Death Stranding has a unique story to tell, but it won’t be easy to get through for first-time players. It gets complicated with an overwhelming amount of information, but on its whole, it does try to tell a story about family and a heavy emphasis on connection. Here we will break down the story to help you easily understand nearly everything in the game, from its wild concepts to its interesting, diverse characters.
Full Story of Death Stranding
We will go through all the story bits and the world of Death Stranding. Each aspect of the world plays a significant role in the story and its list of characters. We have left detailed information on every technical fact that gets introduced in the world to Sam.
The Game Opens
The game opens with Sam, played by Norman Reedus, crashing his bike to seek shelter from the rain. The rain in the game’s world rapidly ages anyone who happens to be under it, and is referred to as a Timefall. Here we see Fragile, played by Léa Seydoux, helping Sam in the small cave against the slowly moving BT.
BT: The rain or Timefall brings in BT or Beached Things, anomalies that serve as enemies in the game.
After the rain stops, Sam heads to Central Knot City to finish his delivery. Here, he meets a man named Igor, who informs Sam about a citizen who has taken his own life. Now it’s up to Igor and his friend to take the dead corpse to the incinerator for proper cremation.
Necrosis: In the game’s world, if a dead body doesn’t go through a proper cremation process, it will start the process of Necrosis for the next 48 hours. The dead body will then turn into a fully formed BT. If the BT manages to kill and eat a human, it will create a void explosion, like a meteor strike.
Igor and his friend try to deliver a dead body to the incinerator, which is kept far away from the city. While having an incinerator inside the city could hasten the process of burning bodies, the smoke released from the incinerator harms the body. On their way to the incinerator, the vehicle gets attacked by BTs, which forces Igor to end his friend’s life in the scene.
After the scene is over, we see Sam again, but he is now at the Beach. While it may have the appearance of a common beach but in the game’s world, it holds a different meaning. Long story short, we learn Sam is a Repatriate.
Beach: A beach is a place between living and death, a limbo. The appearance of the Beach differs from one person to another. The Beach also doesn’t follow the rules of living; it doesn’t have any time limits.
Repatriate: A person who can come back from the dead. In the game’s world, if a person dies, their soul gets sent to a place called The Seam. Repatriates have the ability to guide their soul from the body to their body.
After we learn about Sam being a Repatriate, he then wakes up in the Capital Knot City, and meets Dead Man, played by Guillermo Del Toro. He tells Sam that he is a doctor from Bridges, a company built after the events of Death Stranding with the sole purpose of reconnecting the fractured society of the United States. Here we learn about Death Stranding and a substance called Chiralium.
Death Stranding: It’s a cataclysmic event in the game, which led to the world of death getting merged with the living, and all events like BTs, voidouts and so on.
Chiralium: Death Stranding also brought Chiralium into the world of the living. It changed the ecosystem and brought about Timefall, the rain that aged people.
Meeting with the President
Dead Man asks Sam to deliver morphine to the dying president of the United Cities of America (UCA). We then learn that the president of UCA, Bridget Strand, played by Lindsay Wagner, is the mother of Sam. On his way to meet his mother, the president of UCA, Sam, also runs into his former boss, Die-Hard Man, director of Bridges.
When Sam starts talking to Bridget, she pleads with Sam to rejoin the Bridges company to help rebuild America. But Sam refuses to rejoin the company. Here we see Bridget reaching out to him from her bed, but she ends up falling off the bed and dying at the end. Her last words were” I’ll be waiting for you on the Beach”.
Both Die-Hard Mand and Dead Man convince Sam to deliver the body of his mother, Bridget Strand, to the Incinerator for the cremation process, and all of it should be done in secrecy. Sam then makes it to the Incinerator and cremates his mother’s body. But he refuses to abandon Igor’s BB; he instead uses the BB’s ability to get past BTs. Here, we also learn about Dooms disease in the world of Death Stranding.
BB (Bridge Babies): The babies we see in the capsules are taken from a Still-Mother. Still-Mother’s womb facilitates a connection between the world of the dead and the living, granting the baby the ability to sense BT or Beached Things.
Dooms Disease: It’s a form of disease that allows Sam to sense BTs but never see them. People who suffer from Dooms disease have a better connection to the Beach (limbo). We then learn that Dooms also has stages, and Sam has Dooms Level 2, allowing him to sense the BT. We learn different Dooms levels of Fragile and Higgs. While Sam could only sense BTs, Fragile has a different Dooms level, allowing her to teleport anywhere, and Higgs has a higher level of Dooms than anyone else.
Sam meets his Sister Amelie
After burning his mother’s remains, Sam then makes it back to Capital Knot City, where he meets with his sister, Amelie Strand, played by Emily O’Brien. Amelie then tells Sam about an expedition she ran to connect the cities of UCA with terminals. These terminals will allow the cities to connect to each other through the Chiral Network.
But at the last expedition in Edge Knot City, Amelie was captured by an anti-UCA group called “Homo-Demons”; their leader is Higgs, played by Troy Baker. Higgs is holding Amelie hostage while allowing her to talk to Bridges with a hologram. Amelie asks Sam to finish her last expedition and complete the terminal project with a special key called Q-Pid. Rescuing her and installing her as the next president of UCA.
On his way to Edge Knot City, Sam connects many cities with the terminals, expanding the Chiral Network.
Sam Learns about Fragile
Sam then reunites with Fragile again in Lake Knot City, where Sam learns that she is the daughter of the owner of Fragile Express, a delivery company. After her father passed away, she became the new heir of the company and helped merge Fragile Express with another company run by Higgs (the Current leader of Homo-Demons).
Fragile started having doubts about the partnership with Higgs when she realized they were delivering guns and explosives instead of medicines. Higgs tricked Fragile to lead a nuke to Middle Knot City, destroying everything. Higgs tries to do it again by sneaking another Nuke into South Knot City, Fragile gets the wind of it and seals the nuke away. But in the process, she gets captured by the terrorists.
Here, Higgs strips her down and gives her two choices: either save herself or the city. She decides to save the city by running through Timefall. Higgs puts a black mask over Fragile’s head to protect it from the effects of Timefall. As she ran to save the city under the rain, while no visible aging happened to her face but the rest of her body did receive the effects. She finally requested Sam to take out Higgs so she could deliver the final blow.
Sam Meets Mama and Lockne
When Sam heads back to base, he gets sucked into a tornado that puts him in the battlefield of the first World War, where he meets Clifford ‘Cliff’ Unger, played by Mads Mikkelsen. After dispatching him, he then makes it back to the real world. To make sense of what happened, he meets Mama, played by Margaret Qualley. Mama has a BT living with her, her own baby that she gave birth to in the world of the Dead.
She then tells Sam his Q-pid is broken; to fix it, he will need Lockne, also played by Margaret Qualley. Here we also learn that Lockne and Mama are twin sisters. We also learn that Mama and Lockne created the Chiral Network, Mama handled the hardware, and Lockne took care of the software.
Later in the story, Lockne falls in love with a member of the Bridges, but he sadly passes away, leaving her depressed. Mama asked Lockene to have a baby with the diseased sperm by using her uterus. We then see Sam cutting the umbilical cord of Mama’s baby. Later, we see Mama and Lockne reuniting with each other, making amends. Mama convinced Lockne to go with Sam to connect the Chiral Network and passed away.
Sam Learns the Truth about Cliff
After this event, Sam goes back to Knot City and meets Dead Man. He tells Sam about the problem with Lou (nickname for Sam’s BB). On the next delivery, Dead Man keeps Sam informed about Lou’s maintenance and the tornado details. Then he asks Sam to visit him outside the Mountain Knot City to see the tornado, named Supercell. Here Sam again gets sucked into the tornado but this time into the battlefields of World War 2.
In the battlefield, Dead Man reveals the real objective of Cliff; he is after Sam’s BB. After Sam defeats Cliff, he takes his dog tags with him. Back in the real world, Sam talks about seeing Cliff in his dreams in Dead Man, but Dead Man ensures that Sam sees these dreams as nothing but memories of Lou.
Sam Meets Heartman, Learns Extinction Entities
Now, the research into Death Stranding begins by contacting Heartman, played by Darren Jacobs. Heartman also suffers from a strange disease in the game’s world. Every 21 minutes, he goes into cardiac arrest. He was having surgery during the events of Death Stranding. As the power went out during the surgery, he died and went to the Beach. While on the Beach, he saw his wife and child with others who had died in the Death Stranding. But unlike his wife and child, he returned to the real world, as the power in the hospital had come back on. Ever since the events of Death Stranding, whenever Heartman gets a cardiac arrest, he goes to the Beach and looks for his wife and daughter until he comes back to the world of the living.
After completing missions, Sam heads back to the Heartman, where he reveals the existence of EEs, or Extinction Entities. It does what it says, it brings extinctions to life. Heartman then explains EEs connection to Death Stranding. Lastly, Heartman tells Sam a crucial fact about EEs, the game’s world has experienced five other Death Stranding events, and he then warns Sam, the next Extinction Entities will trigger a Last Stranding, which will lead to the extinction of every living creature in the world.
Sam Battles Higgs
Once every terminal is connected, Sam heads to the Edge Knot City to rescue Amelie, but on the way to the location, Higgs stops Sam. Sam manages to connect the last terminal in the Edge Knot City, finishing the Chiral Network Coverage throughout the UCA. Then Sam and Higgs battle, where Higgs manages to kill Sam and kidnap Amelie. But Sam, being a Repatriate, wakes up in the world of the living.
Fragile helps Sam to get to the Beach, where we see the final battle between Sam and Higgs, where Sam finally takes Higgs down and hands his body to Fragile for the finish. Sam has finally freed Amelie from the hands of Higgs, but the fun doesn’t last long. In the next scene, Sam sees Bridget (Sam’s Dead Mother) being held at gunpoint by Die-Hard Man. He then meets with Cliff, who finally calls Die-Hard Man by his real name, John. Amelie catches up with Sam and pushes him off the cliff, into the water below.
Sam Learns About Truth About Amelie
Sam goes back to his private room, where he sees a hologram of other people. Fragile is too weak to send Sam to the Beach. So Sam decides to walk to Lake Knot City for the final challenge. On his way, Sam gets caught up in another tornado or Supercell, sending Sam into another battlefield.
But unlike the last two visits, this time, Cliff treats Sam humanely and kindly tells him he just wants the BB. Sam then relayed the message back to Dead Man. Here, Sam learns new information about Bridget and Amelie. Die-Hard Man believes that Amelie is the EE, Fragile, then tells Sam Higgs was approached by Amelie first. But Sam refuses to believe any of the information and continues his journey to Lake Knot City.
After defeating the final boss, Sam then delivers the Cryptobiote to aid Fragile back to health. Heartman then tells everyone that the Beach, and Amelie’s Beach, is different from everyone, even Fragile can’t get to Amelie’s Beach. Sam gives Lou or his BB to Deadman and sets his final journey to Amelie’s Beach.
Here we learn that Sam’s mother, Bridget, is Amelie. Bridget acts as a physical body in the world of the living, and Amelie is the soul that lives on the Beach. Amelie here gives two options to Sam, either stay with her or Cut Amlie from the Beach. Sam manages to convince Amelie to disconnect her Beach from existence. Amelie must stay at the beach to face the EE alone.
Aftermath of Last Stranding
In the aftermath, Sam gets back to his own Beach and sees five Extinction entities flying in the sky. After the credits roll, we see Dead Man putting Sam out of his Beach, Die Hard man takes control over the Bridges. Then Die-Hard Man has a conversation with Sam and reveals it was he who killed Cliff. Sam hits with another sad news about his BB, Lou’s death, and gets tasked to take him to the incinerator for cremation. In the final moments, we see Sam embracing Dead Man, letting go of his fear of touching others.
Sam meets Fragile again, where she offers him a position at Fragile Express, but Sam refuses to join. Fragile also tells Sam he didn’t deliver any final blow to Higgs; she gave him a choice, and it was Higgs who chose the route of death. Sam then takes his BB to the incinerator, and he hooks the BB for the final time, triggering a new vision of Cliff and his side of the story.
Sam Learns about Cliff
Here we learn Cliff served in the US special forces, and he was expecting a baby with his wife Lisa Bridges. But fate was unkind to her, as she suffered from brain death. In desperation, Cliff went to Bridges to save his wife, unaware of the plans of Bridget. Bridges put Lisa on life support to prevent the Necrosis, while putting their baby in a capsule filled with amniotic fluid. Cliff was unaware that his baby had become the first candidate for the BB program. Once John or Die-Hard Man tells Cliff that Bridget is planning to move his unborn baby to a new facility, he then offers him an option to escape.
But Cliff refuses, he takes the drastic measure of killing his wife and tries to escape with his baby or BB. But the security then catches up with Cliff, where he sees Cliff dying at the hands of John, but Bridget’s hand was behind the trigger. Here, both Cliff and his baby, or BB, die, and Bridget then switches to Amelie and goes to the Beach to save the baby, making the baby a Repatriate. The final reveal, we learn Cliff’s Baby, the one who was saved by Amilie, is Sam.
Sam decides not to incinerate Lou; he burns his Cufflinks instead. Sam successfully resurrected Lou back to life. The last scene has the Timefall storm coming to an end, and Sam then calls Lou, Louise.
