Hideo Kojima’s action RPG, Death Stranding , reflects the emotional challenges of parenting. It resists easy answers to these challenges.
The player must regularly “soothe” the crying BB by gently rocking the controller. Sam’s plot arc hinges on forming emotional connections with his BB and learning to care for other people. Death Stranding links parenting with loss, grief, and caregiving. It resists cliché images of parental bliss, but also avoids sci-fi depictions of pregnancy as monstrous it does reflect the fact that caring for a child is difficult, scary, and potentially isolating. The game focuses on how caring for someone makes you vulnerable and opens you up to the potential for horrific loss.
At the end of the game, the newly reconnected “United Cities of America” that Sam has brought together, demands that he decommission, or kill, the BB that he has grown attached to. Sam chooses to isolate himself from society in order to care for BB.for Death Stranding 2 last week, and it looks like the new game is going to continue this theme. The tagline: “should we have connected?” hints at the fact that caring and emotionally connecting are not always easy or purely positive experiences.