it’s monday, so i’m going to keep this short and sweet: death stranding 2 players are slobs. some slight spoilers ahead.

like its predecessor, death stranding 2 features a type of asynchronous multiplayer where your game is affected by the actions of others. paths form in stony or heavily wooded areas as more people take the same routes through them. players contribute to the building of infrastructure like paved roads and monorail systems. a delivery abandoned in one game can be picked up and completed in another.

while this is largely what makes the death stranding series feel so unique, it also has the unfortunate side effect of contributing to a lot of clutter. approaching some shelters with anything larger than sam on foot is a nightmare thanks to the inevitable glut of trikes and off-roaders inexplicably left behind by other players. i was so happy to finally 100% my relationship with preppers like old oz at the government base and the rainbow lorikeets in rainy’s shelter, for instance, because getting to them proved to be a nightmare each and every time.

okay, sure, on some level i can understand vehicles being left outside shelters, but what about those that appear in the middle of roads? i can’t tell you how many times i’ve been using a highway to make a delivery between two shelters only to run headlong into a truck left smack dab in the energy zone (the area of the road that lets you boost without spending energy). it’s so specific and annoying that people have to be doing it on purpose.

fellow death stranding 2 players: your mothers raised you better than this. do we really want to be serial litterers in a game all about bringing the world back to life? do your part by not abandoning vehicles in vital pathways or roads, and if you find that impossible, at least move them to the side. some of us have better things to do than get out and delete them from our worlds, like hanging out with chvrches and a bunch of rescued echidnas at the animal shelter.