On 2019, Death Stranding, and Resilience
A still Sam Bridges contemplates how he’s going to climb these series of mountaintops.
Alternative title: I picked up Death Stranding as a Joke and Now I’m Writing an Introspective Blog Post about It
When I first saw a naked Norman Reedus-looking video game character crying and holding a naked baby on a beach, I knew I had to play whatever that was. That thing turned out to be Hideo Kojima’s newest title, Death Stranding. Without diving headfirst into the story, I’ll say that basically Norman Reedus got a tickle in his throat and it turned out it’s a baby causing it. And everyone can’t stop shedding one tear from each eye.
Death Stranding is a game about traversal. Norman Reedus plays Sam, a legendary post man in a futuristic and post-apocalyptic America. After the death of the President, Sam is tasked with walking across the entire continent to connect everyone together through a chiral network. Sam is basically setting up everyone’s internet connection to be through the same wi-fi. But beyond being everyone’s internet hookup, he can also deliver real things, like medicine, weapons, women, and pizza!
I admit that when I first decided to play the game, I did it for the jokes. My expectations for the game were very, very low. It isn’t that I expected it to be bad; I expected it to be nonsensical. I figured that, like many other Kojima games, I would have to read the Wiki in order for me to actually understand it. Now that I’ve finished it, I can say the story is intriguing, but also a mess. There were moments I chuckled at that I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to, and many times I told characters to shut up because they were overexplaining the plot. But, it turns out that a game I borrowed from the library just to laugh at wound up being a tool for me to think about my life in 2019, and what I hope will happen in 2020. I hate when that happens.
I can say that 2019 has been the hardest year for me to date: I’ve dealt with (and written about) bed bugs for the first time this year; I made $0 over the summer; I made a podcast, then stopped; I made a Patreon, then quit when it got too discouraging; I wrote an article that was 2,000 words long and took days to write and got $100 for it; I nearly quit graduate school because of teaching; I had ridiculously expensive car repairs; I learned my mother has cancer. There’s been so many mountains to climb this year, and my body is exhausted.
Sam’s got a lot on his shoulders, literally and metaphorically. He’s not just carrying letters from DC to California. He’s got boxes and boxes of things, all clinging to his back and legs. And while some paths are paved, most of the terrain is rocky, wet, and mountainous. Watching Sam hike up a mountain during a snowstorm felt so painful, and yet so cathartic. Here this man was with 100 lbs on his back, and a baby on his stomach, climbing up a steep mountain just to get someone’s internet working again. Watching Sam walk across the world made my back ache, but knowing that he was always going to overcome the terrain, and reach his destination, felt invigorating. And knowing that I was the one pushing him forward, was exciting.
Somehow, despite it all, I’ve made it here. The new year is just another day. None of my problems get resolved simply because of a tick from 2019 to 2020. But I do feel a bit more resilient, and more capable of climbing more mountains. I’ve slid backwards many times in 2019, but thanks to the support of my partner, my friends, my therapist, and my rabbits, I’ve learned that I have the tools I need to keep going. None of those tools, thankfully, are a baby.
While I’m slightly upset that a game with poop grenades taught me something about myself, I do have to admit that playing it at the end of the year felt like a sign of some sort. If Norman Reedus can walk up a mountain with dead weight on him, then so can you.