Death Stranding graced PS4s this year from the creative powerhouse that is Hideo Kojima, the man who brought one of PlayStation's best exclusive (at first) franchises, Metal Gear Solid, to life. Naturally, Kojima's follow up to his most popular video game series, along with his cancelled horror masterpiece P.T., would be an equally epic title with a complex and intriguing narrative.
As is the case with any of the cinematic journeys that comes out of Kojima Productions, Death Stranding has the type of story that takes time to chew on, digest, and eventually realize that while there are holes, is a fantastic experience. And while the story has dozens of twists and turns that shroud the lore of the post-Death Stranding America in mystery that rewind to explain scenes through emails and interviews, it's still best to tackle the story as the game presents it.
Prologue: Porter
The Prologue of Death Stranding begins with a minor introduction to the affects of the Timefall rain that speeds up the flow of time on whatever it touches. Sam Porter Bridges travels by Reverse Tricycle, a modified motorcycle used by Porters, before crashing due to a mysterious woman appears out of nowhere to stand in his way. After the crash, Sam has to take refuge in a small cave in order to wait out the Timefall, along with whatever else the weather brings with it.
While in the cave, Sam encounters a BT and meets the mysterious woman, where after a tense moment they have a short conversation about who they are and what they need to do next. The woman calls Sam by his full name, Sam Porter Bridges, repeatedly before leaving while Sam sleeps through the remaining Timefall. After waking up, Sam leaves the cave and finishes his delivery before being picked up by a Corpse Disposal team to help navigate through BT territory, which he is a valuable asset for thanks to his DOOMS.
While traveling through BT territory, the team is attacked by BTs and the other two members that picked up Sam are killed in the attack. Sam survives long enough to save the BB unit that one of the Corpse Disposal members had on him and witness a Voidout that destroys the area as well as the nearby Central Knot City.
Episode 1: Bridget
After surviving the antimatter explosion known as a Voidout, caused by a BT consuming a living person, Sam wakes up to find himself in a Bridges facility where he meets Deadman. Deadman informs Sam of the overall damage of the Voidout and tasks him with bringing medical supplies to President Bridget Strand, who is in a nearby facility within Capitol Knot City. Sam reluctantly takes on the job and goes to visit the woman who is described as being "like a mother" to him.
When Sam arrives, Bridget makes a request for him to help rebuild America, dying shortly after making the request in a remarkably dramatic fashion. Once again, Sam reluctantly agrees in a cryptic fashion, expressed by the Cuff-Link that he has attached to his wrist. Sam's next task is to take Bridget's body to an incinerator, which he accomplishes with the help of the BB he rescued and a lucky break with the BTs being reluctant to touch his blood.
Episode 2: Amelie
After burning Bridget's body, Sam returns to Capitol Knot City, where he is given the true task of connecting America. Amelie Strand, Bridget's daughter, speaks to Sam, Deadman, and another newly introduced character, Die-Hardman, through a hologram. Amelie informs the three that she has been captured at Edge Knot City, the last city on the West Coast of what once was America and request that Sam travels across the continent to come free her, connecting other cities along the way.
Sam accepts the request, claiming he'll do it for Amelie, and heads out with a special device known as a Q-Pid to fully connect the Prepper Stations and Knot Cities that Amelie had set up on her trip out West to the Chiral Network. Leaving from Capitol Knot City, a city built on the ruins of Washington D.C., Sam heads west, connecting distribution centers and cities on the way, until he reaches Port Knot City. At Port Knot City, Sam is attacked by a man called Higgs who summons a Giant BT to kill Sam, but fails as the porter is now equipped with grenades powered by his own blood that can kill BTs.
After the altercation, Sam meets the mysterious woman again who introduces herself as Fragile and the two take a boat across the Great Crater Lake to Lake Knot City.
Episode 3: Fragile
On the trip to Lake Knot City, Fragile reveals a bit about herself, such as how most of her body has been damaged by Timefall rain, and that she runs her own delivery company. As Sam arrives at the Central Region of America, West of the Great Crater Lake, he connects to people who all have different perspectives on Fragile. Some claim that she's a hero who saved the lives of half of South Knot City, while others call her a terrorist who destroyed Middle Knot City.
Fragile doesn't refute either claim, instead letting Sam come to his own conclusion before letting him in on the truth after Higgs attempts to trick him into sending a bomb to South Knot City. After destroying the bomb, Fragile tells Sam of how Higgs had tried to make her do the same, but when she found out what she was carrying, he stopped her from getting rid of it right away and made her run through Timefall rain in order to save the city. Only Fragile's head and face is unaffected by the rain due to a mask Higgs granted her, but her body is forever altered by the effects of the Timefall.
Episode 4: Unger
After saving South Knot City from Higgs' nuke, Sam connects the city with his Q-Pid, but due to a disturbance the Chiral Network is having on the atmosphere, a supercell appears and sucks him up into the center of the storm. Somehow the supercell transports Sam to a Beach, the point in-between the land of the living and the afterlife, that takes the form of a war-zone and is inhabited by a crazed soldier who is looking to steal Sam's BB. Up until this point, this soldier has been seen in flashbacks when hooking up to BB and appears to be the Bridge Baby's father.
After a battle with the mysterious man, Sam appears outside of South Knot City again, with almost no time at all having passed since entering the War-zone Beach. Sam is then given his next assignment, to bring supplies to Mama who is looking to fix the issue with the Q-Pid that caused the Chiral disturbance in the atmosphere in the first place.
Episode 5: Mama
Upon arrival at Mama's Lab, located in the ruins of a hospital that was destroyed in Higgs' first attempt to blow up South Knot City, it is revealed that the baby that Mama has been caring for is actually a BT that died in her womb and failed to cross over the beach. Mama seems to have come to terms with the fate of her child, whether she likes it or not, and continues on with the mission to connect America. Giving Sam a new Q-Pid, Mama sends him to Mount Knot City, where he needs to meet with Lockne, the person responsible for the Q-Pid's software and tells him that she can fix the disturbance.
Sam does as she asks, traveling to Mount Knot City, only to find that Lockne is far from cooperative, due to her thinking that Mama had abandoned her and stole her child. Mama then asks Sam to bring her to Lockne, but not before granting Sam a Chiral Cutting Cuff that allows him to sever the ties of BTs, which he first tests on Mama's BT child. After cutting the cord that ties Mama's baby, Sam takes Mama and leaves for Mount Knot City, but they are attacked by Higgs who summons another Giant BT to stop Sam.
After escaping (or killing) the BT, Sam manages to get Mama to Mount Knot City where she reunites with Lockne, and the two share an otherworldly bond that informs Lockne of exactly what Mama was going through. Shortly after arriving, Mama dies, but her spirit transfers into Lockne and the two fuse into one person. Finally reunited with her sister, Lockne willingly upgrades the software on Sam's new Q-Pid and he heads on his way to continue connecting America to the Chiral Network.
Episode 6: Deadman
Deadman appears in Sam's quarters to inform him of an issue that is causing BB, who Sam has suddenly started referring to as Lou, to lose its functions as a BT tracker. In an awkward shower scene between the two, Deadman warns Sam about the potential dangers of trusting Die-Hardman, the Acting Director of Bridges and Sam's de-facto boss, as the man has some nasty skeletons in his closet. Deadman then leaves with BB to re-calibrate it, leaving Sam to connect a number of prepper stations without a guide through treacherous BT territory.
After connecting a number of nearby preppers, Deadman contacts Sam to come meet him in a mountain facility near Mount Knot City. However, when Sam arrives, another supercell appears in the sky that drags both him and Deadman, along with BB, up into another War-zone Beach, this time reminiscent of World War 2 Era combat.
Episode 7: Clifford
Once again, Sam has to face off against the man from the BB flashbacks, only this time he doesn't have BB to guide him for the first half of the trip. Sam does eventually find Deadman and retrieve BB, at which point Sam chooses to take the fight to the soldier, defeating him and freeing Sam, Deadman, and BB from the War-zone Beach. After arriving back at Mount Knot City, Deadman gives Sam a breakdown of who this soldier is, having identified the man through a dog-tag Sam retrieved from the beach as Clifford Unger.
After getting a rundown of Clifford's experience as a Soldier that fought in Iraq before the Death Stranding occurred, Sam is given a new order to bring Mama's body to Heartman, a researcher who lives in the mountains near Mount Knot City. Sam takes the order and heads out to the new location, with BB finally back on Sam's chest where it belongs, although it doesn't seem to fully remember Sam anymore.
Episode 8: Heartman
When Sam arrives at Heartman's lab, the researcher invites him into his room, where Heartman is seemingly sleeping on a cushioned hospital bed, with the lights out and a timer ticking down from three minutes. After the timer hits zero, Heartman wakes up and he and Sam begin talking about the origins of the Death Stranding and evidence that the phenomenon is not new to the planet earth. However, the conversation is cut short by Heartman's condition that causes him to go into cardiac arrest every 21 minutes, where he spends three minutes on the Beach searching for his wife and daughter before being resuscitated.
To further research the prior Death Strandings, Heartman sends Sam to deliver some ancient discoveries dating back to previous Death Strandings and connect other researchers looking into the same topic. After delivering the items and connecting the right people to the Chiral Network, Heartman comes to the conclusion that there have been at least five other Death Strandings all orchestrated around an Extinction Entity that connects the Beach and the afterlife to the living world. With this information, Deadman sends him Sam on his way to reach Edge Knot City on the other end of the Tar Belt and finally finish the Chiral Network.
Episode 9: Higgs
After reaching the Tar Belt, Sam has to use the strange nature of BTs and their ability to pull objects through time in order to cross over the otherwise impassible barrier built around Edge Knot City. However, Sam reaches the city and is confronted again by Higgs, who summons the same Giant Humanoid BT from the prologue that destroyed Central Knot City to attack Sam. After the fight, Sam and Fragile resolve to chase Higgs down to the Beach to finish him off once and for all.
After a final confrontation with Higgs, Sam leaves the man to Fragile, who is out for revenge for what he made her do when he betrayed her at Middle and South Knot City. What follows is by far the strangest scenes as Sam skips down the Beach with Amelie before finding Die-Hardman confronting Bridget about something from their past involving a handgun. Before Die-Hardman can kill Bridget though, Clifford Unger appears out of the water on the shore of the Beach and grabs Bridget.
Amelie then pushes Sam into the water, causing him to reappear in the living world, where he wakes up in a safehouse on the other side if the Tar Belt.
Episode 10: Die-Hardman
Having finished the Chiral Network, Sam is asked to return to Capital Knot City and must make the long trip back to the start of his journey on the East Coast. Sam is attacked by BTs along the way, but he makes it back to Lake Knot City and is once again taken by a supercell. This time, Sam is transported to a War-zone Beach that takes place in the Vietnam War.
Episode 11: Clifford Unger
The final confrontation against Clifford Unger, Sam has to track down and fight the ex-soldier one last time before he can leave the War-zone Beach for good. After winning the fight, Sam has a short moment with Cliff, as the man looks at him and says, "They told me your name was Sam Porter, but it's Sam Bridges," before a gunshot is heard and the soldier disappears. Once again, Sam wakes up after being freed from the Beach, only this time he has arrived in Port Knot City in the Easter Region.
Episode 12: Bridges
At Port Knot City, Sam is assigned his final delivery, to bring a shipment of cryptobiotes from Port Knot City to Capital Knot City in order to heal Fragile, who has worked herself nearly to death by teleporting everyone except for Sam back to the East Coast. On the trip over, Sam is once again confronted by BTs and has to face off against a Giant BT Whale before arriving at Capital Knot City. After defeating the BTs, Sam delivers Fragile her cryptobiotes and forces her to eat one, saving her life.
With Fragile partially recovered, Sam and the others are able to work out how to handle the threat of extermination that is at their door, as it is revealed that Amelie is the Extinction Entity that Heartman had hypothesized. However, since she only exists on the Beach and doesn't exist in the living world, Sam needs Fragile to teleport him to her Beach one more time. Fragile gains her composure and sends Sam on a trip to the Beach to finally confront Amelie and put an end to the Final Extinction.
Episode 13: Sam Strand
Arriving on Amelie's Beach, Sam confronts Amelie about all of the lies and manipulations that she's put him through for years. Amelie admits to being the Extinction Entity and asks Sam to stay on the Beach with her forever, because no matter what either of them do, the Final Extinction is coming, whether it be today, tomorrow, or in a hundred thousand years, it will happen. Sam still chooses to fight to stave off the Final Extinction and brings Amelie into an embrace, to show her that she isn't alone and to convince her to stay the course of the destruction of Earth for the time being.
Amelie then explains everything that had happened to her, starting with Bridget having a near death experience while have surgery for cervical cancer. This resulted in Bridget's body and soul splitting off into two separate beings, one being the Bridget who died in the beginning of the story, and the other being Amelie trapped on the beach forever. However, it was thanks to her connection to Sam that Amelie was able to finally make a connection with a living being in the outside world.
After the explanation, Sam is trapped on the Beach until Deadman uses BB to connect to the other side and pull Sam back to the world of the Living. What follows leads to the end of the Death Stranding, where Die-Hardman is eventually named President of the United Cities of America and Sam leaves Bridges to be on his own.
Episode 14: Lou
After saying goodbye to the many characters that had helped him on his way, and a touching confession from Die-Hardman about the fate of Clifford Unger, Sam finds that BB (or Lou) has died as most BB units don't live beyond a year old. Deadman, gives Sam a cryptic opportunity and tells him that Lou must be brought to the incinerator. On the way, Sam continues to connect to BB and begins seeing the same flashbacks involving Cliff as before, but now from a more cinematic perspective.
All together, the story begins to unfold as Sam realizes that the BB Cliff was talking to all that time wasn't Lou but instead was Sam. After Bridget shot and killed Cliff, and Sam by mistake, Amelie rescued the BB, which evidently lead to the Death Stranding event that nearly destroyed the world. Then Sam is able to talk to Cliff and confirm his suspicions that the soldier, Clifford Unger, is indeed his father and that he was seeing flashbacks of his own time as a BB from inside of a pod.
The final scene shows Sam pull Lou from the pod and desperately resuscitate it. This eventually works, and in the last shot it is revealed the Lou is a girl name Louise, the same name that Sam had planned to give his daughter that his late wife Sarah was carrying when she died.
Death Stranding is available now for PS4, with a PC release set for Summer 2020