The return of antagonist Higgs Monaghan in Death Stranding 2 can open up a whole can of worms for the upcoming sequel, from giving the villain a more compelling storyline to bringing back his silly antics. In fact, one of the strangest parts of Higgs' obsessive personality in Death Stranding could return in order to continue tormenting Sam Bridges with ridiculous delivery requests.
Though most of what Higgs does in Death Stranding trends more toward the psychotic, he is also responsible for a set of missions that eventually leads to a massive lore drop about the villain. However, the process of acquiring that lore involves making a series of timed deliveries that could give Peter Parker a run for his money.
Higgs' Pizza Deliveries for Peter Englert in Death Stranding
Easily the most ridiculous thing that Higgs does in Death Stranding is order a number of deliveries for a prepper near Late Knot City named Peter Englert. Specifically, these deliveries task Sam with carrying a series of pizzas from increasingly distant locations, often requiring either a road or bridge to be built in order to properly bring the item to the disguised Higgs. To add insult to injury, the pizzas aren't allowed to be turned vertically at all, meaning that they either had to be held in trucks or on Sam's back in very specific ways.
Furthermore, every time Higgs would send Sam one of these missions to pick up a pizza, he would never be home to actually accept it. So, not only are these deliveries time-sensitive and difficult, but unlike everything else Sam passes from Prepper Station to Distribution Center, no one benefits from all the trouble. At least the payoff is learning more facts about Higgs in Death Stranding, although that could open the door for more lore drops to fill in the blanks in the next game.
More Pizza for Death Stranding 2
With the announcement for Death Stranding 2 including an apparent return of Higgs, this could also mean that the next game in the Strand series could keep up the tradition of giving Sam a side job as a Pizza Delivery Man. Hopefully, this will go beyond simply forcing the player to keep the package horizontal and might flex some of the new mechanics and limiting factors unique to the upcoming title. The added level of difficulty of these pizza deliveries could be a useful tool for making sure that players can experience the depth of the traversal.
On top of the deliveries adding an optional difficulty, they are a nice point of levity in an otherwise oppressive and dark game world. Giving the player the option to take on a mission as silly as delivering pizza, with the punchline always being that the recipient missed the package, helps to keep the dour atmosphere from being completely overbearing. It's part of the villain's personality that could certainly be expanded on to keep the vibe fun if Higgs takes a larger role in Death Stranding 2. That is something that the antagonist definitely needs after how vile he can be to the protagonists.
Bringing back the pizza deliveries can also be another setup for Higgs to leave behind some more lore and exposit on his backstory. Considering the villain has somehow come back to life after dying on the beach, and has a creepy new look to him, there should be plenty of new lore to dive into from this new version of Higgs. So, players should be on the lookout for any new missions from Higgs, Peter, or any other physicist-related scientists to recapture the magic in Death Stranding 2.
Death Stranding 2 is set to release in 2023 for PS5.