Note: There are spoilers for the ending of Death Stranding 2 in this article. They are marked, and the article should still function roughly the same with or without them.
But there’s one thing I know
The blues they send to meet me
Won’t defeat me, it won’t be long
Till happiness steps up to greet me
Raindrops keep falling on my head
But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turning red
Crying’s not for me
‘Cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complaining
Because I’m free
Nothing’s worrying me
As the credits rolled on Death Stranding 2, I kind of sat in awe for the next 20 minutes. As the hundreds of names scrolled across my screen, I just wasn’t sure what to do. My mind was racing.
I genuinely think Death Stranding 2 features one of the craziest conclusions that I’ve ever seen in a video game. One of my main complaints with the game to that point was that it hadn’t really surprised me yet in any way. Apparently, Kojima decided to wait for the end of the game to go absolutely nuts. All of a sudden, every loose thread in the game is tied together, and it becomes clear how elaborately planned everything was. There’s several major revelations and moments that completely wowed me.
THIS SECTION HAS MAJOR SPOILERS
One of the last scenes in the game rocked me like nothing else in a conclusion that was blowing me away every ten minutes. Tomorrow is saved by Sam after being taken by Higgs, and she finally remembers that she is actually Lou and that she is Sam’s daughter. She says that she remembers the journey that they went on in the first game, and they embrace. After spending the entire game grappling with the loss of his daughter, Sam now has her again. I have two daughters, and just thinking about that scenario for myself makes the emotion well up inside of me.
As happy as the reunion is, it is also tragic. Sam has a flashback to young Lou right before the reunion. It puts into context that as happy as this moment is, it is also incredibly tragic. As amazing as it is that he has Lou back, they both lost her entire childhood and teenage years. This is a reunion and a resurrection, but it is also a death.
Once again, it was impossible not to think about my own daughter in this situation. First off, she is blonde, just like Lou, so obviously, that doesn’t help. But also, I’m at times guilty of this exact type of scenario in a less dramatic way. My current children are 1 month old and 3.5 years old. There are plenty of fun and beautiful moments with children that age. Getting a big hug from my older daughter feels incredible, I love the little conversations we are currently able to have. My newborn just started smiling, which is also awesome. But these ages can also be very tough, too. The thing I crave the most is to truly be able to interact with my daughters. We can interact now, but I’m excited for the real interactions that are likely not far away for my oldest, but which are decently far off for my newborn. I want to have a full-on conversation with them. I want to explain the world to them and know that they understands what I’m saying. I want to be able to play a video game with them and get their thoughts on it. As great as things can be, it’s so hard sometimes not to dream about the future. This makes me feel like I don’t appreciate the moment I’m in more (which once again is wonderful and beautiful in so many ways).
END SPOILERS
This intersection of an emotional moment combined with my life experience had my mind racing. I felt the beauty of the moment. I felt the sadness of the moment. I felt the twinge of guilt from my own life. All of these strong feelings swirled within me all at once. I felt that feeling when you know that tears might be on the way.
Without thinking, as I was maybe seconds away from tearing up, I did what I always do, completely instinctually. I disassociated. I looked away from the screen a little bit and cut some of my immersion. I thought about something else for a split second. I still paid attention, but I pulled myself out of the swirl of emotions that I was trapped in. I was sitting there by myself. No one was around me to judge me or even witness it. Yet, I felt the need to stop myself. I couldn’t cry. It wasn’t appropriate at that moment. I can’t cry while playing a video game.
Why was it not appropriate? I’m not sure. I would never judge someone for crying when playing a game. Hell, I respect it. The ability to allow your emotions to flow uninhibited and then to share that you had that experience with others is something I genuinely envy and look up to. It shows a level of empathy, but also a level of strength that I want to have. Being able to express your feelings openly is a powerful thing, and it takes bravery at times in our society. I also think being able to cry at the small things can, at times, make the big things easier to manage. Inevitably, when you hold it all in, the dam break is much more severe when it finally happens. You might be in pain about one thing, but other wounds are also finally being confronted in that moment. This is not a healthy way to live.
I know all of this, and yet, I just can’t do it. Even in private. When you are a boy in particular, crying has almost exclusively negative connotations. General societal expectations and the way most of us were raised make it where if that feeling comes, you need to push it down. That was considered the strong thing to do. The right thing to do.
Obviously, there are special circumstances where it is accepted and where I am in turn able to cry. The only thing that brought me to tears in the past decade were things related to my dog and his eventual passing. I’ve been fortunate not to lose any close friends or family in that time period. But anything beyond that? I just know how to turn my mind off when it’s coming. I know why I do this. But I can’t break the cycle, even knowing that the things that I learned for my entire life about crying were not true.
But I wasn’t really dwelling on avoiding my emotions in that moment. I had just done what I always do, and that was it. Instead, I continued to sit and think about what happened in a bit of a daze. I was still a bit rocked by the events that just transpired.
Then, some music hit that caught my ear. It was Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head by BJ Thomas. It plays at the very end of the credits, and the lyrics are at the top of the article. It’s a song that plays many times throughout Death Stranding 2. If you play the game, you will undoubtedly know at least the main lyrics by heart because it’s such a catchy song. It’s one of those songs that I feel like everyone knows, but they might not know from where.
The song is about having a positive attitude through adversity. Frankly, the song could be used to describe a lot of my mindset in life. I’m someone who always tries to look on the positive side of things. Complaining doesn’t help me feel better if things are rough. And as I said before, I’m certainly not going to cry.
But even though this song played something like twenty minutes after the moment that made me almost cry, I was still in that daze and still just lost in some feelings. At that moment, I heard a few lyrics. Suddenly, the song felt ridiculous.
There are many moments in life where I think this song has a strong message. However, if you were to play it after something truly, incredibly sad, you would kind of look psychotic. After my dog died last year, I think it would have made me want to punch something if it played while we drove my dog’s body to the pet funeral home we went to.
This, in turn, made me think about what I had personally just done during the end of the game. I had just experienced something that had truly moved me. Once again, why didn’t I let myself fully feel what I wanted to feel in that moment? It was a moment I could explicitly relate to. It was a moment I could learn from. It was a moment that could change me. What’s wrong with feeling something?
The answer to that is nothing. There’s nothing wrong with crying during a video game. Once again, I think it’s healthy. I wonder if crying here and there would have helped me last year when my dog passed away. I cried many times in the weeks after that happened. Each time, it set my wife off and made her start to cry, too. This was in part because she was sad, of course, but it was also because seeing me cry was a bit unsettling for her, since she isn’t used to it. I can’t help but feel like some of those tears were a byproduct of other things that I’ve pushed down over the years as well.
When I cried during my dog’s passing, I was mostly focused on my dog and the sadness that was overwhelming me. But also, it bugged me a little to cry in front of the doctor who was helping him pass on. It bugged me to cry at the funeral home as I mourned him. There was 5% of me that felt a little bit of shame in that moment. And I shouldn’t feel that way. I know that, but knowing and doing can be very different things.
I have to imagine that the first step to overcoming that shame is just being comfortable enough to experience these feelings when I’m alone. Before anything else can happen, that is the first step. Perhaps video games, which are the main artform that I spend my time with, can be the thing that helps me bridge that gap and begin that journey of healing.
I’m not going to go into my next emotional video game with a goal to cry. But the next time that moment comes, my goal is to not fight it and let whatever happens happen. I’m not sure if I’ll do it, but I don’t want to be embarrassed anymore.
In a weird and pretty unintentional way, Kojima and Death Stranding 2 helped me finally come to grips with something small but important. It also intentionally helped me come to some realizations that I needed to have about parenthood. I don’t think Death Stranding 2 is a perfect game plot wise, but that last hour or so made every moment worth it, and it may have helped me break a barrier that I have had up for a very long time.
Big Nerd Gaming 
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