Sometimes, we do things because we must. Such was the case recently with one YouTuber’s burning desire to know: Is it possible to spell out your name with pee in Death Stranding?
Hideo Kojima’s hiking simulator allows Sam Bridges (Norman Reedus) to relieve himself after pounding back a Monster energy drink. Most players use this silly mechanic to grow mushroom clusters, which can then be harvested to replenish your blood. But when Death Stranding fan Reetae27 happened upon the game’s snowy portions and noticed that his steps left an imprint, he wondered what might happen if he peed on it.
To his disappointment, the snow didn’t yellow, but it did deform. And so Reetae27 set off on a two week journey to do the absurd — spell out his username in the game. From the onset, he knew it was possible because of how much pee Sam can hold.
“The fact that you can hold 1,000 ml of urine in this game is totally generous,” he tells Polygon over Twitter DM, adding that an actual human should only be able to hold about 500 ml.
“Fortunately, Kojima is not confined by such things,” he continues.
Even so, the roadblocks kept piling on. The first and most immediate one was that spelling out his name and getting it to stay required him to stay close to the affected snow. But proximity also made it hard to properly draw the words, especially as his footprints added to the tableau.
So, he then seeks out the high ground provided by bridges. At first Sam is too shy to pull it out with a hologram nearby, so he has to disable those. Then he finds out that most bridges aren’t built over a flat and clear enough area to draw upon — because then, no bridge would be necessary. Reetae27 has to build an entirely new bridge to make his pee artwork happen. Finding a locale that even let him put something down took some time, never mind getting there with the proper materials. The video, which is worth watching, has a few other hiccups in it as well.
He accomplishes his lofty goal by the end, a feat that he estimates took about 15 hours overall over the course of two weeks. And, good guy that he is, the video ends with him giving other interested parties tips on how to spell out words with your pee like a pro.
“Every now and then, I get inspired to see if I can push the limits of a game that I’m playing,” Reetae27 tells Polygon. It’s true: Before this, Reetae27 infamously nearly broke Marvel’s Spider-Man by attempting to get a basketball through the open-world game’s hoop. May the hijinks never stop.