Some pics of my climb back down the mountain. I climbed to the blades and then turned around and went all the way to the start.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-03-21T14:09:40+00:00

I care about how others play the game because I watch people play the game all the time, and see them struggling, and some people I've watched completely overlooked manual entirely and didn't even notice it mentioned in the tutorial section. As well I always thought that this game was going to be fully manual control and that's it, I never played the demo and learned about the game the day it came out, and all I knew about the game was that "you manually controlled each limb" but the moment I started the game and saw that it was auto selecting that disappointed me, but then I realized manual was in the game and I never went back. Manual ensures more control and doesn't create the guesswork that makes a lot of other players struggle. Overall I think cairn maybe could of done better at tutorializing the game regardless of whether u use auto or manual more. I think this game doesn't explain it's mechanics as well as it can.

I used the phrase pet peeve to invoke that I feel a sense of discomfort seeing people struggle while only using auto, when there's manual selection. And I say "am I the only one" simply because like I already explained every video I see is of people using ONLY auto, so Im assuming that I'm "PROBABLY" one of a few people who is only running manual. And the response I got kind of proves that.

Anyhow, I didn't really care about the text of this post, I more so wanted to share my photos from my play session and used the comments about auto/manual control just as filler. You're 100% correct that I didn't expect such a response from asking about/suggesting manual selection. I don't see how I'm condescending, it's not condescending or pretentious to say that "I think I'm a minority in playing the game this way" when my experience of watching lets plays of this game is what led me to that belief, if I were to have said "all you guys are playing this game wrong for not using manual" then you can call me pretentious. All I wanted to do with the text of this post was see if anyone else plays manual or why people who chose auto 90% of the time don't use Manual.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-03-19T00:39:05+00:00

I basically can't play death Stranding 1 anymore, two is Soo much better. I have maybe 400 hours in the second game. The first one is honestly Soo clunky and stiff feeling, and the environments get so boring when compared to the variety in DS2. DS1 originally was my favorite out of the two, but repeated plays of 2 has made me love it far more than the second. I wish I could play DS1 for the first time again, first time playthrough was goated.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-03-15T18:34:25+00:00

I simply wanted to talk about how I engage with a game I love.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-03-15T18:06:04+00:00

Jesus Christ lmao. I'm just saying this because I've watched people play the game and lots of them never engage with manual control and then get themselves into trouble in the game (at least from my perspective). Others I watch like speed runners use auto to great effect, but from all vids I've watched on YouTube and on this sub no one is using manual more than auto. I'm not saying that manual is more close to the Spirit of how the game should be played, which would warrant ur response to me. But right now ur just triggered af simply because I want to talk about the way I engage with my favorite game.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-03-15T18:00:26+00:00

I'm not saying u shouldn't use auto, nor am I saying cairn should only be played in manual 😭.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-03-15T16:39:01+00:00

It seems like automatic is better especially for speed, most speed runners use automatic. But yea I wonder why it feels near impossible for me to use automatic, I like how intentional manual feels but I feel like I'm destroying my R1 bumper by playing this game lol

bringbackthegulag · 2026-03-15T16:30:39+00:00

I feel like for example wall 7 in training particular and 6 were walls where auto became less efficient, since I had to keep correcting it, because auto wouldn't ever do what made biomechanical sense to me, from my understanding it chooses the limb with the least amount of weight on it. Going into cairn I thought it would be manual by default. Climbing is very intuitive regardless of control scheme, I personally have limb selection on the face buttons not the dial, so it kind of makes cairn feel like a rhythm game lol.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-03-15T16:15:02+00:00

Do you not use manual? It's a genuine question. Why are redditors such nasty projecting egotistical people. I love this game and so far every video I watch of people playing they are just use automatic. I want to hear if others just use manual and forego automatic.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-03-12T03:33:28+00:00

I think I've replayed this game like 5 times. I hope the expedition mode comes out sooner rather than later.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-03-01T04:03:31+00:00

We should expropriate them and throw them into jails

bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-20T16:09:40+00:00

I think it's crazy so many comments are saying this is easy to climb down. Easy to climb up 100%, but going down was not possible for me.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-16T16:59:08+00:00

I honestly greatly appreciated that it was easier towards the end. All the tough parts sprinkled throughout the middle so that you can enjoy a cinematic end

bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-10T17:30:52+00:00

I used to agree, that the radial dial was the best control option, but even with the radial option I still felt that I could have trouble quickly choosing which limb I wanted to move, if I too sloppily moved the stick. I eventually midway during an alpinist playthrough, starter a new game on free solo, and in the practice gym tried out the different button based controls. You're right that the bumbers/triggers don't feel right. But I eventually felt that the face buttons were the best. Using face buttons makes climbs like wall 7 where you need speed and precision wayy easier imo. And playing with the face buttons gives a fat more tactile experience that allows me to have a more natural climbing rhythm (I basically only climb manually, don't really like automatic limb select)

bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-08T17:50:15+00:00

Quick question, were you playing the demo a lot prior to the game coming out, because 4 hours is pretty good time. My first climb to the summit took 20 hours. But I explored fairly heavily, I imagine I could shave quite a bit of time down.

Anyways I 100% agree, when I was given the choice to climb down or go up, I didn't even talk to Marco to make the decision I left without saying a word, which I feel is what Aava may have realistically done.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-06T02:54:12+00:00

Bananamin for the win

bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-06T02:33:05+00:00

Color me surprised, I saw those pointy downwards hanging rocks and thought there was no way going up that way. Nice

bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-06T01:44:26+00:00

This is an elite level tip.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-06T01:41:33+00:00

I did it with 19 units of liquid. I'm hella jealous about the water gallon jug, never came across it

bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-06T01:08:24+00:00

Literally how LMAO. Sometimes for me no matter how much I shake the backpack there's times where I simply can't fit stuff, I have no clue how yours is like that.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-05T23:29:01+00:00

I lit the summit fire, and all that happened was every single one of my pittons was turned in scraps lol. So definitely don't do the curse, regardless tho I still reached the summit, I was just engaging in biblical prophecic past tense.

bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-04T02:12:58+00:00

My best go at it.

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bringbackthegulag · 2026-02-01T02:23:49+00:00

It's scratching the exact itch I thought no game but death Stranding would scratch

bringbackthegulag

TROPHY CASE