10 Things You Forgot About The Original Death Stranding

Death Stranding was a huge cult hit back in 2019, and since it’s a Hideo Kojima game, the story and world can be incredibly confusing. There are a lot of key story details and interesting lore facts about Death Stranding’s world you may have missed, whether you played it six years ago when it first came out, played it but never finished it, or simply never touched Death Stranding in the first place.

Warning: The following article includes spoilers for the original Death Stranding.The question of whether or not you need to play the first Death Stranding before its sequel is an important one. The original is certainly worth playing, but it’s fine to jump straight into Death Stranding 2: On the Beach; there’s just some vital story information you need to know beforehand. Only story and world details will be included here, so gameplay tidbits like trucks being incredibly overpowered won’t be addressed.

10

Why Sam Doesn’t Like To Be Touched

Sam’s Big Character Arc

A notable aspect of Death Stranding’s protagonist, Sam Porter Bridges, is that he doesn’t like to be touched. This is shown off very early on during the first meeting with Fragile and Sam’s fateful encounter with the US President, but the game doesn’t immediately explain the full background behind Sam’s fear of skin-to-skin contact.

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Sam does, in fact, have a fear of being touched called aphenphosmphobia, which is heightened due to the death of his wife. However, after saving the world from total extinction in the end, he finally lessens that fear, as shown during his final meeting with Deadman right before going on one last delivery with Lou. Sam’s character evolves in this manner, showing that, despite his fear, he touches and connects Death Stranding’s world throughout his journey.

9

Death Stranding’s Real-World Music

A Feast For Your Ears, As Well As Your Eyes

While Death Stranding’s graphics still look incredible to this day, its music is equally stellar. Death Stranding utilizes real-world bands for its soundtrack, and unlike Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, which featured popular and recognizable 80s songs, DS takes a more niche, underground approach. You may not have heard of most of the bands here, but they’re great, and many DS players likely checked out their music due to this game.

Most of the soundtrack comes from an amazing Icelandic band called Low Roar, who even have an in-game collectible. These bands are in-universe, as well. The Asylums For The Feeling track by the Silent Poets is also phenomenal, and I always loved this one collectible location near the Timefall Farm where it plays. I always grab it when I’m backtracking at the end of the game, and it just gives me a huge motivational feeling.

8

Death Stranding’s Real-World Collectibles

A Fascinating And Odd Inclusion

Collectible Memory Chips that uncover interesting details about Earth’s past are scattered throughout the world of Death Stranding. A lot of these are real-world products, films, soundtracks, and more. The original Godzilla film has its own collectible, which is fitting considering Kojima’s fondness for the king of the monsters, as seen in the Metal Gear Solid VR Missions and a Codec mention in MGS3. However, there are also some oddball inclusions.

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The original Fright Night has a collectible, which seemingly has no connection to DS at all, even though it’s a great horror movie. There’s also a collectible for the God of War 2018 soundtrack. This one, in particular, is very striking because Sony Interactive Entertainment used to own the Death Stranding IP. However, Kojima Productions now owns it completely, leading to Death Stranding being available on Xbox despite previously being a PlayStation exclusive. Seeing God of War on Xbox is truly something else, even if it’s just a collectible.

7

PlayStation Consoles In-Universe

PlayStation Is Once Again On Xbox

One of the more obscure Preppers in Death Stranding is the Collector, found north of South Knot City. A gaming enthusiast, he’ll often request gaming-related items, including PlayStation consoles, with both the PS1 and PSP appearing. These items are unchanged in the Xbox version, and they serve as some of the most obvious reminders that Sony Interactive Entertainment played a big part in helping the development of Death Stranding and used to own the IP.

Elements like the God of War 2018 collectible soundtrack and PlayStation consoles in-universe might not have been included if Sony knew Death Stranding would go multiplatform in the future. It makes me wonder if Sony will scale back PlayStation references in Death Stranding 2, knowing it’ll likely come to Xbox later.

6

The Numerous Cameo Appearances

DS1 Has Many Familiar Faces

One very interesting design choice in Death Stranding is the inclusion of notable real-world people as the likenesses for the NPC characters, with some you probably didn’t even notice. The Film Director, for example, has the likeness of an actual film director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts. He directed Kong: Skull Island and was planning to direct the film adaptation of Metal Gear Solid, but this has yet to materialize. Geoff Keighley, host of The Game Awards and Summer Game Fest, also appears as the Ludens Fan.

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Sam Lake, creative director at Remedy Entertainment, responsible for titles like Max Payne, Alan Wake, and Control, appears as the Veteran Porter. The best cameo has to be Conan O’Brien as the Wandering MC, as he not only provides the character’s likeness but also his voice. Sadly, most of the cameos are voiced by established voice actors rather than the actual person, which, frankly, would have been more charming. Death Stranding 2, unfortunately, carries over one of the worst aspects of DS1, with even more likeness-only cameos.

5

Nightmare Sequences

Some Really Freaky Scenes

While most of the cutscenes in Death Stranding will appear in everyone’s playthrough, certain ones are rare to come by. Sometimes, when waking up after resting, you’ll notice something’s off. These are when Nightmares occur, which are some of the most effective and memorable moments of the game if you’re lucky enough to trigger them. You aren’t likely to trigger them all in a single playthrough — I’ve 100% completed the game twice, taking 130 hours of playtime, and I still didn’t see all the Nightmares.

The P.T. Easter egg Nightmare is especially freaky and a great Kojima call back, the Kojima cameo is incredibly memorable, and the mirror Nightmare with Higgs really makes you question the character’s motives. Since you won’t see all of them on one playthrough, it’s well worth checking out the ones you missed on YouTube, as they’re incredible.

4

Whale Boss Fight

An Absolute Spectacle

Judging from the Death Stranding 2 trailers, the sequel ramps up the boss fights quite a bit, and they were already wild in Death Stranding 1. One of the greatest boss fights was the Whale BT just before heading to Capital Knot City to face off with Amelie. It’s essentially the final boss of the game, as the Amelie encounter is just cutscenes and walking around.

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The Whale BT is absolutely massive and looks jaw-dropping. It’s also a nice callback to a similar reddish whale figure near the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. It’ll be interesting to see how Death Stranding 2 tops a fight like this, especially with the power of the PlayStation 5.

3

Crossovers With Other Franchises

The Cake Is A Lie, Except When It’s Your Birthday

It can be easy to forget the numerous crossovers within Death Stranding, as most of them weren’t present when the game was initially released in 2019. However, in 2025, Death Stranding has a ton of crossovers with other franchises. The two biggest ones are Valve’s Half-Life and Portal series, as well as Cyberpunk 2077. Both have a set of missions that’ll unlock Half-Life/Portal or Cyberpunk 2077-related goodies, like cosmetic options or even items, such as the incredibly useful Gravity Gloves from Half-Life: Alyx.

These missions are actually pretty fun and oddly confirm that Half-Life and Portal are in the same universe, something that isn’t too unfamiliar in the realm of Hideo Kojima games. The oddest crossover, though, is the numerous unlockable Horizon Zero Dawn holograms. Once again, the Horizon Zero Dawn holograms are still present in the Xbox version, despite Sony owning the property.

2

Higgs Is Still A Bad Guy

A Misunderstanding About Death Stranding 1

After 100% completing Death Stranding twice, I thought Higgs (the character that appeared to be the antagonist until two-thirds of the way into the game) aligned with the main characters at the end. This is because, after Higgs’s boss fight, there are numerous additional pizza delivery missions that he requests. After completing the last mission, Higgs’s home opens up, and it appears that after doing all these missions for Higgs, he’s on the good side, right?

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At the end of the day, however, that’s not the case. Completing these pizza delivery missions doesn’t align Sam with Higgs, and this is evident in the Death Stranding 2 trailers, where Higgs appears to be once again an antagonist. After playing Death Stranding 1, that definitely confused me, but there was another story element that must be cleared up before Death Stranding 2.

1

The Mystery Of Lou And Sam

They’re Not The Same

The box art for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach shows Sam kissing Lou, a key figure in Death Stranding 1. Lou is the BB Sam carries with him throughout most of the game and is the iconic baby seen in the promotional materials. The visions you see while connecting to Lou aren’t those of Lou but of Sam. After seeing the ending of Death Stranding 1, I got it all wrong.

It’s pretty clear-cut in the ending that Sam is the individual at play in those visions, not Lou, but I thought that Lou was a reincarnation of Sam and the two are one and the same, which was an inaccurate assumption. Lou’s actual backstory is consistent with what Deadman tells Sam earlier in the game, and the ending is more about learning Sam’s true backstory and taking Lou as his own child. That’s what it’s all about in Death Stranding 1, and it’ll be interesting to see what becomes of the baby when Death Stranding 2 arrives.

Death Stranding

Systems

10/10

Released

November 8, 2019

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, Strong Language

Developer(s)

Kojima Productions

Publisher(s)

Sony, 505 Games

Engine

Decima