LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE

The package was unusual. Most deliveries prior to this one had been inorganic, or at least fossilised. Fresh fish? That was an extravagant request in a time when logistics was life-and-death; the last restaurant a bombed-out husk ruled by angry, horrifying ghosts.

But Heartman, the serial heart attack sufferer living on a heart-shaped lake in the heart of Death Stranding’s mountainous region, is an extravagant man. And so I wedged the case flat between the folded ladders and climbing anchors on my back, placed my feet flat against the ground, strongly pushed up from my knees and off I went.

The route, starting out at the bunker of a biologist living two peaks south of Mountain Knot City, was treacherous. The thick snow sapped energy and hung in the air,