I’ve been playing a lot of Death Stranding by Hideo Kojima lately. I’m still on Chapter 3 so no spoilers, but it’s a surprisingly fun game that has a deeper message I feel few people are talking about.

To give a very, very simplified explanation of the game you are a Porter, a deliveryman in a post apocalyptic world trying to keep mankind alive one package of food, water, medicine or others goods at a time. The world is inhabited by ghosts called BTs that are drawn to the living and kill them, there are Preppers who try to survive in bunkers without ever leaving the safety of their bunkers and rely on Porters to keep them alive, Terrorists who want to watch the world burn, and MULEs who are Porters that have been driven insane and hoard items like Smaug in The Hobbit.

I believe our real-life society is comprised of the various characters you find in the game. We’re all either Porters, Preppers, BTs, MULEs, or Terrorists.

You can even see this in the game itself based on what players are building. Those who craft carefully constructed bridges, drop ladders in convenient locations, put an extra pair of boots in remote Postboxes are the Porters. People who are trying to be helpful and make life easier for someone else.

Preppers are the players who never progress very far in the game. They hunker down in the early stages and spend weeks crafting bridges, transporting cargo between the main Knots in Chapter 2 or 3 and never progress. They’re comfortable where they’re at and having fun, they don’t want to keep going where the game might become too difficult.

MULEs are harder to spot, but they’re out there. These individuals will have lost cargo littering the countryside and in Shared Lockers. It’s almost like they set out brimming with cargo, realized they couldn’t haul it all so they drop some only to pick up the next container they come across. They have a compelling need to gather and deliver everything they come across even after they find out they can’t.

Terrorists are probably the craftiest players in the game. These are the ones who build bridges that have boulders on the other side to smash into your vehicle. They’ll place climbing anchors on cliffs going nowhere to convince people to go up, realize they can’t go anywhere, and then climb back down while the terrorist gets two likes for someone using the anchor. They’ll put a pair of boots in the postbox that has 1% durability left. They’re the ones wedging vehicles in the entrances of bunkers to prevent players from making deliveries.

What’s most devious about these types is they’re doing it for hypothetical giggles. They never get to see someone struggle to get into a blocked bunker or watch someone climb up a cliff only to go back down. The only information they have about how successful their trick was is how many likes they got on the useless climbing anchor, if that. Its mischief for the sake of being mischievous.

Then finally the BTs. These are the most tragic players in the game. These are the people who are desperate for likes. They’ll have signs littering the area in the hopes that someone approaches one and gives it validation. They’ll have rows of ladders next to each other to increase the odds that someone uses one of theirs.

It could be they’re trying to maximize their like accumulation to level up their character faster, but likely they’re doing it to be liked. They crave and need validation and this game gave them a convenient, straight forward avenue to receive that validation. These are the kind of people who post their lives on social media and beg for people to read it.

They’re BTs, the clingy, desperate souls who want something they don’t have.

Depending on how you look at it this game it’s either proof of humanity’s greatness or evidence of its darker side. I think it’s a bit of both and it’s what makes Death Stranding a very effective and chilling horror game that I love to play.

Like in the game I feel most people in real life are either BTs or Preppers. BTs in the sense that many people are seeking validation, desperate to be liked, to be heard, to be noticed, and clinging to the smallest amount of attention they get. Preppers in the sense that people are afraid to try new things, apply for a new job, go dating, socialize and make friends, start businesses, do something to step out of their comfort zone and improve their own lives. They’d prefer someone else to do the hard work for them.

Terrorists are those who reject the obligation, duty, and requirement placed upon them by other members of society. They want to do whatever they want and are willing to harm others to drive that point home. They’re so disgusted by the expectations they’ll silence or hinder those who try to put burdens on them any way they can.

MULEs are those who are trying to be productive beneficial members of society but either got lost along the way or went about it wrong right out of the gate. They’re constantly picking up new projects before abandoning them for something shiny on the horizon. They’re the ones who bounce between trends and fads. These are the people who will have been on a dozen different diets before the year’s out and only lose a pound or two, they’ll have dozens of resolutions and only achieve a few if any.

The actual Porters are the productive healthy members of society. Those who are capable of going anywhere they want and doing whatever they want. They are under no obligation to do anything for anyone, like in the game life is about survival and their needs trump everyone else’s. Yet society expects them to do what Preppers are too afraid to and they’re shouldered with everyone else’s burdens.

You can interpret this however you like. These are the good friends who listen to other people’s drama while bottling their own depression and anxiety. It could also be the productive members of society expected to subsidize the laziness of other people. It could be healthy, well adjusted individuals expected to justify the unhealthy, destructive behaviors of others.

Some do it willingly and happily, others do it because they feel like it’s expected of them, and others do it because they fear the punishment for not fulfilling their so called “responsibility”.

What makes this terrifying and why the game is so interesting is because the first group leads to effective and legendary Porters, the second group eventually become MULEs obsessed with trying to do their best and getting lost along the way, and the latter rebel and become Terrorists.

All the while these member of society have to fend off and fight the BTs. Those friends who want to monopolize their time to endlessly talk about their problems, fans clinging to the successful members of society in the hopes of getting 15 seconds in the limelight, people seeking validation from those who can validate them.

Like I said, this game is either encouraging and heartwarming or downright terrifying and ugly.

It’s also a great reminder going into the new year. If you’re honest with yourself and look inwardly which group do you belong to?

A clingy BT seeking validation?

A Prepper refusing to leave your comfort/safe zone?

A MULE taking on more than you can carry?

A Terrorist tearing down others who are trying?

Or are you a Porter making the world a better place?

And if you’re a Porter why are you doing the things you’re doing? Are you helping, contributing, and producing because you genuinely want to? Are you doing it because you’re expected to and it’s your obligation and duty? Or are you doing it because you don’t want to be punished?

I’d say I’m a Prepper trying to become a Porter who’s dangerously close to becoming a MULE. I want to get out of my comfort zone, improve my life, and do cool things, but I run the risk of trying to do too much all at once.

I’ll pick up a package or two along the way, drop a few likes here and there, but honestly my goals for this year (in real-life) are to improve my life and my family’s life. If my goals coincide with helping others and I have space to shoulder a burden or two I’ll do it, but I wont load myself down with other people’s burdens to the point I can’t walk and I certainly wont go the opposite direction of my dreams and ambitions because someone too afraid to leave their comfort zone expects me to in order to benefit them.