then ignore narrative orders and keep building more roads.)

Me: Ooo, long-range trucks. But my current truck is working just fine. I don't really see a need to fabricate a new one.

Also me:

"Hey, Hideo, what if, and just hear me out, we do a flashback in the fourth chapter with me covered in tar?" "Mads, for many years, it has been my dream to cover you in tar."

These are not the skills in which you've been training me, Death Stranding.

So, it's been a week since I last updated this thread. I'm in Episode 5 and am still building roads to Mountain Knot City. Which has been exhausting.

The resource ask for these roads is incredibly high, and while I thought I had some folks contributing, that has since tapered off. So I'm back on my own.

It's a weird sensation of seeing these roads as important, particularly to an isolated areas, and going, "Do I have the resources and time to do this? Is it worth it?" You know, like actual infrastructure questions.