I played the first Death Stranding at launch when it was new, and didn’t finish it. I then restarted it later on, after it had been out a while, and played it all the way through to the end.

So regarding the chiral network, I kind of had both experiences: forging new paths before the community knew what the optimal routes were, laying down infrastructure for other porters to find and use and upvote and generally feeling like I was at the forefront of something.

Then later it was the opposite, following in well-worn footsteps, in a world that felt like it had been lived in by other porters, with a lot of quality-of-life advantages that come with taking advantage of the groundwork someone else has already laid.

I’d like to think I would have finished Death Stranding the second time regardless, because I really wanted to see it through, but I also wonder if perhaps being able to make use of the paths forged by other played actually helped ferry me along towards the endgame. Made it smoother sailing and more conducive to continued play.

I’m looking forward to Death Stranding 2, but I’m not going to play it on the PS5. I’ll wait until it inevitably comes to PC, with some sort of director’s cut or whatever. And then I’m honestly going to have to think about if I play it day one and blaze the trails (which is fun) or wait back a minute and let the chiral network really start to hum with life.