Death Stranding is a 2019 action-adventure game created by Kojima Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It is the first game made by director Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions after they separated from Konami in 2015. The game was first released for PlayStation 4 in November 2019, followed by a version for Windows in July 2020. A director’s cut was released for PlayStation 5 in September 2021, then for Windows in March 2022, and later for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS in January 2024. It also became available on 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 a license from Kojima Productions.
The game takes place in the United States after a major disaster that caused dangerous creatures to appear on Earth. The player controls Sam Porter Bridges (played by Norman Reedus), a courier who delivers supplies to isolated communities and connects them through a wireless communication network. However, Sam is chased by a group that wants to destroy humanity, led by a mysterious masked man named Higgs. Other characters in the game include actors Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, Margaret Qualley, Troy Baker, Tommie Earl Jenkins, and Lindsay Wagner. The game also includes the likenesses of film directors Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn as supporting characters.
Death Stranding received mostly positive reviews from critics. They praised the game’s voice acting, music, and visuals, but had mixed opinions about the gameplay and story. The game was nominated for many awards and won the most Game of the Year awards in 2019. By March 2021, the game had sold 5 million copies worldwide. Some commentators later noted that parts of the game reminded them of the COVID-19 pandemic, which began shortly after the game was first released.
A sequel, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, was released on June 26, 2025, for PlayStation 5. Two movie adaptations and a television series are currently being developed.
Gameplay
Death Stranding is an action-adventure game set in an open world and includes online features that do not require players to be online at the same time. Kojima, the game’s creator, calls Death Stranding the first "strand game," a new type of game that includes social elements. He compared this to how his earlier game, Metal Gear, was called an action game when it was released, even though the stealth genre had not yet been defined.
The player controls Sam Bridges, a worker for a company named Bridges. Sam’s job is to deliver supplies to remote cities called Knots, as well as to researchers and survivalists living in isolated areas. He also connects these locations to a communication system called the Chiral Network. Sam’s performance, such as whether the supplies are delivered and if they remain undamaged, is evaluated by the company and the people who receive the supplies. These evaluations, similar to "likes" on social networks, help improve Sam’s abilities, such as stability and weight capacity, and increase his reputation with specific locations and characters. How the player packs the supplies and the total weight Sam carries affect how well he can move through the game’s environments.
The game uses music from bands like Silent Poets and Low Roar to highlight important moments and scenes. Kojima explained that the music matches the game’s harsh yet beautiful setting. He also said that the sound of Low Roar, which blends acoustic and futuristic styles, fits the game’s themes. After the death of Low Roar’s lead singer, Ryan Karazija, in 2022, Kojima stated that Death Stranding would not have been created without Low Roar’s music.
Sam’s main enemies include strange creatures called "beached things" (BTs), rogue porters known as MULEs who steal supplies, and Demens, who are MULEs that kill other porters to take their cargo. BTs are surrounded by a type of rain called "timefall," which quickly damages Sam’s armor and supplies. BTs are invisible, but Sam’s suit has a robotic sensor called an "odradek" that points toward nearby BTs. The player can then scan the area to reveal them.
Sam is a "repatriate," which means he can return to life after dying. If Sam dies, he is sent to an underwater world called the "Seam," where he can "swim" back to his body to revive himself. However, if Sam is killed by a BT, it causes a destructive explosion called a "voidout," which creates a permanent crater that cannot be crossed.
As players expand the Chiral Network, they can use maps and blueprints to build items and structures with a device called the Portable Chiral Constructor (PCC), which works like a 3D printer. This device helps create ropes, bridges, and power generators for equipment that needs batteries. The Chiral Network also allows players to leave supplies, structures, and messages for others to use. However, these structures will eventually be destroyed by timefall over time. Players can also recover supplies that other players have lost to help complete their own deliveries. Players do not directly meet other players in the game world.
Synopsis
The game takes place in a ruined United States after a huge disaster called the "Death Stranding." This event caused invisible creatures called "Beached Things" (BTs) to appear. BTs come from the "Beach," a place people visit during near-death experiences, which is believed to connect the living to the afterlife. BTs are created from dead bodies through a process called necrosis. When a BT eats a living person, it causes a huge explosion called a "voidout." This explosion also produces "Timefall," a type of rain that quickly ages and damages everything it touches. These events destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, forcing the remaining people to live in remote settlements called "Knot Cities," which form the "United Cities of America."
Knot Cities rely on a company called Bridges to deliver supplies and perform government tasks. Bridges employs "porters" who travel through dangerous areas filled with BTs, bandits, and terrorists. If a porter connects mentally with a "Bridge Baby" (BB), a premature child that exists between life and death, they can sense BTs. Porters carry BBs in special pods that mimic the womb of a "stillmother." Some people have a condition called "DOOMS," which allows them to see, sense, or control BTs and gain abilities like teleportation or visiting others’ Beaches. "Repatriates" are people who can return from "the Seam," a place between the living world and the Beach, after death. However, if a repatriate is killed by a BT, it still causes a voidout.
Freelance courier Sam Porter Bridges is transporting goods to Central Knot City when Timefall forces him to take shelter. He is helped by Fragile to escape a BT. Sam arrives at his destination to find a citizen who died by suicide, with their body nearly decaying. Because Sam is a repatriate and has DOOMS, he is assigned to help dispose of the body. However, an encounter with BTs causes a voidout that destroys Central Knot City.
Sam wakes up in Capital Knot City and meets Deadman, a doctor from Bridges who asks him to deliver morphine to the dying President of the UCA, Bridget Strand, who is also Sam’s adoptive mother. Bridget pleads with Sam to help her realize her dream of "reforming America" before her death. Sam agrees to take her body for incineration but refuses to incinerate a BB involved in the Central Knot City voidout. With the BB’s help, Sam escapes a group of BTs and decides to adopt the BB, naming it "Lou."
Back in Capital Knot City, Sam receives a message from his estranged sister, Amelie Strand. She explains that over three years, she led an expedition to connect isolated cities to the "Chiral Network," a system that allows instant communication through the Beach. Amelie was captured by a terrorist group called Homo Demens to ensure the independence of Edge Knot City, the last city on the West Coast. She asks Sam to complete her work and rescue her so she can take Bridget’s place as UCA President. Sam reluctantly agrees to the mission.
Following instructions from Die-Hardman, Bridget’s aide and director of Bridges, Sam travels from the east to the west coast of North America. Along the way, he delivers supplies, helps research the Death Stranding with Bridges staff, and stops terrorist plots led by Higgs Monaghan. While connected to Lou, Sam experiences memories of Clifford Unger and his family. Occasionally, he enters Clifford’s Beach, where he fights a BT version of Clifford seeking his lost BB.
After reaching Edge Knot City, Sam defeats Higgs at Amelie’s Beach. Higgs reveals that Amelie is an "Extinction Entity," a godlike being that causes mass extinctions. Amelie is the true leader of Homo Demens and created the Chiral Network to trigger the "Last Stranding," the end of life on Earth. It is revealed that Amelie and Bridget are the same person; Bridget’s soul separated from her body and used "Amelie" as a disguise. Amelie is conflicted about her role, believing the Last Stranding is more humane than endless cycles of life and death.
With help from his allies, Sam convinces Amelie to delay the Last Stranding. Amelie agrees but must separate herself from the world forever. Sam is rescued by Bridges allies and returns to life. Die-Hardman becomes UCA President, and Fragile plans to rebuild her company. Sam learns that Lou is dying. Though UCA law requires incinerating dying BBs, Sam follows Deadman’s advice and removes Lou from its pod to save its life. In doing so, Sam connects with Lou and realizes the memories he saw were his own: he is Clifford Unger’s son, who Bridget Strand turned into a BB, was accidentally killed during an escape, and was resurrected by Amelie. This event caused the Death Stranding, allowing BTs to cross over. The spirits of other BBs help save Lou’s life, and Sam destroys his UCA cufflinks to live peacefully, raising BBs, including "Louise," in a post-credits scene.
Development
After a long disagreement with Konami, Kojima Productions closed in July 2015 and became an independent video game company in December. That same month, Hideo Kojima announced a partnership with Sony Interactive Entertainment, which was led by Andrew House, to create a new PlayStation game.
Kojima shared details about the game during Sony’s E3 2016 event with a short video that included music from Low Roar. The video used special camera techniques and motion capture technology. It featured Norman Reedus, who inspired the game’s main character. This was Kojima’s second project with Reedus, after their earlier collaboration on the canceled game Silent Hills. Kojima and Mark Cerny, a key designer for the PlayStation 4, spent two weeks in January 2016 searching for a game engine to use. One engine helped create the teaser trailer. Later, Guerrilla Games was announced as a partner, as they provided their own engine called Decima. A meeting room from Kojima Productions was recreated in the engine to help test lighting effects.
Full development of the game began in 2017. A few days before E3 2017, Kojima said the game would not be shown during Sony’s usual event. In June 2017, Shawn Layden, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment America, said the game had reached a playable early version but was hard to classify by genre. A new teaser was shown at The Game Awards 2017 in December, where Kojima, Reedus, and director Guillermo del Toro appeared. Kojima explained that the team could not complete a third trailer for E3 2017 because of a 2016–17 voice actor strike, so it was delayed until The Game Awards.
In February 2018, Emily O’Brien and Troy Baker joined the game’s cast. At the event, a new trailer was shown for the first time, revealing gameplay and introducing Léa Seydoux and Lindsay Wagner as part of the cast. At Tokyo Game Show 2018 in September, it was announced that Tommie Earl Jenkins would play a key character, and Akio Ōtsuka, Kikuko Inoue, Nana Mizuki, and Satoshi Mikami—actors from the Metal Gear series—along with Kenjiro Tsuda, joined the Japanese voice cast. In March 2019, Kojima said the game was slightly behind its planned release date and that he was testing and adjusting the gameplay daily.
A trailer released in May 2019 introduced Margaret Qualley as "Mama" and Nicolas Winding Refn as "Heartman." The trailer revealed character names: Cliff (Mikkelsen), Fragile (Seydoux), Deadman (del Toro), Die-Hardman (Jenkins), Higgs (Baker), and Amelie (Wagner). Emily O’Brien, Jesse Corti, and Darren Jacobs were credited for voice work in the trailer. Del Toro and Refn were listed as "Special Appearances," with Kojima explaining their likenesses were used, but their voices and movements were performed by other actors. The trailer also announced the game’s release date: November 8, 2019. In a blog post, Kojima said the game’s main theme was about the importance of connecting with others, as players work to rebuild a broken society and form new bonds. Some story ideas were inspired by Kojima’s childhood and the deaths of his parents.
At Gamescom 2019, two more trailers were shown. One featured a key game element called a "BB (Bridge Baby)" with the character "Deadman." The other introduced "Mama." A 6-minute gameplay trailer showed details like the ability to urinate and deliver packages to remote locations. This trailer included Canadian journalist Geoff Keighley as a hologram interacting with the main character, Sam, and Japanese writer Junji Ito as a hologram of the Engineer, voiced by Yuri Lowenthal. The film director was modeled after Jordan Vogt-Roberts, and director Edgar Wright provided his likeness for Thomas Southerland. Hirokazu Hamamura appeared as the Collector. Liam O’Brien and Sam Lake were credited as the voice actor and model for Veteran Porter, and Phillip North was portrayed by Tommy Wirkola.
During the Tokyo Game Show, Kojima showed and discussed an 83-minute video about the game’s features. He said he was open to making a sequel to expand the "strand game" genre. On September 26, 2019, Kojima Productions announced the game had gone gold, meaning it was ready for release. In October 2019, it was announced that the game would be released on Windows by 505 Games in mid-2020, confirming rumors about a PC version that had been discussed since 2015. The game was released on July 14, 2020. That same month, comedian Conan O’Brien revealed a character modeled after him in the game, after being digitally scanned during a visit to Kojima’s studio. The game’s soundtrack, Death Stranding: Timefall, was released on November 7, 2019, by RCA Records and Sony Interactive Entertainment, featuring artists like Chvrches and Bring Me the Horizon.
A director’s cut version of the game, with new content, was released for PlayStation 5 on September 24, 2021, followed by a Windows version on March 30, 2022. The base game was added to PC Game Pass on August 23, 2022, with unlockable items. On November 9, 2024, Kojima Productions announced they had regained the rights to Death Stranding from Sony Interactive Entertainment and planned to bring the game to more platforms. The director’s cut was immediately released on the Microsoft Store, Xbox Series X/S consoles, and Amazon Luna cloud gaming service.
Reception
The game's announcement at E3 2016 was received positively. In 2017, Death Stranding was nominated by the Golden Joystick Awards for "Most Wanted Game." In June 2018, after the E3 press conferences, Death Stranding became one of the most-watched video game trailers on YouTube, with over 4.5 million views.
When the game was released, it received "generally favorable" reviews, according to Metacritic. Some publications noted that reviewers had mixed opinions. Many praised the game for its unique ideas, long-term appeal, graphics, voice acting, and music. However, some critics found the game to be slow, confusing, and overly complicated.
Russ Frushtick of Polygon called Death Stranding "the most advanced walking simulator the world has ever seen" and said it "composed entirely of fetch quests." He also said the game was "pretty damn fun once it gets out of its own way." Frushtick described the game as "two games in one," combining an open-world adventure with online multiplayer features and a long, strange story. Matthew Kato of Game Informer gave the game a 7 out of 10, saying the gameplay was simple and the story, combat, and missions were not engaging enough.
Death Stranding is the fourth game directed by Hideo Kojima and the 26th overall to receive a perfect 40/40 score from the Japanese magazine Famitsu.
The game faced criticism for its portrayal of asexuality as a "sexless" lifestyle choice and for suggesting it might lead to lower birth rates. In the director's cut, the data log containing these views was revised to include a note stating the log "advances a controversial thesis widely regarded as unsubstantiated and discriminatory."
Death Stranding was also affected by review bombing on Metacritic, where many users left negative reviews to lower the game's score. In December 2019, the website removed over 6,000 of these reviews, calling them suspicious.
In its first week, Death Stranding became the best-selling physical game in Japan, selling 185,909 copies. This made it the most successful debut for a new game in Japan for the eighth generation of consoles, surpassing the previous record holder, Judgment. The game remained in Famitsu's top 30 best-selling physical games list for five weeks, reaching over 253,000 copies sold by December 15, 2019. By March 2020, the game had sold 262,827 physical copies and an estimated 136,279 digital copies in Japan, totaling about 399,106 sales.
In the UK, Death Stranding debuted at number two on the physical sales chart, behind Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. It became the second biggest PlayStation exclusive debut of the year, after Days Gone. According to Media Create, the game also topped the physical sales charts in Taiwan and South Korea and ranked first in Italy and France. It placed second in Switzerland.
On the PlayStation Network, the game reached an estimated 3 million players, including about 390,000 monthly active users, as of April 2020. SuperData Research estimated that the game sold 477,000 digital copies on Steam in its first month.
Hideo Kojima stated in May 2020 that the game had sold enough to cover its development costs and make a profit, securing funding for Kojima Productions' next project.
In April 2021, the publisher 505 Games reported that the PC version of the game generated €23 million ($27 million) in revenue by December 2020, making it the company's highest-grossing game that year. By October 2021, the PC version had generated €31 million. As of March 2021, the game had sold 5 million copies worldwide for the PS4 and PC platforms.
By April 2025, Death Stranding had reached over 20 million players worldwide.
The game won the "Best PS4 Exclusive" award at the IGN Game of the Year Awards 2019 and was nominated for "Best Music/Score" and "Best Art Direction."
Many commentators noted that the game's story and gameplay reminded them of the COVID-19 pandemic. The game's similarities to the pandemic led to comparisons with a previous Kojima game, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which had predicted events from the 2010s, such as fake news and echo chambers. A parody game called Walking Simulator, set in a post-apocalyptic world affected by the pandemic, was released in March 2020.
Sequel
In May 2022, Norman Reedus mentioned during an interview with Leo Edit that work on a sequel to the game had just begun. He also shared that the original game had won many awards and become very popular. Later, Hideo Kojima responded on Twitter by sharing photos that humorously showed him "punishing" Reedus for confirming the sequel's development. The sequel was later shown at several game expos, with images featuring actors Elle Fanning, Shioli Kutsuna, and Léa Seydoux.
A first trailer for Death Stranding 2 (also called DS2, which is a working title) was shown at The Game Awards 2022. This confirmed the return of actors from the first game, including Troy Baker, as well as the involvement of Elle Fanning, Shioli Kutsuna, and Léa Seydoux.
A second trailer was released during a Sony presentation called State of Play on January 31, 2024. This trailer introduced the subtitle On the Beach and set a release date for 2025. It also included characters played by Marty Rhone (as George Miller) and Jonathan Roumie (as Fatih Akin, shown as a puppet).
Adaptations
A live-action movie version of Death Stranding was announced on December 15, 2022. Kojima Productions worked with Alex Lebovici and his company, Hammerstone Studios, to make the film. Allan Ungar is the main producer. A24 became a co-producer after a shirt with the company’s logo and Death Stranding design appeared on A24’s website. Michael Sarnoski will write and direct the film. Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen are also producers. Hideo Kojima said the movie is planned to release in 2027.
In June 2025, Kojima Productions shared that an anime film based on Death Stranding, temporarily called Death Stranding Mosquito, is being made with Line Mileage. Hiroshi Miyamoto of ABC Animation will direct it. Aaron Guzikowski will write the story. A short preview video was shared on September 23, 2025.
In November 2025, an animated TV show named Death Stranding Isolations was announced. It will tell a story different from the video game. E&H Production is making the series. It is expected to air on Disney+ in 2027.