Death Stranding is a 2019 action-adventure game written, produced, designed and directed by Hideo Kojima, developed by his company Kojima Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It is the first game from Kojima Productions after their split from Konami in 2015. It was first released for PlayStation 4 in November 2019, followed by a Windows port in July 2020. A director's cut was released for PlayStation 5 in September 2021, followed by releases for Windows in March 2022, iOS, iPadOS and macOS in January 2024, and Amazon Luna and Xbox Series X/S in November 2024. Sony publi
Death Stranding is a 2019 action-adventure game written, produced, designed and directed by Hideo Kojima, developed by his company Kojima Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It is the first game from Kojima Productions after their split from Konami in 2015. It was first released for PlayStation 4 in November 2019, followed by a Windows port in July 2020. A director's cut was released for PlayStation 5 in September 2021, followed by releases for Windows in March 2022, iOS, iPadOS and macOS in January 2024, and Amazon Luna and Xbox Series X/S in November 2024. Sony publi
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Death Stranding is a 2019 action-adventure game written, produced, designed and directed by Hideo Kojima, developed by his company Kojima Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It is the first game from Kojima Productions after their split from Konami in 2015. It was first released for PlayStation 4 in November 2019, followed by a Windows port in July 2020. A director's cut was released for PlayStation 5 in September 2021, followed by releases for Windows in March 2022, iOS, iPadOS and macOS in January 2024, and Amazon Luna and Xbox Series X/S in November 2024. Sony published the game on their consoles, while 505 Games published all other versions under license from Kojima Productions.
The game is set in the United States following a cataclysmic event which caused destructive creatures to begin roaming the Earth. The player controls Sam Porter Bridges (Norman Reedus), a courier tasked with delivering supplies to isolated colonies and reconnecting them via a wireless communications network. However, he is pursued by a genocidal militia group, led by a mysterious masked man known as Higgs, who intends to wipe out the remainder of humanity. Alongside Reedus, the game features actors Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, Margaret Qualley, Troy Baker, Tommie Earl Jenkins, and Lindsay Wagner, in addition to the likenesses of film directors Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn, as supporting characters.
Death Stranding received generally positive reviews. Critics praised its voice acting, soundtrack, and visuals, with more mixed opinions regarding its gameplay and story. The game was nominated for several awards and won the most GOTY awards of any game in 2019. As of March 2021, the game had sold 5 million copies worldwide. Numerous commentators later noted that elements of the game resembled the COVID-19 pandemic, which began during the months following its original release.
A sequel, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, released on June 26, 2025, for PlayStation 5. Two film adaptations and a television series are concurrently in development.
Setting
The game is set in an apocalyptic United States, where a cataclysmic event known as the "Death Stranding" caused "Beached Things" ("BTs")—invisible creatures originating from the "Beach", lands thought to be unique to each person that are typically visited during near-death experiences and are said to be the link to the afterlife—to begin roaming the Earth. BTs are created
Death Stranding is an action-adventure game set in an open world, and includes asynchronous online functions. Kojima refers to Death Stranding as the first "strand game", an original genre characterized by the game's incorporation of social elements. Kojima compared this genre to how his earlier game Metal Gear—now considered a stealth game—was called an action game during its release because the stealth genre had not been established.
The player controls Sam Bridges, a porter for a company known as Bridges. The player is tasked with delivering supply cargo to various isolated cities known as Knots, as well as isolated researchers and survivalists, while also connecting them to a communications system known as the Chiral Network. The player is evaluated by the company and recipients based on their performance (including via "likes" similar to social networks), including whether the cargo was delivered, and if it is intact, among other factors. These merits are, in turn, used to level up the player's statistics, such as stability and weight capacity, and increase their standing with individual locations and characters (which can improve rewards). How cargo is packed by the player, and the overall weight being carried, affect Sam's ability to navigate through the environments.
The game extensively uses licensed music, most often from the bands Silent Poets and Low Roar, to score and enhance specific set-pieces and moments of traversal. When speaking on the use of music, Kojima said the music "would match this harsh but beautiful and pure environmental setting. I also felt somewhat of a connection to Low Roar and the game, the matching of Low Roar's acoustic but digital futuristic sound and the concept of Death Stranding." After the death of Low Roar's frontman Ryan Karazija in 2022, Kojima said, "Without [Low Roar], Death Stranding would not have been born."
The player's main enemies include otherworldly creatures known as "beached things" (BTs), MULEs (rogue, bandit-like porters obsessed with cargo, who attempt to steal and deliver it themselves), and Demens, MULEs who have begun killing porters to claim their cargo. BTs are surrounded by a rain known as "timefall", which damages the player's armor and cargo by speeding up their deterioration. BTs are normally invisible, but Sam's suit is equipped with a robotic sensor referred to in-game as an "odradek" that points towards nearby BTs, and the player can then scan the area to reveal them.
As Sam is a "repatriate", he is taken to an underwater world known as the "Seam" if he is killed, where he can "swim" back to his body to revive himself. However, being killed and consumed by a BT results in a destructive explosion known as a "voidout", which permanently damages the location of the death with an untraversable crater.
As the player expands the coverage of the Chiral Network, they can access maps of areas, and use blueprints to produce consumable items and structures with the Portable Chiral Constructor (PCC, a device similar to a 3D printer), including ropes, bridges, and power generators used for charging battery-powered equipment. The Network is used as the basis for the game's online functionality, where players can leave supplies, structures, and messages that can be viewed and used by other players, although structures will eventually be destroyed by Timefall after some time. The player can recover cargo lost by other players to complete their delivery. The player does not directly encounter other players in the world.
