The Freelance Camaraderie of Death Stranding

By Diego Nicolás Argüello | July 4, 2025 | 10:30am

Video Games Features Death Stranding 2

The Freelance Camaraderie of Death Stranding

For the past 10 years, my career has been measured in likes.

When you start working in media, one of the first pieces of advice people give you is to build an online presence. It’s important for visibility—those in the field need a profile to associate you with. Appearing multiple times on their feed is the cheapest form of networking, and the promised goals are tantalizing. People might start remembering your name. Some could even follow you back. With luck, you’ll be offered work, camaraderie, or both. But most importantly, you’ll begin to accrue validation, and a sense of belonging, through likes.

As an international writer, getting noticed was of the essence. I didn’t live in any of the major hubs where most of my peers congregated, rendering the possibility of meeting anyone in person impossible until I started actively traveling four years later. I didn’t speak their language natively either. Online, however, it was easier to bridge the gap. I could leave a reply or share an article that, perhaps, would get noticed by someone out there. Somebody I admired could give it a thumbs up or a heart of approval. Innocuous gestures symbolized doors being opened.

I played Death Stranding for work when it launched in late 2019. It was a guides assignment, encompassing collectibles, how-to explainers, and a myriad of leftovers. This meant not only playing a gargantuan game inside out, but doing so in a way that, ironically, created a parallel to the monotonous and solitary deliveries carried by protagonist and fellow freelancer Sam Porter Bridges.

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The routine quickly engulfed me. As soon as I returned from my office job, I’d spend that evening playing and attempting to cover as much ground as possible. I don’t remember much about the individual days of the following month, but I have a collection of Instagram Stories. It was my way of showing friends and family how busy I was playing the latest blockbuster. “Is that the guy from The Walking Dead?” people would ask, referring to the virtual depiction of Norman Reedus.

Death Stranding

During those weeks, Sam was a common occurrence in my stories: November 9 at 12:41 p.m., he’s making faces in front of the mirror. November 10 at 11:47 p.m., he’s drunk, stumbling around inside his private room and smashing objects against the ground. November 13 at 2:45 a.m., he’s seen sitting on his bunk, looking pensive. The next day, at 1:37 a.m., he gives a thumbs up to the camera, his face and body drenched in mud and blood. Shortly after, he makes a finger gun, puts it to the side of his head, and pulls the trigger.

It was one of the first big projects I tackled that seemed like it’d never end. Sam’s travels from point A to B delivering cargo were in aeternum, too. The people he met on his travels showcased support, and trust, in his abilities. They would often reward him with new deliveries to tackle, as well as tools to make his trips less arduous, at least on paper. Most notably, he also received likes.

The main goal of Death Stranding is to connect facilities off the grid into the Chiral Network, the de facto ISP in the post-apocalyptic depiction of America, now named the United Cities of America (UCA). This connectivity extends asynchronously with other players; actions like placing a ladder or building a bridge are reflected in other people’s sessions as well, and vice versa. You never get to see other players in real-time, but their virtual traces are tangible. Although it’s not possible to give them a handshake or a hug as a thank you for their help navigating the environment, you can give them dopamine in the form of likes. Albeit superficial, likes signify two things: what you’re doing has an impact, and there are others to commiserate with out there.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach retains the feature, while also providing sharper parallels around the brittle nature of freelancing in 2025. After the events of the first game, Sam parts ways with the government agency Bridges, to try and live a reclusive life off the grid. As expected, this doesn’t last long. An old acquaintance, Fragile, eventually finds him and asks for help connecting the Chiral Network to Mexico and Australia.

Meanwhile, the situation in the UCA has changed drastically; the Automated Public Assistance Company has automated deliveries, and there’s no longer a need for human porters like Sam. The use of AI has already infested newsrooms in different degrees, despite concerns about inaccuracy, bias, and sheer erosion of the human touch in everyday work. In recent years, companies like Vox Media and The Atlantic signed deals with OpenAI, CEOs proudly pivoted to automation while laying off workers in the process, and major publications like the BBC are still trying to prove that Generative AI can be useful, no matter how shitty the results ultimately are. Outside of journalism, companies like Microsoft are also pushing heavily for AI tools for game development, even when the smallest trace of it has led to significant backlash from people, as seen earlier this week with The Alters, to name just one example of many.

It’s almost unexpected, then, to see Fragile putting her faith in Sam. “This is what you’re good at, remember?” she tells him as a way to dispel his hesitation to embark on a journey he knows all too well. “Did it before, seems like the only thing I’m good at,” he responds when asked about his decision. He’s aware of what awaits him. Moreover, he’s borne witness to how the Chiral Network operates, and how imposing it on other countries means the UCA will extend its influence. He voices his concerns over and over, but it doesn’t matter. The people around him know what to say to convince him. After all, he’s meant to be the vehicle that drives the plot forward, the one porter naive enough to be clouded by praise for his talents, unable to see he’s partially being used to carry the demanding work that nobody else dares to do themselves.

In a similar vein to Death Stranding, it is possible to encounter fellow porters out in the wild in the form of NPCs. It’s easy to recognize them, too—they wear clothes similar to Sam’s, but their heads and mouths are covered. They don’t get to be virtual depictions of Hollywood personalities. Yet, every encounter is a rare kindness, with porters offering tools and items up for trade, as well as gifting Sam a moment of their time.

During the review period of Death Stranding 2, a time in which the public didn’t have access to the game yet, the multiplayer pool was made up of members of the media and content creators. I recognized dozens of names during my travels, which made for a more poignant exposure to the asynchronous connection. The hardships were new, but the solidarity remained adamant, with peers building bridges, ramps, generators, and more. I always made sure to drop a like, and return the favor by also lending a hand to make things easier for everybody. The mud on my boots was harder to scrape. I could wash off the blood on my body after a long day, but not its scars. But I was reassured to know that I could at least expect some likes when I logged on again the next day.

Whenever Sam receives a like in real time, he spouts a one-liner like “feels good” in response. It’s a relatable sentiment—there’s an inherent satisfaction in receiving likes after pulling off a successful delivery, or in placing a ladder to close a gap that helped hundreds of other people. The sentiment isn’t new, nor exclusive to Death Stranding; studies have shown that social media usage can create a dopamine deficit in our brains. The constant exposure to algorithms and a lack of likes can increase depression in teens. Meanwhile, our attention spans are getting shorter, and people are struggling to find alternatives to often homogenized and algorithm-heavy apps. A like is an easy way to feel validated, and that growing codependency is getting more harmful by the day.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that the contemporary likes economy is everything, especially when it’s part of a career from day one. Getting likes from people in media has made me feel noticed time and time again, the thumb-scrolling recognition reinvigorating my faith in myself and my work. Likes have helped me contend with the solitude and hardships that come from freelancing. It can take the form of a state of daydream as evenings and weekends pass by during periods of burnout, jumping from one commission to the next. Sometimes, it’s spending a considerable chunk of a trip you’ve been planning for months playing the latest blockbuster before release, only to spend a week getting hate emails and DMs from people mad at you for your critique. Other times, it’s staying up until 5 a.m. to finish a draft despite having an alarm ready to set off in the next handful of hours. No matter what’s happening around the world or what you put up with daily, the work must continue.

These scenarios aren’t all self-inflicted. As a freelancer, passing on an opportunity is a luxury. You can spend years contributing to a site only for it to be dismantled in the blink of an eye. You witness the degradation of publications that took a chance on you, while doors are perpetually being closed. I’ve met countless people during the past decade. And I’ve also stopped seeing some of their names on my feed over the years. Some people are willing to continue doing the work despite knowing full well all that it entails. Others give a deserved middle finger to the space and move somewhere else instead.

A like gives me a fleeting, artificial sense of place. As Sam would say, it feels good. For as long as the dopamine stays in my mind, I’m reminded that I’m still here. Who knows—10 years from now, somebody might still remember my name.

Diego Nicolás Argüello is a freelance journalist from Argentina who has learned English thanks to videogames. You can read his work in places like Polygon, the New York Times, The Verge, and more. You can also find him on Bluesky.