Get Played - Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

Heather and Matt discuss Virtual Boy games on the 3DS, Hollow Knight: Silksong and deep dive into Death Stranding 2: On the Beach! Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpod Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? and our Premium DLC episodes and our exclusive show Get Anime'd where we're currently watching KPOP Demon Hunters go to patreon.com/getplayed Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fm All of our links can be found at linktree.com/getplayedpodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Sam, this is fragile. The DHV Magellan is currently caught in the TAR currents, and we can't come to your location. You must go forward on your own, Sam. Good luck. We are with you. Sam, it's doll man.

The DHV Magellan isn't working. Maybe you've heard something about this. You could throw me up in the air and find a different location for us to have a conversation. Sam, it's me, Chefman. The crew of the DHV Magellan ate too many pies, so we can't move the ship until everybody digest their pies. That's me, chef man.

Good luck to you, Sam. Hey, Sam, it's me. Clogged Toilet Men. I heard something about the D.HV. Magellan being stuck, and I know that I was over there recently, and my whole thing is that my toilets are... What I'm saying is, I don't think it was me. I don't think I had anything to do with that one.

That one wasn't me. Don't worry about it. I'm sorry, I bothered you. Sam, it's me. Bxtoria. 35 years ago, I was stranded in between two places at once. My ha and my ka were separated,

and one of them was traversed 80 years into the future, while the other one was traversed 80 years into the past. I met three people. They were brothers. Two of the brothers went on to open a shelter, and one of the brothers went forward to Fort Knott City. The DHV Magellan is stuck in some tar, unrelatedly. I'm sorry to tell you this.

Good luck. Sam. Hey, Sam, this is Joel. I was wondering if you'd find any of these comic books that Ellie likes. The ones I had got all gunked up on Count of the Tar. And you know what? I'm just really glad there aren't any clickers around here because that would really cause a void out if you know what I mean.

Anyway, goodbye. I love you. Sam, it's me shit's penis man. Hey! I'm shitting. My pieces of penis. Ah, I'm shitting it in my face is a penis. Ah, T. H. V. Magellan. I'm stuck in a hallway. Why do I exist? Sam, come kill me on the ship. Or take a nice photo of me on any of the floors.

We fight giant tar squids and wonder if we should have connected as we discuss Hideo Kojima's masterpiece, Death Stranding 2, this week on Get Played. Welcome to Get Played. Your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to Get Played. I'm your host, Anne Campbell along with my fellow host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast where this week we are one crew member short because Nick, Nick, Nick was voided out. Nick voided out, his eyes crossed.

He sucked into like a pinpoint in front of us and then inverted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Something we, you know, he's well documented, he's able to. do. Hey, no. That was just for Nick. That was just for Nick. That was just for Nick. Nick's not here, but the reason we're, we're here. Yeah. The reason we're here is we have a podcast, but we both finished Death Stranding 2. That's right. We finished Death Stranding 2. And so this is going to be a spoiler-filled episode discussing Death Stranding 2. I think we can talk about

intro and early game stuff, but then we'll hit probably a pretty solid spoiler wall. We'll let you know when that's coming as we enter into late game talk and, I don't know, overall theory. Yeah, because like, here's the thing. We got to spoil stuff. Yeah, we got to spoil. There's some really crazy stuff in it. We got to talk about it.

I've been, I almost couldn't sleep last night when you texted that you had finished the game and that, because that sort of changed the trajectory of this episode because it's going to be something else. And we wouldn't say what it was. Right. we were well there was like the question was am i going to be able to finish it in time for the podcast and uh and sure enough i was able to uh to to roll credits yeah and uh and watch even the there's like a little post credit just a tiny bit does a little something little something something um and uh yeah we'll we'll talk all about it on today's episode of get played the premier death stranding podcast true yeah i you know what as far as as far as i'm concerned One of the shows, one of the many shows that talks about Death Stranding. It is.

It is. And we do it a lot. And, you know, it's been some years. It's been some years, but it's also, like, with the release of the second one, I've felt a bit of pressure as the podcast that talks about Death Stranding a lot to, like, to, like, really talk about Death Stranding, too. But obviously, you know, everybody's got different commitments and things like that, so not everybody's able to dig in to Death Stranding, too, in a significant way. I was surprised I finished it when I did. Yeah. But we'll get to it, I'm sure.

But like, I was like, I was almost not in control of me finishing it, kind of. And that's not to say it was because it was just a long string of cutscenes. Because it was more that I was just like, I was just so compelled to press on forward. Yes. That I had to, that I had to finish it. Yes. I totally understand. And we'll talk about my end game experience when we get there.

Great. But first, normally we, Aren't just playing one video game. We're playing a few different video games because we are video game players on this premiere video game podcast. That's right. And we always ask a question.

And that question is, what are you playing? What are you playing? It used me to run a new per merchant. And it, uh, fuck, did I kill Nick? No, you didn't kill him. You didn't kill him. He's just not here today.

That's okay. It's okay. I know he's your favorite. It's okay. Well, no, not my favorite. He's not your favorite. Who's your favorite? Ranch.

Well, yeah, that makes sense. And honestly, two peas in a pod. I'm terrified of rats. Yeah. But also. So is it like keep your enemies, your friends close and your enemies closer type of thing? I'm scared that if I say anybody else is my favorite, I wake up in a bag. Yeah, you'd be marked for death, certainly.

Yeah. Bubzy was here last week. Bubsy. Yeah, but Bubsy said he didn't know you. Who's boobsy? I was kind of surprised that you guys don't know each other from, like, the circuit. I was trying to make a friendship connection here. Is bubsies a bartender?

No. No. You're thinking, like, bubbles? Like, bubbles from, like a drink? What? Or sudzy? I don't, I'm not confused about whether a drink is the bartender. I don't know I'm all over the place, but that is not a confusing area for me.

You're right. I don't know what got into me. I don't know. Buby Down at the joint You walk in and you're Hey Buby Oh maybe

Probably a cold one Maybe I mean Who knows what Bubsy got into After His you know His reign as a video game mascot Of course he has a new game Coming out

Let me describe Bubsy and you can tell me If it's the same guy Okay sure Yeah Bubsy that bartender Is really long He's got like a He wears heavy glasses

He's got like a He's bald in the center and then he's got he wears shorts exclusively. Yeah, okay so I was letting you get to the what I presume is the end of the description nothing about your buzzy

matches up with the buzzy. Human legs. No, definitely not. Are you describing like Stone Cold Steve Austin? Yeah. That's him. Stone cold Steve Austin and Bubsy are two different guys. All right. That was it. I guess just real quick

if I could just if I could just ask you a question, which, you know... What am I playing? No, not what are you playing? Okay. Because actors, I know you're not an actor, you're a guy. Yeah, I'm a guy. But, like, in my experience, I always hear about...

I feel like I hear about actors that, like, started together. Like, you hear about, like, Andrew Garfield, Charlie Cox and a couple of other... Robert Pattinson and a couple other, like, English actors, all living in the same flat together. Robert Pattinson lived in a flat with other guys? Yeah. Do you think they were like, oh, no, that one's the cute one? I mean, hey, I don't, I don't think I named anybody to slouch at it in any other guy. He got together and they were like, should we cut him in his sleep?

So we got a shot. Like, we're all nice looking, but he's too beautiful. He's gorgeous. He's a beautiful, man. I guess what I'm wondering is, like, do you know any other character? Are you pals with any other video game character? Oh, so, like, are you asking if record Ralph rules apply to me? Yeah, I'm guessing if, I'm asking if Reckett Ralph rules apply.

It may. I did not know anybody. It may. But it may. It could still happen. They could still happen. But as far as I know, I lived in a shack near a castle. Oh, so, but castle adjacent, that's not too bad.

Yeah. So you don't know, you wouldn't purport to, like, know Leon Kennedy. You just sort of know of him. I mean, I've met him a lot. Yeah, yeah. Well, he's going to be paying you a visit quite often. That fucking guy, man, no words. No.

He just, I'd ask him, what are you buying? Yeah. And he just fucking pointed shit. Yeah, he's not really saying, I'll have one of these. Yeah, you didn't look at me and they'd be like that. He's not getting, he's not getting to your little briefcase. He didn't even say shit to me. Fuck that guy.

He's not getting to your open cloak and going, um, I'll have the, uh, no, he's not doing any of that. He didn't do anything. He didn't do anything. Wanted me like I'm an animal? Yeah, that's rude. I'm sorry. What's rude? Yeah.

Horrible. Sorry about it. I'm sorry about that. What was the question? If you just knew any other guys. Oh. I know. Like, do you need, I mean, Joel has been on here before.

Joel. Joel. From the last of us. Okay, so you don't know Joel. You don't know Joel. You don't know Bubzy. You seem to know Ash Ketcham, I think. Oh, fuck.

Yeah, I don't like that guy. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ash Ketchum is tough. He's terrifying. Yeah. We did an episode together where I met him That's yeah I guess you did I met him once

You met once And then I saw him in the hallway Yeah You guys were doing the A Named Yeah we're doing a Named Get a Named Podcast

And he was in the waiting room Yeah he was getting ready to punch us Yeah I don't like that That little kid terrified Yeah quite rude He's worse than one of the South Park kids are those real yeah they're real they're real they're real

and they're quite rude i think Carmen Kyle Stan well uh Kenny yeah I didn't I don't I don't I don't those were cartoons they're real guys those are real guys I want to avoid Colorado yeah you do

I think it's for the best for all of us stay out of there you know what's nice about Nick not being here what's that is you're not hustling me through. I feel like that guy's always trying to get me to go. If you're accusing me of trying to pad the runtime here. I'm not trying to accuse anything. I just feel grateful because I feel like you're

demonstrating friendship. Well, I wouldn't go that far. I would say more that like Nick, when Nick's here, he has questions for you sometimes and I'm sometimes, I'm sitting back. I don't feel like I get to interface with you as much. Nick is challenging. Yeah. He's always trying to. to catch me on something. Yeah, I'm just listening. Yeah, we're shooting this shit. Yeah, well.

Your Coca-Cola has a lady on it. Yeah, this is a Coke Zero Star Wars collab. It's got Princess Leia from Star Wars. Oh! I like a Star Wars. That's pretty good. Ranch. Have you ever seen Star Wars?

I've seen... Episode four of Star Wars. So you've seen, like, the original one. Yeah. You've seen one Star Wars. I've seen one Star Wars. Was it... So when you saw the first...

When you saw that one... Which one is Four? Four is a New Hope. Is the one where you meet Princess Leia for the first time, actually. Well, any time you meet Princess Leia is the first time. No.

No, because if you watch... I mean, if I watch Rides of Skywalker... That's the first time I've ever met Princess Leia. My knowledge of her is not new every time. What? I'm not meeting her for the first time. They are typically.

New characters are always meeting her for the first time. But as a viewer, I, I, I, it's all, I, I don't know. I'm getting confused and scared. I want to ask Rand's something about this. Oh, yeah, Rand's. Rand, Matt wants to ask you questions. Help. So were you sort of like, when you saw it,

where you're like, hey, this is good? I'll get to the other ones where we're sort of like, I'm done with this, I think. No, I just haven't gotten to it. I think I watched it in my eighth grade English class. Okay. Wow. So you watch it over like three days.

Basically. And I really liked it. I think it just got to a point where there were so many that I was like, this is a whole thing that I have to figure out how to deal with later. Yeah. Here's the thing. There's a lot of them, but there's a lot of great ones. That one, hey, if you only saw one,

That's the one to see. That's pretty good. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, that's a great one. I've seen the, okay, I've seen one of them where he blows out of my death star. That could be like any number of them, actually. That happens quite a bit. Okay, I saw one with the big furry guy.

No, yeah, same, same. That could be all. It could be a lot of them, but not all of them. Okay, I saw one where a guy is like a robot. and he's got a bunch of lights oh that's actually specifically episode three general grievous

yeah i know grievous you would you guys got a similar that guy yeah man i like that guy i knew that they snapped when they made a robot that could cough yeah why would you do that to a man robot yeah a robot with organic material give him fucking asthma yeah

that's the what i've seen now So those are the ones I've seen. Okay. Blows up the Dead Star, Big Fairy guy. Yeah. General Grevis. He's kind of silly. And Heather, I wonder if you agree with me of this?

What? What are we agreeing on? He's kind of cool, though. He is kind of cool. He was a skin in Fortnite. Oh, really? That came out if you played through all the Star Wars stuff. And he's spindly.

So he's kind of hard to hit. Interesting. Because he's skinny and weird. That him... Captain Fasma, I think those two are characters that, and heck, maybe even Mace Windy, why not? Characters that I think didn't get their due diligence. Oh, okay.

I think that I could have seen a little bit more. Heck, I can use a little more Duku. I know there's a lot of Duku in the Clone Wars series. Yeah, yeah. But I like Duku. The name, kind of funny. I like Duku. It's weird that Andor is one of my favorite Star Wars characters.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, no. I think the first time I laid eyes on Cassie and Andor I was like, this is my number one guy Just like a Mexican space pirate I was like this guy fucking rules I love him forever

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NordVPN, you heard. What are you playing, Heather? Well, okay. Thank you. Thank you for it. That's not your job. That's I have one job. Heather.

What are you playing? Thank you, Resident Evil Merchant. That's really nice. You very rarely. Let it go. You rarely throw to me. Well, of course, I've been playing Death Stranding, too. That's right.

But I've also been playing the Nintendo 3DS. Why? Heather, what's wrong with you? Why am I playing the Nintendo 3DS here in the year 2025? I'll tell you why. Yeah. As I've spoken about before, lightly on the podcast, there is an emulator for the virtual boy called Red Viper. Red Viper allows you to play virtual boy games as they were intended in 3D.

And I brought my 3DS here so that Matt could fool around with it while I talked about my experience playing emulated 3D virtual boy games in red and black. Wow. This was an exciting day because I get a text from Heather. Could you bring your 3DS charger? Let me tell you something. I'd never been more ready to bring something in my life. That thing's bedside, the charger.

Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. There's so many fucking hacks and home brews on this. It takes forever for it to load up now. Yeah. It takes like a full, I've turned it on. And normally they just pop into life.

Yeah. But instead, it takes fucking forever. And my menu screen is like 150 games or some shit. Yeah, mine's so many also. But yours is the 3DS. Mine is a 2DS XL. And I'm looking at yours and I'm kind of like, do I want that? Well, I'll tell you why you want this.

Yeah. It's because of the ability to play Red Viper. Yeah. So I'm going to load up Virtual Warrior, Land, by far the standout game for the original 3DS.

Wow, I already forgot. I love looking at the 3D screen. It's so good. It's really good. And I'll tell you, I've been playing Virtual Boy Wario Land so much in the last week that my conclusion is, it is

a good game. It's not just like it's not just like a like oh a novelty to play it I think what I've learned is the virtual boy form factor was preventing

me from truly enjoying Wario World or Wario Land the game which is a full it's a Nintendo platformer that like nobody has played because the virtual boy came and went

in a span of eight months and then playing virtual boy Wario Land on a flat screen removes the joy, the pleasure of all the 3D effects that they are fully throwing at you in order to demonstrate the 3D of the virtual boy. Now, kids at home, if you don't know what the virtual boy is, because I showed this to the writer's room and people were like, what are you fucking talking about?

Though we have done an episode of the virtual boy in the past, I'll tell you. After the Game Boy, before the Game Boy advanced, Nintendo released a tabletop 3D video game system that you would mount on a tripod on your table and then peer into like a microscope and play three-dimensional games while fully blocked off of light and the surrounding world.

Those games were only available in the colors red and black, which were also the decorative colors of the system. And the truth is, they fucking look great. They're like not Game Boy advanced level graphics, but better than Game Boy. And I really, really enjoy playing them on the, on the 3DS through the Red Viper emulator. I also played Waterworld,

which plays a lot better on the, on the, on the, You can kind of understand what's happening, whereas when you play it in the, in the goggles themselves, you're confused what you're supposed to do. I played some tennis, some Mario tennis. I played some 3D Tetris, awful game, really bad decision, but futuristic leaning, like retro futuristic leaning game. I don't know, man. I've been having a blast. So I've been silently smiling and playing this Wario land game here, and I'm honestly kind of blown away how good it looks on this screen.

It looks so nice and so, like, if this was the presentation of any of these games, people would have been like, they're on to something. Like, even if, I mean, I'm seeing it in red and black, of course, and I know that there's like the mod for color or whatever. Yeah, the Red Viper emulator allows you to change it so that they are like Game Boy Color style graphics instead of just the red and black. I'm a purist, so I'm going to play it in red and black. But it's just like, it looks so good. Yeah.

Even just a 3D effect, there was like a swinging ball coming toward the screen and it looked how you would want it to look instead of shitty and bad. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's, it really, it made me reevaluate the virtual board. as like it takes up a place in my heart that is both like, you know, silly, nostalgic. I love a Nintendo hardware that fails.

That's interesting to me. Yeah. But it makes me feel like if they'd manage to do a three-dimensional, like the 3DS, a three-dimensional Game Boy at the time, I think it would have sold crazy well. Oh, yeah.

Well, I'm also just like, the screen is just so nice so like the pixel work is just like really well done and like the sprite work it's just so like this is gorgeous yeah this is like this looks so crazy you won't not be able to get a good look at it on the

on the on the video right because when you point a camera at the 3D screen it looks like nonsense I actually probably broke the camera but like there's this like animation of Wario jumping on these spring platforms and propelling him

backward to another platform that's like in the foreground and then bringing him back to where like the player is and it's so cool this is great Heather yeah it's it it liberated I don't even want to talk about Death Stranding 2 anymore it liberated the virtual boy

library and makes it really fun to play so that's what I've been playing is Fucking virtual boy games. Yeah, crazy. On the 3DS, here in the year 20, 2025. I'm happy for you. That's good stuff. It is really fun.

The 3DS XL, nice in the hand, too. Yeah, yeah. That's nice stuff. Yeah. And this one, it's a modded system. It has an IPS screen, so it's got richer blacks. Oh, no wonder it looked so nice. Well, I mean, they all look.

They all look nice, but I was really like, this is nice. I was like, this one was like as nice as my phone. Yeah, it looks really good. Um, all right. So I got to talk about a couple things real quick. I'm going to briefly talk about Melgear Solid Delta Snake Eater real quick. Zach Religious saw on the Death Ranting 2 episode.

I got to say. Ooh, spicy. Spicy. Spicy. I have been playing it though. And I talked about it with Nick a little bit last week. Okay. It's just the same shit.

It's the same thing. It's exactly the same game with updated, uh, visuals and updated and some updated gameplay but they haven't changed like they made it so that like in yeah I don't know how much of Metal Gear Solid 5 you've messed around with but like he can aim on the ground and like sort of like roll around like and and stuff like that and become prone he can do that in this one and it's just I just love it it's just like such a good it's just a good video game And I am enjoying it.

And I was, this is why I'm bringing it up for your sake, because I don't have that much more new to report. But I was trying a non-lethal run. Oh, wow. I was attempting a non-lethal run and was getting decently. I was handling it. I was doing well. And then I accidentally killed somebody.

and now I'm playing a murderous psychopath run where the legend of naked snake big boss will be the day that he went to fucking

grozny grad and killed every person in the area which will then of course make that one boss fight super hard or take forever

because I'll be walking a path of vengeance or ghosts are trying to stop me at every turn but I'm just really enjoying it and the game

is just like funny in the same way that it is but like there's also like a splash screen at the beginning in the game I didn't bring this up

that's sort of like hey like we remade this game exactly the way it was for 2003 there's some outdated shit in this which I think is

cool that they put that there but it's just like then funny to be like, oh, like, if you hadn't played it before, to be like, oh, I wonder what it is. They're like, oh, there's this prompt on the screen for me to press R1. I guess I better see.

Oh, I'm just staring directly at Eva's chest. Got it. Okay, okay, great. So, like, I'm enjoying that. It's great. I want to really mess around because I never really played the, I didn't mess too much around with Snake versus ape, the ape escape monkeys.

And I, you know, I love, I love those little monkeys. So I'm going to try that out. Hopefully I'll beat it soon. I don't have, like, a big, well, that's not true. I don't have, like, a AAA experience going other than that right now. Because the main thing that I got going, I just want to point, I just want to, I have to timestamp the episode. Conchunk. It is, by my account, September 4th, 2025.

The day that Silk Song, Hollenite Silk Song, Reloenix Song, releases after many years of, you know, after being released or after being announced many years ago and never coming out in like seven years basically. Yes. I've been talking about my holiday journey and playing through it and I took a pretty substantial break from it. So I had to like relearn how to play the game. And I'm happy to report that as of last night like 11.40 p.m.

I beat Hollow Night. Now, it was the percentage undesirable, perhaps. But I'm not going to do all that. I beat Hollow Night. And look, the percentage, it gives you a percentage at the end of the game when you're done.

2%. I mean, I feel like... The milk of finagers. I feel like, honestly, it might as well be 2%. Oh, no. It was like, I mean, it was low. It was 63.

But, like... It was high. I did a lot of stuff, but there's, like, so much more. And then, like, so I'm playing the game. I started it this year, right? Okay. Seven years after it came out.

Right. After all the DLC came out. Okay. And I basically just, like, mainlined, like, the main story. And there's, like, it's interesting because it's, like, not in, like, a Dark Souls or something, or, like, all the lore sort of, like, told in the background, kind of, like, in little texts and stuff that you can find. So there's, like, there's more to it than what I, got right but I just I love the world of it so much and I just like I like being the

little guy the little night yeah and then wrapping up his little what what my version of his story was yeah it was a very fun experience very challenging experience but I was just so excited and so pumped that I got in there before the buzzer yeah because like people I know it feels like stolen valor a little bit, though, too, right? Because, like, people are so excited about, have been so excited about Silk Song. People, a friend of mine

played a demo of Silk Song in 2019 at E3. Wow. So, like, people, like, it's existed for a long time. But something that we talked about, or I mentioned, last week, I think,

was there was an article that Jason Schreier wrote and he interviewed Team Cherry and he basically asked them, like, why it took so long to make the game. like to make Silk Song and they were just like we were just having a good time like they didn't have a deadline

they weren't online like they weren't really following like the discourse or what people were saying or like getting themselves concerned with like what people were thinking about they were just like making sure

it was good and then just like made it and I'm happy to say that I downloaded it this morning and I will say not right at 7 o'clock it was not on the e-shop right away It crashed every single digital storefront

on Steam, Gog, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch were all down. Wow! Which is really, really crazy. It sold $15 million the first one over the intervening years, which is I feel like quite a lot for a game of its size and scope. So I'm hoping that I'm hoping it's

It'd be so crazy If you were like such like a fan of Hollow Knight That you bought it and finished it And we're like I'm not gonna get in I'm actually not interested in Silk Song I did start it up I know Ranch started it up as well

Ranch the other Hollow Night Sicko In this room What was your percentage when you finished the game Probably higher than mine I would assume 97% You got crazy with it Yeah I went deep

And then everything that, whatever percentage I have left, I think it goes up to 112%. Yeah. I just, I've tried, but I just am not good enough to go further. I, like, had, you know, I, and here's the thing, I could still go back, and there's a chance that I will someday. Knowing that Silk Song was so close and that I was so close to being done, I had to just, I just had to wrap it up.

Yeah, you have to do it. but starting Silk Song immediately I was like Death Stranding 2 might be in trouble This game is already so fucking good It's so great what's your experience with it Been like so far ranch I was so happy

To have more more areas to explore And more worlds I just like wanted so much more after I finished it And now we have it So it's a good feeling It's really nuts because it was planned as DLC to the original game,

which is crazy. Really? Oh, shit. And I think that's why it was like playable at some point. Right. And then they just like took the time to like iterate and make it great. And it's like they're already of course

trolls on like Steam and stuff being like it's just a reskin of Holo Night. It's the same thing. And it immediately plays so differently because you're playing as Hornet who is a character that you meet in the first game and have to fight several times. And she's very fast and has a cool move set and stuff.

And you don't have, like, access to like that stuff yet. Because then, you know, of course you start from zero. Of course. Every time in games like this, except Jedi Survivor. That was the only time where it was like, you basically have all your powers from the beginning and you get more. Yeah. Which is nuts.

But so in this game, you start as her and you play as her in this game. And it's already so different. There's quests. There's dialogue. between characters there's uh whereas like in the first one the the night that you play as doesn't speak like doesn't speak back just kind of like listens um which i think there's like a good narrative reason for that he doesn't speak um but in this one hornet's like you know her own lady and so she's like going around just being like where the fuck am i what is this uh and it's really

really fun the the stuff that i've been enjoying so far i really take down uh at least two bosses sort of like right away. Like just ones that they sort of set you up to fight. But you have this like diet. You have in the first game you can do what's called a needle jump and that's like a downward attack. You jump up and then slash down with your sword. In this one, you have that power, but it's diagonal.

Oh. Which, yeah, it's kind of interesting because like you have to see a kuma drill kick. You have to time it like very specifically. If you're trying to do it, if you're trying to hit somebody, they're not directly below you. You're not going to attack directly below. Huh. You have to sort of like figure out when you're going to land that attack

or use that attack to traverse certain things that you can like jump on and stuff. You can also grab on the ledges when you jump, which is just a massive, massive upgrade. But like you get like a double jump in the first game pretty late, I feel like, and then you can like sort of scale walls at a certain point too but early on I'm just like already so satisfied and can't wait to get back in there my time in the first one was like 40 hours okay which feels low but I did so much and I die I wish they told me I'm sure there's a stat buried in there somewhere I wonder how many times I died in the

game because I'm going to guess it's it's somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 oh my god feels like so many and it's like but the game is so good I was never mad at it there was not I was saying this tarantia earlier though that like the switch is so thin and the switch two is so thin that I was sort of worried that I was gonna snap it in half so I felt myself getting frustrated but the game is so good that like it doesn't like really let you do that because you're ready just like back in it as soon as you have to sometimes traverse far back after you after you die uh to get back to where you were, depending on, like, your last save, similar to, like, Eldon Ring or whatever,

like, if you didn't check in at a site of grace or something. Right. But it's just, it's so great, and I'm very excited about what's to come in, like, to just discover. Because that's what the great thing about the first one is, it's all discovery and all, like, all of its new. But, like, all of this now, nobody knows any of this shit. It's new for everybody.

So it's, like, kind of cool. That is cool. Like, everybody that's playing it is, like, doesn't know. of it because they also didn't give it out to reviewers or anything like that because they want they it was kickstarted so they wanted to give it to the people that kick started it first which is fair yeah um and i think that's just so cool and they can't wait to see uh can't wait to see more of it and be uh blown away by the boss fights because the boss fights are i'm surprised you haven't really gotten in there because like the boss fights are so fucking good and so hard and uh

like just punishing. Hollow Knight just was outside of my radar. That's it. It was, it's not that I haven't heard of it. It's just, it was one of those games where it's like, oh yeah,

Hollow Night. But I have such an enormous library of games that it was, like I wasn't like, like anytime I think about like, what should I go back and play? I'm like persona, Star Wars outlaws. Like I want to play Jedi Survivor.

I want to play. Like I have so many games from, the last, like, from the last two to three years and then also from the last, like, 10 years. Yeah, yeah. And it was just one of those ones that missed me. And I would imagine not a lot of those are like Metroidvania's. Yeah, no. Like they're not really, that's not really your zone.

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It was written by Hideo, Kojima, Kenji, Yano. Shuo Murata and Kota Watanabe, directed, produced, designed by Hideo Kojima. It takes place 11 months after the first game, Death Stranding 1, and you pick up the death-stranding narrative on the run with Lou, the BB that you have rescued from the first game. Now, there's going to be a lot of words in this episode. And if you haven't played Death Stranding,

these words are going to be nonsense. Yes. A BB. Also, I will venture to say, too. Even if you have played the game, some of it's going to be nonsense. We're going to get into that, Matt. We're going to get into that.

A BB is a bridge baby, a beach baby. Not a bridge baby, beach baby, who is a premature baby born to a brain. dead or dead mother, who the future UCA, which is the sort of United Cities of America, the take over once America has collapsed due to an event called the Death Stranding, wherein the other world that occurs to us all after death has breached into our own world. And the other world, unlike Valhalla, which is, you know, like a hall of violence or heaven, which is harps and angels, in the world of death stranding, the other side is a beach.

And it is a beach in which time flows at a different rate. Yeah. You are a male delivery man named Sam Porter Bridges. And these babies, these babies are removed from their still mothers, put into place. pods. And because they are half in between the worlds of life and death, they can sense BTs, which are beached things, these ghostly apparitions of the dead that are now in the living's world's space. When these beached things are nearby, they conjure timefall, which is a kind of rain that makes everything age very rapidly. And as Sam Porter Bridges,

you reconnect to the United States of America. I can't believe I'm doing this. I was just about to say, Heather's not reading anything. She's saying this from her memory. It's very impressive. As San Porter Bridges, you reconnect the United Cities of America via the Cairo Network, a kind of internet that uses the rendering power of servers placed on the beach. Why would people do this?

Well, because time moves differently on the other side, on the world beyond death, it doesn't matter how long it takes a computer to process something. One of my favorite ideas from death stranding one is that we put servers in heaven because it allowed us to do more computation. Hooking up cities to this chiral network empowered by these servers on the beach, you are able to 3D print, you're able to fabricate designs and share information and connect the world. Unfortunately, due to a conspiracy and the villainous actions of Higgs, who is a guy who is obsessed with the idea that maybe, human being should die in an extinction event you have to fight Higgs

convince your Amelie is that the sister? Yes yeah yeah yeah convince your sister She's an E, an extinction entity She's an extinction entity You have to convince your sister not to end the world she does so and you return to the world of the living

with your BB and then you have to flee the United Cities of America because BBs are supposed to be inventory. They're not supposed to be things that you bond with. And Sam takes his BB out of its pod

and begins to raise it as a child, a child named Lou, and that's where the second game picks up. You are on the run in Mexico living in a shelter with your child Lou. Louise, a little girl. I'm going to say, I'm going to

level some complaints about Death Stranding 2 at the top. Whoa. Playing Death Stranding 2 made me realize how much I love Death Stranding 1. Mm-hmm. And the reason Death Stranding 2 doesn't supersede that love is because in a lot of Kajima's games, when he does a sequel, he doesn't just iterate on what's come before. He, like, fucking takes a left turn. Yes.

And that's what I went into Death Stranding to expecting. I was expecting if all of this shit that I learned in Death Stranding is the preamble, what new crazy shit am I going to learn in Death Stranding to? Like if I have just, in that monologue that I just gave, all of that was like playing a awesome science fiction novel. Like I was like, holy shit, this is stuff that I'm going to think about. forever. It's like three body problem. It's like anything, right? Any blade runner, like stuff that you like. And so Death Stranding 2 is not an expansion of ideas. It is an

expansion of mechanics and an expansion of story. Yes. But it is very, very rarely expansion on ideas. Yes. And oftentimes repeats beat for beat. a lot of the stuff that happens in Death Stranding 1. It is more well-paced. But, yeah, I don't want to spoil anything yet, but it's a little bit like, if I'm, if in the first four minutes of Death Stranding 1, I'm introduced to BT's timefall, fragile,

and the idea that like porters are important, And the first five minutes of death straining, too, is I'm a dude with a daughter. Yeah. And nothing new is happening. No, it's kind of, some of it is Evangelian and then rebirth, uh, rebuild. Yeah, rebuild. Of even, where it's like, it's, uh, it's, um, it's iterative. It's, uh, it's, or it's, you know, it's a, almost like a facsimile.

of the first thing, but with some slightly new information or a different angle on the information as well. It's got tighter pacing. It has, you know, more, one of the things that you do in Death Stranding games is you build infrastructure, and it has more options for infrastructure available to you. You can build a monorail. You can build new kinds of equipment. But you can also build a lot of the same. equipment. Yes. And characters who are introducing this equipment to you in Death Stranding, too, and again, I'm saying all the negative stuff up top because I love the game. So I don't want to just be like...

And it's not even really negative. Yeah. Characters will be like, hey, I invented a hat that does this. And Sam will be like, I already know about that hat. And it's like, oh, well... Yeah. That's really funny, though. It is funny.

It is funny. But it's a little like, it's a little like when somebody is... like telling you about a piece of equipment that they've invented and really all they're doing is unlocking stuff that's available in the first game. Yeah. And the player character has to say, I already know this. It feels a little like a missed opportunity. Whereas there are elements like the fucking coffin board. Yeah, which I discovered had a dual purpose after I had finished the game. And I don't think, I mean, it must have been said to me at some point, but it is. It is said to you. I was shocked by what I learned.

Well, it's like the coffin board is new. Yes. And like, why not just fucking load up the game with weird shit like the coffin board? Yeah, I mean, I totally agree because, like, that's like, the stuff that they do add that's like that is like few and far between. There's not many, like, that many new things. Yeah. But it all just, I mean, obviously it all works for you. You like the game.

I love the game too. Loved it. So I don't have that. has many complaints. I have, like, I think, one very specific complaint. I have one more complaint, but I'd like to hear yours unless you want to... I mean, mine is almost rude.

Oh, okay. Here's what I'll say. Okay. You have people like Leah Sudu. Yep. You have Troy Baker. Yep. You have L. Fanning.

Yeah. And just a host of Tommy Earl Jenkins. Yeah. Norman Reedis. Hang on a second. Oh. You have all these like just stellar performances in the game. And sometimes with Sam, with Norman, you can't get more out of him than a, I like that.

I kind of wish that like, because like there's some, there's some scenes in the game later on that, you know, early on too, where he really, really, I guess what I'm, he really has to act. Yeah, he has the opportunity to showcase some real emotional range. Yes, and it's not, for me it's not there. Yeah. And I know that there is like this sort of uncanny valley thing too, right? Where like he's like a, he looks exactly like how he looks in real life, but you obviously understand that it's a video game. And like there's, I've seen the like BTS footage of, you know,

these actors wearing the suits and getting their face scan and stuff. And I know that like you sort of have to almost really overact. with your face to like make it be seen by computer to make it like you look at your face. So maybe he's just like not doing it at that level but like there's like but he's still,

I think he's great in the game but like later on there's like a I mean we'll get to it but there's like a there's just like a real close up on Troy Baker's face when he's acting as Higgs later on that I was just like

this is better than anything he's done in any video game. Troy Baker in. by far the standout performance of Death Stranding 2 yeah and he is among the greatest video game portrayals of all time oh yeah in this game absolutely without with like a bullet like it's like it's gonna it's gonna be hard to he's the uh maybe not to blow too much smoke but he's sort of like the andy circus of this media yeah yeah yeah where you kind of like oh yeah you want to do you want to do mocap you want to do gollum stuff you want to you got to go to the

big dog to like go to learn how to do it yeah yeah because he's great he's and he should he should do it in movies he's really yeah he's very talented why isn't he in movies he's so talented yeah um yeah i so my other my final complaint before we launch in all the stuff i love yeah and you love yeah death stranding one had weird information in the emails you got it got it had like yeah like you'd get like a fucking email about motorcycles and it was just like that they This motorcycle was a really popular motorcycle in the year 20, you know, 2019. Yeah. And this is why it was popular or like.

Similar to paramedic telling you about Godzilla King of the Monsters or, you know, stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would, like, there was weird stuff in Death Stranding one. And it was, it felt like, it felt like author flavor. It felt like, it felt like the author of this game being like, also I want to share stuff I love. with you. Whereas death stranding too feels so much more focused and at the cost of people being like, oh man, you got to hear about vinyl. Like vinyl is like this medium that went out of fashion and then came back. Yes. I missed that, that, that, that color in it. I think, I think he just

like replaced it. Because like some of the, um, some of the. Orpus. Yeah, well some of the corpus entries Like oh man the corpus is great That's like the active time lore in this game Where you can just go through a menu And just read everybody's story As it updates like while you're playing it But all like the shelters

Where you get to meet like the MPCs That you're making deliveries for and stuff They all have like served like certain flavor Right where like they like the artist Then populates her walls with art based on the things that you're like that stuff's cool I think he just like maybe like

that's not exactly it but like he just sort of like refocused like what the weird stuff was he's like oh like I like there's like the Junji Ito costume or whatever he's like Junjiito also is just like real in this world like sure yeah

but yes you do get a Junji Ito costume George Miller is Tarman and he's a different guy all these actors are different guys but Junji Ito is real. I do, I just miss somebody being like, you haven't, Sam, you haven't heard of the killer by John Wu?

Like, an excellent movie about the power of a pure heart, even in the worst and most villainous circumstances. You'd be like, okay, great. Have you read Necromancer? I have to just tell you right now, I love Dollman and I have a group of guys that we all talk like doll man to each other and he's so so great i've been talking about this game a lot with some friends of mine that have a video game podcast if i could just shout them out real quick uh they're over at super npc radio uh and they have a games club where they go through games like chapter by

chapter and so they asked me to sit in with them to talk death stranding too and i was like absolutely and so i've been having a nice time just like completing two chapters or whatever and being like i can't wait to talk with my boys so if you want to hear that you can go check them out they're they're great lads and we do I'll do the doll man voice together, and it's a lot of fun. Sam, I'm thinking of getting some dinner. Do you want a hot dog? I like, you turn off the game and you come back, like, a couple days later,

and immediately as you started up, he's like, Sam, why don't you check out the corpus so that you can refresh yourself on what you've been doing? I like that stuff. I don't like when he tells me something I already know. Like that my sniper rifle is really loud. I'm like, I know, bitch. Or Sam, that cargo is no good anymore.

Yeah, you, Sam, you fell off a cliff. Sam, it appears this was the first time you used the anti-gravity upgrade on your truck and didn't understand how it worked and you tried to jump off of a mountain. You've destroyed everything. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's like it lets you jump. But it's not safe. Yeah.

How many, like, because I felt like early on, one of the new mechanics, we should talk about this in a discernible order, but just while we're on doll man for a second, you can throw him up in the air and, like, scope the area. Yeah. I felt like I did that two times. Zero times. I did it like once when they told me to do it.

And then was like, okay, I'll do this again. And after I did it one time, I was like, I think I'm just going to go in. Yeah, yeah. I don't need to know where everybody is. I also only built the lookout towers. Yeah. Enough times to be able to get them to tell me to stop doing it. Sam, you don't need to build lookout towers.

I can throw, just toss me in the air, Sam. So the things I like. The performance of Dollman, too, is. Fucking Dolman. I think I put him ahead over. for Sam. Fucking dull man is so good. Hold on, though.

I'm going to be a Sam defender for a moment. Sure. Hey, mine's ever here. Mine's a pecco. That's this game's version of Snake doing the Boktai. Sunmine. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's funny to be like,

there's no weird stuff in this game. And I wore a rabbit hat all the way. way through endgame that every time Sam's took like slow steps he would go peco you can also catch PECO PECO BT's like Pokemon and use them Yeah yeah there is weird shit

There's new shit the complaints are out of the way Yes and I also I'm going to defend Sam's Sam's mocap Sam When Sam gets a thing Like when somebody when you like five star Shelter Yeah

And Sam gets a gift from them He picks it up and barely smiles And it's so good Because it's like a guy embarrassed to like a thing That is good It is so good Yeah he doesn't want to show that he feels nice That he got a gift

Yeah And also when he eats a cryptabyte in his shelter And he kind of like looks at the camera Just a little like yeah I'm being a little nasty Yeah I liked making his face funny in photo mode.

I was doing more photo mode early on while like the environments were more novel to me. Right? So like I would see something like Big Moon. I'd see Big Moon. Yeah. Oh, Big Moon. Which got me thinking about something that I texted you about yesterday that we'll talk about later. Okay, great.

But I would, like every opportunity I had to make him do a sticking tongue out face. I'm like, I got to do that. That's like funny. So maybe I was like, oh, his face is capable of so much more and he's not really doing it in the game. But because I'm making him be crazy in photo mode. He's a stoic guy.

Yeah, yeah. You know, he had, in the first game, he has a paranoia about touches, like being touched at all. That's true, yeah. And you know what? I think if you're going to cast somebody perhaps based on simply

that they look like a cool guy, you can't do worse than Norman Reyes, I think. He's one of the coolest looking guys. He looks fucking awesome all the time. He's just like cool He's a looking guy Yeah yeah he just like looks like a tough guy

Yeah Like a badass guy yeah He just looks like Daryl Dixon Yeah But okay Again I know there's weirdness Yeah Like the first game had

Advertisments for his fucking TV show I was lamenting that that was not Present in it at all Or any sort of significant For Wallbreaks Branding of any kind Yeah there's no branding in it There's no like you know

Like monster energy drink is in the first one and there's no monster energy drinks it felt it felt a little there were points at which where I was like

this feels like it is less alive to me I think it makes sense to not have that stuff though because they had to like patch it out anyway

for like as like from like a licensing standpoint it was probably is like a pain and they have to be like why did we fucking put monster energy

energy drink in this to then just like patch it out or whatever, but like, uh, the stuff that's in there that's like songs and then like, or, you know, I wish there were more books actually because they kind of made it seem like that the book thing was going to be more important than it ended up being.

Yeah. But it was just like, it was just one book. Yeah. It's one, it's one, it's two books. Yeah, yeah. I wish it because I, like, I don't know, that's when you can get then more like strange information probably, right? Yeah.

Um, but should we just like get into like, should we just get into, well, how do we talk? about the game without talking spoilers because this game the game is you deliver to shelters you build up the chiral network in Mexico yes but I think there's a pretty major spoiler instantly in this game and if you haven't played it this is an emotional point that that you may not want to cross so I think we we enter in a spoiler country yeah right now I think okay fine like get it get your get your hats and uh or get your uh you're uh you

your hats that you get from the peco lady and put that on and just and just say peco for the rest of the recording and get you up because we're in spoiler country yeah because yeah basically like Sam's living like a nice quiet life he's got Lou you know

everything kind of sucks still like he's maybe feeling a little used from the last game right like disillusioned but he's still make, he's out there making deliveries. He's just like just delivering like the mail, basically. But then he gets contacted for just like one last job. Yeah. Which is a good, good start of any story, I think.

Yeah. Good shit. And if you choose not to take on that job, the screen gets very, very small and fades into oblivion and then restarts you at the exact same decision. Because truly, the game only begins if you choose to take the last job. Yes. which is very funny.

They're like, that's weird. Again, I think what we're, what I'm, I'm not saying there's not weird shit in it. Yeah, but there's not like anything weird.

Well, it's like, I just wanted, I wanted a little bit of the stuff that felt, uh, anachronistic. That's what I want.

Yeah, okay. Yeah. There's tons of weirdness in the game. And, but like, it's that thing that we've talked about in the past though, too.

We're like, how weird is it really? when like the reality of any video game is strained. Yeah. Right. So like it's all weird within the context of death stranding. Right. But maybe it's not completely immersion breaking.

Yeah, I want Dolman to be like, Sam, you've never eaten at McDonald's? Like I want that shit. I love the fish delight. That's what my favorite U.S. president called it. Also, remember? like in the emails in the first in the first game yeah there was also common like political commentary about like stuff that was happening in the u.s yeah and that's all gone that stuff's gone but like the stuff that i think remains is more like of a global interest right and it's like not as overt

sure where it's like you could tell he cares very deeply about the climate crisis for example like that's just like a big part of it and then but like i mean there's some also there's some there's some other stuff in it too that I feel like maybe we shouldn't get into but but like there's just like there's a lot in it

there's a lot in the text certainly but Sam goes on this one last gig goes on this one last gig holds a gun right at fragile but then he just like

he's off to it and he's basically there's this there's these anomalies these like are this phenomenon they're called plate gates and Uh, there's one that connects Mexico to Australia.

Yeah. And, well, first he has to like get Mexico on the Cairo network first. Yep. And then from there, now that Mexico is online, they can then go through this plate gate. They can activate the plate gate. Yeah. And then enter Australia. But.

Yeah. While he's doing this, this job, fragile who is staying with Lou at his shelter, is attacked by a red mechs, which we later learn are ghost mex, mex powered by the energy of the beach. And they attack her and Lou and they shoot her as she is trying to transport Lou to safety and they kill Lou. And this is why you have to set a spoiler country right at the top

because had I known this going in, I would have been bummed. Yeah. It's shocking. It's, yeah, it's really, really crazy. I was about to say it's like another spoiler, and I won't do it. I just won't do it. Because that's not fair.

That's not how that works. But it is very sad. It's just like a very jar. It's also like one of these things where you're like, can they do that? Yeah. It's like that okay. Can you execute a baby in a video game? I guess you can.

I guess you can. Like, and we've seen children die in like the last of us part one. Yeah. You know, you've seen kids die in a game before. Yeah. But never a baby, never a fucking toddler. Yeah, a toddler is never, yeah, shot in cold blood. Yeah.

But it's, it's, it's, it's, but it's really like the thing that then sets the story on fire. Like, it's like the reason that Sam has to continue, basically. Sam, you, uh, sometimes. Which then is brought up way. later. Sam's some time passes and Sam was kind of a destitute grieving

father of this this BB that he adopted and a fragile shows up and is like hey we think it might help you to go do another delivery like to just get out of

the house man and do some more deliveries we'd love you to come to Australia and link up the continent for like old time's sake. And he meets a couple of new people on the DHV Magellan. Yes. Including Tar Man.

He also meets back up with Dead Man. Yeah. Who gives him a little bit more backstory about like I forget exactly what it is that he hands him. He dies prior to Lou dying.

Oh, he dies. Yeah. But Dead Man gives you like a thumb drive that lets you know a little bit about um what went on with your girlfriend who had died before the events of death stranding one yeah lucy yeah lucy uh it turns out was having an affair with a guy named neal yes uh neal you meet in this second game taking on the sort of um mantle of clifford from the first game You meet him in these sort of sequences that are divorced from the main story where you transport to an other world and you fight Neal for reasons that aren't immediately cleared to the player. Right, right, right. And he looks like Solid Snake for some reason.

Well, I know why he looks like Solid Snake and I want to talk to you about it. Okay. Do you want to just start talking about theory or you want to keep talking? I don't know. I don't know. There's so much to do. Can we do this for 10 hours? There's a lot.

I guess let's go through the story, though, right? All right. You go through the story real fast. I mean, a lot of crazy shit happens. You fight Neil, whose name is Neil Vana. Yeah, his name is Neil Vana. But I will say, like, to what you're saying, that, like,

I feel like we can get through the story kind of quick because there's almost not that much of it. Yeah. So, yeah, he meets, we meet Neil Vana. There's a couple of other new characters in this. this game, you have Rainey, who's part of your troop? Rainy, oh, go ahead. She's like Storm, where she can bring the rain.

She can bring the power of Timefall Rain on command, which has made her an outcast because she couldn't go anywhere without making it rain. And here's the thing, another stellar performance. Really, really good. Yeah, fantastic performance. Then you meet when you are fighting against Neil Vana. Fucking, I love the names. I wish this dude hadn't cornered the market on naming a character.

exactly what they are. Yeah. Because it would be so hype to have discovered that. To just be like to be an author or a writer who just names your characters the thing. It is really

a special touch. Yeah. And then like if somebody else did it, you'd kind of be like, that's Kojima's thing. Yeah, yeah. If you created an action movie and you name the main character tough to kill man. Like,

Yeah, I like, he does, he just basically has like male actor in a porno rules. Johnny hard. Yeah. You're like, oh, cool. So, so when you're fighting against Neil Vana, you, who appears to you in tar falls, which are, um, tar eruptions that come up out of the ground, the tar is sort of like a primordial fluid that is leaking from the, from the beyond. Um, you, uh, rescue a girl. played by El Fanning, who doesn't have a memory and doesn't have a capacity for speech. She's a real infantilized female trope.

Yeah. But over the course of the next time, whatever, weeks that this game takes place. My Sam didn't really sleep, so it kind of hard to know. When was what, you know? Rainy and Fragile, who is the sort of captain of the DHV Magellan,

a ship that can go from location to location by surfing the tar currents underneath the mantle of the earth. Yeah, when they do this, everybody looks gray. Yeah, everybody looks gray. I like that part. They sort of restore function to tomorrow

and teach her words. Yes. And they also begin revealing her powers, which are sort of to make things age rapidly. Yes. While you are sort of building up this cast of characters, Higgs, the enemy from the first game,

shows up, reappears in the second game, even though he was executed by fragile in the first. In the red mech suit. Yeah, ghost mech suit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, by the way, I want to circle back real quick. We did forget one major character. Oh, yeah?

Charlie. Charlie, who is on board, the DHV Magellan, and he is a mannequin with no arms or legs, but he's a robot, and he, you can select a voice for him and three of the options are fake outs and the only one that you actually can pick is Die Hardman's voice

and it's for a very good reason. So you're traversing the landscape of Australia with this crew in tow connecting them to the chiral network as you begin to piece together Neil Vana's story. Neil Vana was having an affair

with your girlfriend Lucy and it turns out that he got her pregnant and you know Sam is like well fuck I'm you know she's fucking cheated on me anyway what difference does it fucking make yeah yeah wasn't my baby it's fine I don't care

it's like oh we also forgot that Pecco Pecco Pecco Pecco that he while he begins this journey

he is carrying his BB pod yes And into the BB pod appears a BT of Lou. Yes. Like floating in his in his BB pod. And so he still has this connection to Lou is still with him in this second game. But at a certain point, it just like looks like a baby again, right?

Like that's like, I mean, we can just say it because we're in spoiler area. Sam is like having a really hard time with this mentally because no shit. Like, it would be so crazy to, like, go back to work after, you know, your, your surrogate child has been murdered in front of your eyes. Yeah. But so, like, all these characters are sort of, like, helping keep this illusion that, like, Sam's fine kind of. Like, oh, like, yeah, like, Sam's basically playing with, like, an empty basket, basically. Yeah. And it's, like, it's so sad.

It is, it is super sad. And they make it pretty clear to the player that they're. isn't anything in that pot. Yes, but every time they give you more information about it, they treat it like it's like a new piece of information. Because it is for Sam, but it is not for you at all.

Yeah, yeah. Everyone's a little bit like, can I see your pod, Sam? Yeah. Oh, nice. Nice. You meet a doctor whose ability to, she has like, you know,

supernatural beach connected hands that she can reach in and out of wombs and can transplant babies two pods in order to examine them, which is fucking crazy. But I guess as the game goes on,

what is revealed to you is that Neil Vana was not actually, again, spoiler fucking country. Yeah. Gitty up, I'm Sam. Pecco. Neil Vana, who was having an affair with Lucy or girlfriend

was not actually the father of the baby that she was carrying. It was indeed Sam. But in order to protect that baby from the UCA, because Sam is a repatriate, he has the ability to never die. Neil was asked to pretend that it was his baby so that the UCA would be less interested in the baby. Yes. The two plan to flee to Mexico in order to protect this baby from the clutches of the UCA

and are both executed in the attempt. That baby is then transferred to a BB pod and then transferred again to a different BB pod, BB 00. That BB then comes into Sam's care. Yes. And it turns out that Lou, the baby he had been taking care of in the first game, and was executed in the first few chapters of this one was his actual daughter. Yes.

Gasp. And we should point out, too, that Neil and Lucy know each other. Like, they met long ago. Oh, yeah. In, like, what, the original, like, incident? Yeah, in the original stranding event. Yes. When Neil was a child, he was running through...

He was just an Italian little boy. He was running through the streets, fleeing the effects of this sort of international incident, the Death Stranding, and he gets a sort of metal coin. It's not a coin, like a metal charm. It's so hot from one of the explosions on one of these buildings that it singes into his skin and can't be pulled off right away. And then he meets a little girl and that little girl goes to grab his hand and her hand is burnt from. the burning metal piece that is still embedded in Neal's hand. When they are adults and they reconnect, they realize that they'd met each other when they were children trying to flee this disaster. So much of the story is revealed in the final, like...

Yes. Final 25% of the game. Right. I mean, yeah, because a lot of it is like you're making deliveries that are crucial to just sort of move on to the game. the next thing. There's like a, like one of my favorite missions in the game was the one, or one of the, my favorite sequences was when you have to sort of like log three different things on and you have support from the DHV Magellan. And, uh, they can do like aerial blasts while you're sort of like handling stuff on the ground. I thought that was like, just like a great sequence. There's like some really great set pieces. Uh, the stuff with Neil Vana is great because, uh, you go into this, like, there's this. a concept that is explored in this game is nirvana right and um they talk about it a little bit

and like i just like did a little bit of reading on my own it was like what seems like what's he getting at here what are they trying to do because there was something about it was reminded me of something else which uh and so i was looking into it and then just like just the very basic idea of it is this like when you die uh your consciousness returning to a uh a collective consciousness rather than an individual soul or like identity or whatever you sort of return to uh like one one place and one thing yeah um and because of that and because of the beach and what the beach is and what uh higgs wanted to do in the first game and then what we learn is going to happen or what he wants to happen in the second game and also was just really

reminding me of neon genesis evangelian, specifically the human instrumentality project. And I would not have known any of that had you not infected my brain with that masterpiece. But I was just really like, gosh, what are they getting at with this? But basically they're like they want to get all of Australia on the chiral network. And you're doing this and you think there's, well, hold on too. There's a president. There's a president that's on board, or not on board, but like that talks with you quite a bit and is like, hey, like, I think we have to like talk privately and stuff. And then starts talking to you on a private channel, which seemed, seemed wrong. Seemed wrong immediately. It just seemed incorrect, especially because the way you see people on your communicator thing is like they're like in like a sort of blue sort of light type of thing.

And then when you talk to the president by himself, it's like red and gray. And I was like, I think he's bad. Yeah. Something about him seems bad to me. He's talking to you and he's like, hey, like, I think that something's fucked up. And I think that like this, you know, this new delivery system that's, or, you know, this new company that's like trying to put Australia on the map or whatever might not be exactly what you think it is. And then we find out that that's true, but it's his fucking fault. Yeah.

And so like, so it all kind of comes to the head in like chapter, gosh, like 13 or something. And I'm sure we're missing some crucial detail. But like I feel like a lot of stuff happens here forward. Yeah, a lot of stuff sort of piles on at the end. Yeah. What you learn is that the president of Australia is actually sort of a manifestation of 4,000 souls that are on the beach. There's no weird stuff in this. Look, man.

This is a fucking robot guy with 4,000 soul. He can look like any guy. That is a bad faith reading of what I mean. I'm just joking. I also have to circle back real quick. There's a red samurai that you meet throughout the game that doesn't speak but makes the baby noises that Lou makes. And so for a lot of the game, I was like, is Lou? a samurai as a baby but then you find out at a certain point that it's uh dead man

dead man's corpse dead man's corpse because dead man who had died early in the game uh he was able to put his like ha in somebody else's car or something in in heartman's car or something and so like when heart man uh is on the beach he's able to use his body because he's not using it which is an interesting idea. It's an awesome idea, which is really, really, really gay. But then, yeah, the samurai ends up being dead man. But then it's also then not dead man, which is crazy. You, so the president is like, I'm actually going to make a perfect world for everybody where nobody has to leave their houses. Everybody can be in constant communication. He's effectively pitching lockdown. Yes. And given that Kojima rewrote part of this story when COVID happened,

I wonder if that's the part that he rewrites is that the temptation is, what if we made a world where nobody had to go outside anymore? And there is a tension between the desire to have things be tangible and real and the desire to be safe. And this president of 4,000 souls has decided to make everything safe for everybody in exchange for your ability to be free and Charlie kind of sounds like what kind of sounds like real life it does sound like real life except we don't get safety and we just yeah we don't we don't get either thing actually this would be better yeah we just get less free yeah no safety and exchange none yeah these are worse yeah that's how bad it is I'm like I'll take safety over no freedom I guess So it turns out that Charlie, who has been voiced by Dye Hardman this whole time, actually is Dye Hardman.

And he has been reverse hacking this, the president's chiral network in order to prevent the president from taking the actions that he wants to take and locking everybody into their houses. And it seems like every, the day has been saved. There's not a big boss fight. Even Higgs is like, we're not going to have a big boss fight, man. What's the fucking point? and you seem to be going forward with your life but Higgs shows up and kidnaps tomorrow and says actually I'm going to take tomorrow to the to the other side

because tomorrow is Lou. How does that work? Well, here's how it worked. When fragile was shot, she teleported Lou and herself to the beach. She took the bullet. Lou was protected and she left Lou on the other side. And since time works in a different way on the beach, Lou grew up very fast. Yes, but still baby.

But still baby. Yeah. And became tomorrow. Tomorrow then is exported from the beach where she's been protected by Neil Vana this entire time. Neil Vanna, who was protecting the son of Sam or the daughter of Sam. Yeah. Yeah. Protecting the daughter.

of Sam in a heroic martyrdom, despite Sam constantly trying to execute this dude, Neil is protecting, and you can see in his bag, you can see the glowing BB pod. You can see him actively protecting Sam's daughter. Yeah. Sam's daughter is tomorrow. Higgs knows it. And if Sam's daughter is tomorrow that she is also an extinction entity, he can use her to unlock the end of the world.

he brings over to the side of the beach. There's a huge fucking fight where the D.HV Magellan has to be grafted to a BT and punch people like he's Godzilla. While you're running along the beach, it's fight the Red Samurai. Let me tell you something about the Red Samurai fight.

They did not program it well. Yeah, I didn't have a I didn't really have a hard time in the game at all. I played it on normal. I played it on brutal. Yeah. That thing is not programmed to To do it, like, it doesn't know what to do if you just run at it and hit it.

Like, I think it wants to have a shooting match. And that fight in particular, you only have a guitar that shoots. Yeah. That is a gun also. No weird stuff. I want to circle back to Die Hardman's review real quick, though, because you basically learned that he was doing parasite in his own ship. Yeah.

He's like in a fucking closet. Yeah, like everyone's like walking around. He's just like, ooh, like, but, and then you learn that the DHV Magellan stands for Die Hardman's Vessel. And when he does his big reveal, he does so through the art of dance. It does, I'll say, a long dance. A long dance. It's not the only dance in the game either.

There's a great dance that is only triggered by a certain event in the game if you play a song that doll man knows and likes that then triggers a cut scene where a doll man dances you haven't seen this are we talking about the hot springs song no no I haven't seen this I'll send you a link

it's one of these things where like you can there's a lot of stuff in the game that you could just like miss yeah that like tar man's backstory tar man's backstory and like some of it is just like it's not none of it's buried in menus it's more just like somebody saying something

that doesn't really sound significant. Yeah. But like if you kind of just like follow even the smallest thread, something like strange will happen. Yeah. And so like this thing with doll man

like you're in your room and you'll have heard the song from point A to point B like on the, when you're traveling or whatever. And he'll be like, oh man, was that sad song? Sam, Sam, was that song? Was that that song?

Man, I really like that song. I'll tell you something about it if you want. And like, that's it. And so it's on you to then talk to him again. And then he'll tell you about why he likes the song. And then you have to go to your music player in the game to turn the song on. And then from there, he then will do a dance. And it's like, it's unbelievable.

It's great. It's great. Missed that. But yeah. So then back to Higgs and Higgs and Hicks. his, what he's up to. Higgs has been, it's interesting because, uh, the president and A-pass have been behind this, this whole time. Yeah. But then also Higgs has just, I guess, been, because they sort of weaponized Higgs in this way. They, they, they sort of knew that the

only thing that was going to get Sam to do what they wanted to do is was if Higgs, uh, killed Lou. Or somebody killed Lou, right? If Higgs came back and was a threat. Yes. then Sam would have no choice but to connect Australia. Yes. And then the president would be able to unveil his nefarious power. He makes a deal with the debt, like, fucking Higgs is dead. Yes.

He's dead, but he's inhabiting these robots as a ghost. Yes. And the only place you can fight him is on the beach, which you do in the end of the game. Yes. You charge up this beach, you beat the Red Samurai, and then you fight Higgs in a couple of different ways. One is where he's teleporting in between servers. One is where he is up on the shoulder of a giant BT.

And then finally, in a basically one-for-one recreation of the first game's final fight, you get health bars on the top of the screen and you attack each other with guitars until you have beaten the shit out of one another while also once in a while jamming on those guitars. It is very funny that they jam because it's so funny in the first game

that that's what the fight is and then you just have to think that Kojima was like, how do we like spice this up? How do we like make this same point kind of that like, because I think the point that he's trying to make maybe is that like boss fights are kind of dumb because like it's not very exciting like some boss fights are like great

depending on like the game or whatever like the game the bosses in like a soul's game for or even a hollow night for example are designed to be a certain way because there's like attack patterns you got to follow and like stuff like that but sometimes they're just kind of like whatever like and I don't know if a game like this where the story is so dense and you need like and like I think the story is the game not the yeah yeah the fighting right and that's and that's I think um sort of uh hinted at by the fact that you can pretend you've won each boss fight yeah it's like it's like You don't have to do it, actually.

If you lose the fight, you can just pretend you want it with a button press. You can also play a mode where you don't fight the bosses. Like, he doesn't want you to suffer in order to see his story. Yes. I was disappointed by the final boss fight. I mean, I was kind of like, it's this again. But because it was the guitar stuff, I was like, this is good. I was like, I was so bummed when it was.

the same because when that when the first game goes to 2D fighting and you get health bars yeah i looked i was like this fucking game doesn't stop giving it's every thing is so packed with ideas and fun and life and so when it happens again i was like oh we're literally doing the same fight again yeah bums me out i also understand kojima productions needs to make fucking money yes You know, like, and the more time you spend developing a game, like the, I don't know, the turnaround between the initial planning stages of death straining and the execution on death stranding, but it's only been five years to death stranding too. Yeah, which is, I think, remarkably fast for a game in its size and scope, right? I guess, like, the end, like, it is, I did think, oh, it's just this again, but like, I, I, there has to be some reason for it, right? Like, because you think about if it was like a, if it wasn't that and it was just like you're fighting in the same way that you fight all the other characters, that feels unrewarding in a way too, right?

or if you're just, like, using the multi-rocket launcher on Higgs and, like, then it just ends him. And then there's a cut scene where you just, like, obviously blew him up, but then he's going to talk for it. Like, you know what I mean? Like, kind of, it kind of, to me, it is almost like an interactive cut scene because it's like, you're not going to, you're not going to lose that. Right.

And they're saying dialogue during the fight. Yes. You know, like, go fuck yourself. Yeah. And I fucking hate you. Yeah. Fuck you. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. After you beat Higgs, a giant baby version of Lou comes from a womb in reality and eats him. Yes. And then you, in a sort of phantom experience, you re-deliver Lou to your home shelter as you did in the beginning of the game, only to reawaken on the DHV Magellan, where it is revealed that fragile does. died protecting Lou that Lou never died and grew up to become tomorrow and that fragile died on on the beach and because time moves differently her her body was still capable of living on until she was able to finish the mission with Sam yes um you also before this you got a really lovely kissing scene with Sam and fragile yeah where he's just

kissing her corpse when you really sort of deconstruct what's happening. Yeah. He's just like fucking suck in the face of a corpse. Here's what happened to me. My wife comes home. I'm playing this game. We're in the end here.

It's basically all cut scenes from here on out. I'm crying. I'm sitting on the couch and I'm fucking crying. I cried. And my wife is like, are you okay? And I was like, yeah, I was like, I can't explain any of this to you. Like, I can't. There's nowhere to be.

begin. I'm like, I actually probably should just send her the episode, honestly, because like it is like so crazy to try to explain in that moment when I, like, like, experiencing it. And then, uh, and then, uh, like, I was still kind of like in like a bad mood. Not because I was like mad at the, I didn't like the ending in the game or whatever, but I was still so like emotionally raw that I was like not ready to be outside. And then everything was bothering me. I cried when you redo the opening. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I, and I pause the game and I turned to Mary, she was on the couch reading a book. And she's like, you're okay?

And I'm like, you got to bring the baby home? She's like, what? Yeah, yeah. Because I'd also shown her, like, when Di Hardman is dancing, I was like, I think this might be the end of the game. And she's like, oh, let me watch. And we watched. And then he started dancing. And she's like, what is happening?

And I'm like, I don't know. I actually don't think this is the end of the game. This can't be it. But it's, then it, it, it ends, and it's sort of like a, as happy of a resolution as it could be. Sam is reunited with Lou. Who is tomorrow? Who is tomorrow. And she remembers the first game.

She's like, I remember our journey together. And then you see her years later and she has become a porter. Do you think she remembered, um, do you think she remembered me falling down a mountain holding her? I was thinking about the stuff you have to think about When you're playing a game Like just like the cognitive dissonance you have to have Where you're sort of like If I fell with a baby strapped to me down a mountain

At least one of us would be dead Perhaps both Baby's dead Yeah I think that the game But I guess gosh We should really talk about What you think the game I mean the central message of the game

Is just because you're die, just because somebody has died or has passed on, doesn't mean that they're not still with you, which I think is a nice. Of course. It's nice. That's a nice message. I think the game is, and I might be reading into it too much. Yeah.

I think the game is about Kojima's relationship with Metal Gear. Yeah. One of the books that you read in the DHV Magellan is Moby Dick. And Dolman is recaps it for you and is like Captain Ahab had something taken from him. He had a phantom pain. Yeah, phantom pain. And he was never able to recoup that pain. And he became obsessed with the thing that took his limb.

Yeah. And he created a ship of like-minded sailors. And together, they formed something that was going to head out into the ocean and slay the thing that took Captain Ahab's lib. And then Dolman just straight up says, it sounds like Kojima Productions, which is fucking great. But I think beyond what Kojima Productions represents as a ship trying to do battle with a whale that took Kojima's limb, you also have Neil Vana, who is clearly, clearly a stand-in for Snake. Like he looks like Snake, he wears Snake's headband.

And Snake, you are trying, you're trying to execute. snake as Sam you're trying to kill him off but what you don't realize is that snake because snake exists you are able to protect like he is able to protect literal tomorrow yes and that it is misguided of Sam to try and attack the thing to try and kill snake yeah because if it wasn't for snake the things you want tomorrow wouldn't be possible right and so it is very like it is sort of like a communion that they eventually come to, where Sam realizes, oh, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have this. Yeah.

And they kind of make peace with one another, even though he still has this bitterness because Snake cheated, like he was in love with somebody. Yes. And Snake cheats on his lover. It's like I was dating Lucy. Lucy is Konami. Yeah, I was just thinking this too. Yeah. Lucy's Konami. Sam is Kojima. Yeah.

And he thinks he got fucked over by Konami. Yeah. But Neil secretly was protecting his ability to keep moving forward. Yeah. He's, yeah, Neil, Neal, Snake, the reason that we even have Death Stranding is because of Snake in general. Yeah. And so then that sort of then brings me to the concept of Nirvana. Right. the soul returning to a collective consciousness, is that then, do we think that's Kojima sort of reckoning that that creation, that identity, that life that he gave to Snake and Metal Gear is no longer just his.

It belongs to everybody. And I think that's gorgeous. I think that's so great. Look, we might be reading into it. I doubt it because of, Because Dolman just says it's Kojima productions. Yeah, I doubt it as well only because I've yet to see an ounce of subtlety in any of his video games. But it's interesting to think about because like it's so, it's so intentional.

Yeah. It's like, because if it wasn't snake, it wouldn't be snake. You know what I mean? He just wouldn't make him look like. Yeah. And also it's just kind of crazy coincidence that there's also a remake of one. one of his games out there now. Right.

And, you know, there's a lot to be said about that. I know that there's a lot of people that were like, oh, Kojima's not involved. I'm not interested in it. I'm not doing it. I think I was reading something that was like two thirds of the staff that worked on the game, worked on the remake because they're all still at Konami, only like a third of the company left with Kojima.

And I'm like, that's a pretty substantial amount of people. Like that then know, and that they are sort of thinking about it. I certainly would never defend the company. But, like, I think it's like, they were saying that they're, they used that one because that one is like the most polished to, they used that one to remake instead of doing one the earlier ones so they could train a new generation of game designers on metal gear games because like it's like the most metal gear. Yeah. I'm like, that's, it's just interesting information as all. There's a, it's, as a game creator, there's an interesting dichotomy between how on the nose he is. Yeah.

Like how, like, directly he's saying things and then also sort of the crypticness of what his feelings are about a thing, if that makes sense. Yeah. Like, we all have, you know, because we were all exposed to PT, because we were all exposed to Phantom Pain, and because we were all exposed to this very public and sudden breakup between the company that had, you know, that had allowed him to make Metal Gear Sundance. Sons of Liberty, like had said, okay, dude, if you want to do it, go for it. Yeah. And then suddenly being divorced from all of that IP that he had been so personally involved with, you don't really know what happened. Yeah.

And you also don't really know, like, is he angry about it? I don't know. He hasn't spoken publicly about, like, being enrage. No. Like he hasn't given an interview where he's like, there are a lot of. You know, like, I'll cite, like, The Last Jedi when Mark Hamill was like, I don't think Luke would act like this. Yeah. You're like, oh, shit, you know, you have a point of view and you've expressed it in such a raw way.

Yeah. That it is affecting fandom. Yes. Like, you have no idea what Kojima, like, he could be like, I don't give a shit about Snake. It's like a video game. Yeah, yeah. You know, like he could, or he could be like, it felt like losing a child. And so that's why I made Death Stranding to.

Yeah, but then I feel like I've read a lot of people, too, be. like he didn't even want to make a third one like he didn't even want to make a third metal gear which I'm sort of like what there's it's murky but I think the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle yeah like with something like that but it's interesting that he's chewing on it and like I think in the most public way that he ever has like yeah in the direct sequel to a game that people I think love and and that was great but I feel like a lot of people write off as a simply as a walking simulator

which I'm like you that to me is the greatest indication that you don't know what you're talking about and have not played the game actually because I'll tell you what I didn't do that much walking in this game in this game no no you walk a lot in the first one but I wouldn't even call it a walking

simulator I think it's just like you wouldn't call God of War a walking simulator you do a lot of walking in that game the last of us no walking walking simulator you're doing other stuff but you're doing other stuff in Death Stranding, too. There's a point in Death Stranding, too, where, because I,

you know, I would log in and I'd be like, I'll do a couple of deliveries and then I would end up just building roads, because it's all I ever fucking did was build a fucking roads. It's all, I was like, I have to finish these fucking highways. Yeah. There's a late game mission

where Di Hardman's like, okay, this one's a pretty tough one. You got three options of which way to go. You can go straight across the mountain. That's going to be a tough route. You go this way, or you can go that way. And one of the ways he pointed to, he was like, you're going to have to go all the way around.

And I was like, on my highway? Yeah. Okay. Oh, no. You want me to drive on my perfect road, you fucking idiot? So I got on the road and I was just like driving the stuff. Yeah. You do get attacked by motorcycles.

You do. But it was funny to be like, after that, it's just there's no more motorcycles. You just like driving on the road. Yeah, yeah. It is like I, my road, I wasn't completely, I was in a completionist with a lot of that stuff. I didn't level two that road. No, stuff I want to go do, though, and like getting in there.

Like, I had friends that were like, they completed the monorail. Did a lot of money. I did a lot of monorail too, but at a certain point I was like, I'm just not in the mood for mining materials. It's like, I'm good. I think I'm, because also the monorail takes. too long. Montereyle is not that fast. It's a slow rail.

I'm already there by the time the monorail decides to show up. I've already moved on to the next thing. I've already driven to the top of the mountain and pressed jump with my antics. Gravity truck and heard Sam go, oh, Paco. I'm wondering if there's, is there anything else that we feel like we want to get to? I feel like this won't be the only episode about this game we do. But who knows? It might.

It also could be. It could be. I don't know if Nick. I don't know where Nick is in the game. You have some feedback from our friends? I certainly have some of that. I don't know if I have any other more, like, other thoughts. I think that the way the story comes together is really great.

I really love the characters. I love doll man. Doll man's an all-timer for me. I think Neil is great. And obviously, we've spent a little bit of time in like, what are you playing in weeks past talking about some of the quality of life stuff that's changed and some of the newer systems. the stuff that has been tweaked to be more functional and more fun immediately.

And that's the thing that I think that this game has over the first one is that like I think the first game is great, but this game is fun. Yes, this game is more fun. Yes. The fighting is better. You know, combat is clean and fun. Yeah. I do think a lot about the interview that Kojima did or the presentation he did where he was like, you know, the game was playtime.

so well that we had to go back and change it up a little because I was worried that we had made something mainstream. And I kind of agree. It is more mainstream than Death Stranding. Man, I want to go back and play Stranding. Honestly, kind of me too. Like I, I'd be interested just to see, I would like some distance from both, I think, and play them both back to back. It would be kind of fun because it is sort of it is it's almost death stranding 1.5 with like the with how it's uh with it's just more story i i also want to shout out the obvious uh emotional toll the death of the lead singer of low roar took on yeah on kuchima yeah um he talks about how the game wouldn't have the first game wouldn't have happened without low roar and the way this game unlocks music

is that, like, you, the choice of music track that unlocks for you is designed for the greatest amount of vibes or emotional impact. Yeah. And the last few tracks you hear are low roar tracks. Yeah. It was like, oh, fuck, it hurt. And that's just one of the things, I mean, that's like the main thing he's talking about, though, too. Like, I think, like, gosh, like, the game is obviously a lot about the pandemic. The first one wasn't because it came out.

right before it right um which is crazy because it might as well have been about it yeah but this one it was it seems like it was just like a reaction to just like all the losses yeah yeah uh and like just that experience of just like losing people there is really crazy like again i know i leveled some criticism and it it's not because i don't love love love love these two games so fucking much yeah my office has death stranding windows on the wall yeah i've got a fucking BB on my shelf. Yeah. You know, like I, like I listen to the fucking soundtrack to and from work, two and from work,

two and from work over and over again. I love, love this game. And he has such a control of vibes. Yeah. Yeah. Like, there is no other gaming experience that I've had where all I'm doing is going from one place to another and I'm feeling something because of like where he times the music and the way the landscape is designed to be informed by that music.

It fucking rules. Yeah. I honestly would like to see him like make a movie. Like I think it would be interesting. Is he going to? I think he's announced. Oh, he has like a partnership with like Paramount or something. And he's got representation in WME.

It's right. Yeah. And he is doing OD and he's doing Fizant. Yes. And then apparently is going to do a movie after those two. Wow. Yeah. And I know that, gosh, I wish I had the guy's name.

The director of Pig is supposedly doing the Death Stranding movie for A-24. And there's an anime coming of that. But I'm just like, he has such a command on vibes and he's like obviously befriended a lot of directors and like I think studies them and like is just interested in them. I think that he would do, it would serve him well to direct a movie, I think. Yep. In the same way that, like, when we talked about Shin Godzilla last week on Get Animated, Hideakiano of Evangelian directing a live-action Godzilla movie. I was like, oh, like, you could tell that, like, it's not, it's, it's, it's not necessarily think of that as a transferable skill, kind of. Like, I, like, it's because like they're two, they're two very different things.

Right. But then, like, you see his movie and his vision. You're like, oh, yeah, no shit, he can make a fucking movie. Like, it's great. Let's move on to this next part, the Riu crew. Hello! These are all from our Discord.org.g.org.g. slash get played. Here we go. This one's first one's from The Mountain That Abides.

Hello, the Mountain. I'm aware that there's a plot, and I swear I'm invested in the plight of Salmon Company. But God help me, I'm addicted to building and upgrading roads. That's the great thing about the game, and that's one of the things that I think makes it so fun, is that, well, it's also so funny. because like some of the store reveals are legitimately like devastating at points and then the idea they just be like I'm gonna go build a road real quick

Oh that's something that I didn't talk about is So there's a point where it's like Tomorrow's been captured And you gotta go to fucking Mexico And you gotta save her And I'm assuming this is where you're like I can't turn back Yeah I gotta fucking go

Unfortunately the route I took I passed by I had the auto collection The auto collection thing on my I had two two shelters I had not unlocked. And I couldn't figure out what I had missed. And I was like, God, I didn't feel like I rushed this fucking game. And I'm driving across the mountain to get to Mexico. And my auto, my auto grabber grabs a piece of lost cargo from one of these

shelters that I haven't unlocked. And I was like, what the fuck? It's like, it was called like A, A, B, A, A, P or something. Or something. And I was like, what the fuck is that? And I, like, went to my cargo manager. And I was like, wait, what is this? Yeah. And I stopped going to save tomorrow and then just drove around on the mountain being like, it must be in one of these two locations I haven't unlocked. And then found the guy.

And he was weird. And he's like, I'm not ready to go on the chiral network yet. But maybe if you do a couple of jobs. And so I went to his orders and one of them was nearby. And I was like, well, I got to see who this person is. So, so funny. So I, so, like, that's, like, getting in a car accident and then, like, seeing a friend, you know, and then being, like, that friend's like, oh, you want to, like, go do something quickly? It's like, yeah, and just, like, leaving your car there.

Also, like, to the Wilder had, like, started playing. It's, like, driving you towards Mexico. Yeah. And I, when I delivered to this guy, the song stops. Yeah. Because the game is like, like, you're not supposed to. Like, you're not going to fucking go save tomorrow. That's so funny.

So I got him on the. Cairole Network and he starts unlocking all this cool shit. And I was like, well, I want to see what else he can unlock before I go fight Higgs. You can almost buy it a little bit narratively that Higgs will wait though. Yeah. Because he's like so dramatic that he's like, I want Sam to see this like, so I'll just wait to do this without, until he gets here. Because I can't, I can't initiate the final strandings. I still didn't unlock the final, the final whoever the guy is. Yeah, I had a couple of red spots on my map too and it was infuriating. Yeah. But luckily at the end of the game, It's sort of like, you can just kind of do whatever you want now.

But one, now at the end of the game, I only have the one red spot. Okay. Because I stopped saving my daughter. This next one's from Delia N. And they write, the reveal that the mannequin being voiced by Die Hardman was really just Die Hardman the whole time is one of my favorite twists of all time. That's one of my favorite things about this game is that like twists are handled like twists, but they're not really.

Yeah. because there's a point in the game too where like I can't remember if it's like fragile or rainy or something they'd contact you on your communicator thing and they're like hey like somebody logged into like the VR trainings as Charlie but like Charlie doesn't have arms or legs

so like how could he have done that and like it's just like it makes you pick die Hardman and when I was when you do that I'm sort of like well he's just die Hardman right like you're always like A little bit ahead of the reveals in it. I think that's, I think that's a fun way to do twist as non-information.

Yeah. This next one's from fake JSF. I fake. And they write, It's crazy how they took one of the best games ever and made it way better. Dollman is the best shotgun passenger of all time. Agreed. I love Dollman.

Fucking love Dollman. Dollman's an all-timer for me. This next one's from Captain Buzzerbeater. What's up, Cap? The Magellan sound is forever etched into my conscious. my consciousness. It's the first thing I hear when I wake up and the last thing I hear when I go to bed.

It is my cell phone ringtone. It is a good sound. It wasn't jiving with me at first because I missed, also, I changed my ringtones from the first game immediately to the second game, and I wasn't used to them in the second game yet. So I was kind of like, I missed the old sounds a little bit. But now that I know the true nature of the DHV Magellan,

the sounds are bangers. sound design across the board in the game is perfect like every click is pleasurable all of the like there's like a a CRT sound like an on television

sound that happens when you're in the maps and the menus it's like a small buzz and it feels so fucking warm and good there's it's just it's great all the the chimes the tones the voice of the Magellan

like it's great. If he doesn't make any more games, he should just, like, help other games make the sounds good. Yeah, he should just have his fucking team, like, do design like he's, yeah. Joni Ivy. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And finally, from Norman Redis, baby. Hey, Norman. Thanks for listening to the show. Yeah, thanks so much for listening. I think you're a good actor. I don't think he's a bad actor. I just think that I was, I was just craving a little bit more. Okay. I would have got another take. You know, I would have just got, I would have just got, I would There's just, you know, I think everybody, I think everybody did a great job.

You know, in the interviews he's done where he's like, yeah, you know, Hideo is telling me, they're like, okay, now, now you're crying because there's tar coming up out of the ground. And he's like, I don't know what any of this means. Yeah. It's infuriated to me. Can you imagine being in a movie and saying something like that? Like, it's like, I don't know. It's like, to me, I'm sort of like, oh, it's still, it's a, I think it's a new medium for some actors, right? So, like, an actor who hasn't done that many of these.

but has done two other ones with him. You would think that you would sort of have a grasp on the style. But I would also, it wouldn't shock me if Sam, if now we're getting into this is like mean territory. It wouldn't shock me if Norman forgot he was in the first one. He's the one that broke the news that the second one was happening. That's true, right? Yeah.

Norman Reis Baby writes, I wish more game directors inserted random shit into their games like using electric guitars as energy guns or riding a coffin like the silver surfer just for the sole reason that it kicks ass. That is sort of the driving force behind all of Kojima's ideas. It's like, is this cool?

Does this look cool? And the answer is yeah, he's like, good. Is this awesome? Yeah. It is awesome to surf on a coffin. Yeah. And then put a corpse in it and dunk it into the earth.

Didn't even talk about my favorite moment in the entire game. I have to get to this. There's a part on the ship where Dye Hardman is basically like assembling the Avengers of everybody that's on the ship. And sort of every character one by one has a moment and they give you a thumbs up.

And it's like nine thumbs up in a row and you feel like a million bucks. Because you're like, these are my best friends on earth. I love these guys, all of them. Even Tarman's cat. Why not? Who's maybe his son. it's great

I love it it's an all time experience to me and I can't wait to continue to think about it There is weird stuff It's not you know what I mean No of course I wasn't saying

Nothing I was just saying I like the thumbs up I just I love all the fucking I love the cat I love the You know That Tar Man is missing his hands

And he uses it to feel around In the time I love all the fucking weird shit It is good I just miss the layer of Sam you haven't read Nintendo power?

Sam, have you ever read this book? Zan in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Right! It's a contemplative read about a journey. That's this week's Get Played. Our show is produced and engineered by Rochelle Chen Ranch, yard underscore underscore, Sard on all social media and Twitch.

Still doing a sign of the hill too, or are you moving on a silk song? You can be honest. I got to finish Island Hill to you. I have to. It's almost done. You're almost done. Have you met the abstract daddy yet? Yes.

Nasty stuff. Bad man. Nasty business, isn't it? Nasty business. In it. Not all of them can be frieckin' studs like pyramid head. Our show's music is by Ben Prunty.

Ben Pruntymuse.com. Our show's art is by Duck Brigade, Duck Brigade Design.com. And check out our merch, hats, shirts, sweatshirts, and more at kinshipgoods.com. And then you can check on our Patreon. Patreon.com slash Get Played for ad-free main feed episodes. Our compete...

Oh, God, I'm so bad at fucking talking. This is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I should be dull man. I should be Sam not saying anything in some of these cutscenes. Fucking ridiculous. I think you're good at talking. Thanks so much.

Like! Patreon.com slash get played for ad-free main feed episodes. Our complete back catalog and our exclusive show Get Animated where we'll be talking about K-pop demon. hunters my little soda pop join us over on our discord that was just for me that was for you join us our discord discord dot gg slash get played and join the conversation won't you uh and you know who got played this week doll man dollman dollman i would do a not a playable character i would if there was like a like a vm u for the playstation five and there was a dollman

minigame yeah i'd platinum it yeah i want more dollman i don't think i hope we haven't Seen the last of Dahlman. Yeah, Dahlman's great. I love him. You know who got played actually Higgs? Yeah, fuck you Higgs. Sorry, Higgs. Mine's heavier.

That was a Hidgum podcast. Hi, I'm Alana Hope Levinson. And I'm Dan O'Sullivan. And this is the outfit, the new podcast from Higher Ground and Headgum. You know, we're two journalists who are slightly obsessed with the mob and organized crime and other nefarious stuff like that. Every week, we're going to bring you a story about a mobster. Some you've heard of, some you definitely haven't, but all of them are going to help explain why America is like this. See, the mob explains all sorts of things, from milk expiration dates to why we got into Cuba, to Las Vegas.

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