>>713595723
I said it in another thread, but even though the pandering is there if you go looking forward Kojima has never been afraid to pull punches with this kind of shit. Paz got raped AND had a fucking bomb shoved in her womb. Quiet was going to be raped until she got her second wind. Fragile had her own not!rape scene in DS1. And In this game the Motherhood still ends up coming to Sam for help, and even though she isn't exactly the best written character Tomorrow still has to go from learning normal human things and accepting Drawbridge as her home before she suddenly gets the chiral magic powerup that makes her the only character who can match Higgs' teleport spam and power axe in single combat apart from the samurai.

There's a lot of shit I can criticise Death Stranding 2 for, but being woke to the point where it's a major reason what's wrong with it isn't one. Also the game tries, emphasis on TRIES, to make clear Lucy does genuinely love Sam despite her terminally stupid womanbrained decision. Honestly I think Kojima just got it into his head that some kind of tragic love triangle would be kino and filled in the blanks later, because it's not like Neil is even a very interesting character. He just feels like an afterthought made of tragic cliches Kojima thought of, trying to LARP as Solid Snake while still in his confused haunting phase.

>>713594824
I would argue he's better than Mimir, but he's basically your mission control like >>713594904 said and I hate how Ragnarok scuppered what 4 did right. It also turns out he's the one operating the odradek (the funny metal arm Sam used to detect BTs in the first game) and that Lou's physical body has been gone since linking Mexico to the network which to be fair is kind of obvious looking at how quickly Fragile hushes someone who asks early on.

>>713594097
Moreso than any game before, this game really screams that Kojima is a pick-me director.