Eventually, I reached a particularly treacherous part of the game where most of my deliveries involved hiking through thick snowfall. A few players had braved this area before me, but I found many of their structures to be incomplete. A makeshift series of magnetic ziplines covered some peaks, but there were no connecting ziplines on the most obvious paths. The foundation of a more complex system was there; all it needed was some work to become the thing it could be. Instead of progressing forward with the story, I gathered the materials I needed and ventured through BT territory to place the required ziplines, ones that could allow travel over the most dangerous areas, the areas that Death Stranding clearly expected players to pass through.
It was not easy. Time and time again, I was dragged to the ground by shadowy ghosts and pulled into a stream of tar that rushed me away from my destination. I fired bullets coated in my own blood and threw grenades containing my sweat at massive beasts until I somehow managed to get where I wanted to go. Over the course of several hours, digital blood and sweat literally spent, multiple hikes through the worst conditions accomplished, I connected my ziplines with the broader network. Anyone who came after me would be able to use them, crossing over the mountains easily and flying over the BT’s feasting ground. I’m proud of those ziplines, of the work that went into making them. I’m thankful to the strangers whose devices I literally connected with to make something that would benefit not only us, but everyone who stumbled through the treacherous paths after us. There was no real point to doing this, other that it could be done and I thought it should be done. I needed to do it. I needed to build something.
