From the very first teaser for Hideo Kojima’s “Death Stranding,” I tried to avoid learning too much about it. Someday, I knew I would be able to play it, even if not soon. Something about it moved me from the beginning. It was clear from the initial footage this was going to be a moody, melancholy game featuring intense traversal, immersive gameplay, and out-of-this-world story.
Then, a glimmer of hope. Death Stranding gets released on PC, after initially only being on PlayStation. I didn’t have either, but I was closer to a gaming PC than I was a PlayStation. By another grace, the game is available on Xbox Game Pass for PC. In late May, I was finally fed up enough with my old undergrad laptop to get a new computer. My expectation wasn’t initially that I would be able to get a computer that could play games because of budget, but I was able to find an Asus laptop with an RTX graphics card for a very reasonable price about a month ago.
I’ve dreamed of streaming for roughly a decade since I discovered Twitch. Even experimenting with streaming from my Xbox One on Mixer, having some of the most fun of my life. When Mixer shut down I knew I wanted to come back on Twitch in a big way. With a new gaming computer, I felt ready to get started. Using an old pair of $20 Skullcandy headphones as a headset, I began playing Death Stranding for about eight hours at a time on Twitch. I walked away a different, more complete person each session. Even if only for the guidance along my own spiritual healing odyssey.
In Death Stranding, humanity is trying to figure out not only how to exist in a post-apocalyptic world, but whether to continue fighting at all. The spirits of the dead begin finding their way back into our world, shattering everything we know about reality. As somebody who has been torn away from reality and forced to live in a world of madness, I felt like I meshed with the plot easily. Like the hero of the game, all I want is to bridge worlds of isolation. Give humanity a chance against extinction.
Like Sam has his Bridge Baby, I have my fans. They may be tiny, and strange, but they see in a way I cannot. I only have a sense, and metrics. But my fans, they let me know when I am on the wrong path. One of my biggest media inspirations is Fred Rogers. “Silence is so powerful, so important. There is so much to be learned from it.” A lot of popular streamers try to keep the hype up by filling every second with input. Death Stranding let me set the tone of my stream by having long sessions where we are either just watching an hour long cutscene, or enjoying the atmosphere during an arduous walk through the solitary countryside.
In the game, rain is called “timefall” because it hyper-accelerates the aging of whatever it touches. The world is completely reshaped by the cataclysm of the apocalypse, and the effects linger just like the dead. Many years premorbid schizophrenia, I had been tested to be high intelligence. Researchers think differences in intelligence may signify a spectrum of psychotic disorders beyond simple schizophrenia. What is more relevant here, however, is the world post-morbid. I am still blessed, to be sure. But I know I am not the same. In the time after onset, the brain ages terribly. Sometimes it makes me feel like I don’t deserve the things I did before. It is painful enough if weren’t a major point of pride.
Of course, that is nonsense. I only say such a bleak thing to convey how deep a sentiment was touched upon by Death Stranding regularly. It is not a game for the faint of heart. The people in this universe are horrifically traumatized. But there is always hope if there is a connection. This game connected me with myself. I am reminded of how resilient I can be. That the last thing I should do now is give up on giving myself a chance. It means putting in a lot of boot work on figuring out computer/streaming technical stuff that is completely alien to me, but I am proud of my literally taped together setup here.
It is natural that the more you experiment, the more you fail. But not everything can be gleamed from the shared wisdom of mass media Professors, YouTube videos, and the like. You can prepare all you want, but just like in Death Stranding, you may find for some situations the better choice can be to pack light whether with cargo in the game, or over-perfecting beyond raw content on a stream.
When I was in front of this screen, live with Death Stranding, I felt so truly myself. Every time I say it out loud, I think it must sound so strange. Isn’t broadcasting, live, on camera kind of when you need to dress up your personality a bit? Even these early streams, I feel so comfortable with who I am. At least I’m finally able to make the effort, and not letting the time slip away. Not one day was wasted when I bought this computer. The day it arrived I had game clips and self-recorded videos to make my first video review, for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. That video is available on my TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
Death Stranding 2 is currently in production, for which I am thrilled. There’s no telling where this story could go, especially when building on the back of a major success. No complete word on when to expect it, however, just hopefully the next few years. It is proving very difficult for a new game to fill the void left where my first Twitch game once was. I can’t think of many pieces of art in my life so profound, period. Kojima has more projects in development, and I am now a certified fan. To make a game so depressing, also so uplifting is sublime.
HereticDerek 