you can wear a hat and glasses that make you look like Unit-01 if you want

Death Stranding is a puzzle game.

Every connection you make in Death Stranding is hard won. There are mountains to climb, ghosts to throw bodily fluids at, and junkies addicted to delivering packages to knock unconscious. Even being out in the rain causes damage to your pack, making protecting your cargo even more difficult. The ground shakes, you lose your balance, your shoes wear out. It’s a game where you walk across the empty landscape of a dead and dying America.

It’s a blast.

In a typical puzzle game, you are given a problem. Here are 12 matchsticks in the shape of a fish. Moving only three of the matchsticks, how do you make two fish? You fiddle with the matchsticks, trying them in different places, making a different shape. You almost get a solution, but one fish is missing a fin, and you start over from the beginning. You fiddle some more, and a-ha! The solution leaps into your mind and you make two complete fish. Puzzle solved.

In Death Stranding, you are given a problem. Here are 12 packages of different sizes. Using the tools available to you, how do you move them from point A to point B and complete your delivery? You fiddle with stacking your pack. You plot out routes to avoid ghosts and terrorists. You almost reach your destination, then fall over in a river. You pick it all up, keep walking, and suddenly, there it is! Your destination leaps into sight, and you complete your delivery. Puzzle solved.

This may be an oversimplification, but I found whenever I loaded my package onto a shelf or conveyor belt at my destination, I felt the same way as when Professor Layton would flash onto screen and inform me that “Solving puzzles is the key to success.”

Death Stranding is not a perfect game. The writing is clunky, silly, hamfisted, and absolutely lacking in nuance. There are moments where it doesn’t feel quite “fair.” But the themes of connection, overcoming loneliness, and overall optimism lead to the game becoming one of the most hopeful versions of the apocalypse seen in fiction.

The game is tough — at first. And there are difficulty level settings of varying degrees. On a normal difficulty, it does start out slowly. You fall over. You run into obstacles.

But you are always given the tools to overcome them.

As you play, the world opens up to you. As you make connections with other people, they open up and share their knowledge and supplies. You create more and better tools. You build roads and ziplines, all with the help of other, real players. You craft ropes and ladders and can climb any mountain. It’s not even very long before you can access vehicles like motorcycles and trucks, letting you carry more cargo faster.

Technically, the game runs great. Yes, the graphics and art design are worthy of their AAA budget, but there are few, if any bugs. I took asinine, idiotic routes over incredibly treacherous and hostile terrain. Whereas in other open world games, I might have clipped through a mountain and gotten stuck, this did not occur in Death Stranding. Admittedly, I did experience minor clipping a total of twice, but never to a degree where I became stuck in the game’s landscape. And at times, I was really trying. I travel similarly in other open world games, and the amount of times I’ve become stuck in a knee-high rock in Uncharted or the side of a hill in Fallout or a tree in Skyrim is innumerable. No such frustration exists in Death Stranding, leading to a smooth gameplay experience.

To dig a little into specifics, there are small moments that are exciting and fun as well. Several robotic skeletons are given to you throughout the game, some built for speed. And when you boost the speed to run through an empty portion of land, the scenery whizzing by, you take a long jump, and the baby you have strapped to your chest laughs with joy. They are having fun, and I found I was having fun as well. And sometimes, when taking an asinine, idiotic route, I would find a ladder or a rope or a bridge another player had built, meaning they had been there before me and I was not alone in my dum-dumhood.

To be fair, there are decidedly unfun parts of the game. Nobody likes the dozens of mini-cutscenes you have to skip in order to simply take a shower. There are moments that don’t give you enough direction, and lead to frustration and confusion. A lot of the codec conversations have multiple characters repeating the same information.

However, elements like this are not gamebreaking, nor are they annoying enough to cause one to stop playing altogether, although they do lead to pacing issues. Of course, there are already pacing issues due to the cutscenes.

Most people who have played Kojima games before are used to long, plot intensive cutscenes, and Death Stranding is no exception. But the performances given by the voice actors and mocap actors are stellar. Norman Reedus is 100% committed to taking the weirdest shit completely seriously, while still allowing for occasional charm to shine through in goofy idle movements or during the fandom beloved “yeah boyee” moment. Lea Seydoux knocks it out of the park, playing her character to perfection. And Troy Baker, lovingly hamming it up as the over-the-top villain, is guaranteed to delight.

Finally, there’s BB, who, as the name suggests, is just a widdle baby. BB cries when you fall, is soothed to sleep when you rock them, does flips in their pod and blows raspberries against the glass. BB will “like” actions you take, or signs from other players praising BB, giggling and lighting up and helping you to the very end.

Death Stranding is a divisive game. Some have liked the plot, but not the gameplay. Some have disliked the gameplay and HATED the plot. It will never appeal to everyone. But sometimes, for some people, all the pieces fall into place and it leaves a feeling of completeness and satisfaction.

Death Stranding is a puzzle game.