Death Stranding: 24 Mind-Bending Tips To Get You Through The First Hours

Death Stranding is the weirdness opus of Hideo Kojima. The creator of the Metal Gear Solid series has made something unique — a mainstream game that’s difficult to summarize. This is game about avoiding spectral entities while making postal deliveries to wilderness outposts. The first few hours of Death Stranding are downright leisurely, slowly introducing the concepts of this post-apocalyptic world. And there is so much here that’s flat-out unlike any other game on the market.

Let’s just talk about a handful of strange details in this game — you can earn special grenades by washing, urinating, or defecating. You can sneak by villainous cargo thieves and enter their base if you aren’t carrying cargo, and you can generate healing items in the wilderness by pissing on the ground. More specifically, you’ll need to work with the community to piss on the same holographic mushrooms.

There’s a lot to learn here, so I’m expanding the format and offering up 24 tips and tricks for Death Stranding. Give your BB a soothing shake and prepare your loadout, we’re going into the wilds.

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#1: Always choose to be Online! You’ll get more rewards, fine more helpful items in the environment, and generally have a much, much better experience. Being Online isn’t obtrusive. It’s like being in a big community where you’re all working together to help each other.

#2: Breeze through Episode 2 to unlock an incredibly useful ability early in Episode 3 — Fast Travel! This ability lets you rapidly transfer to areas you’ve already been, making completing quests much, much easier. No more long walks.

#3: Hold [L1] and target a marker [D-Pad: Left / Right] and lock-on to get an elevation prediction. You’ll be able to see the elevation of the ground between you and your target. Use this to see if your route is going to take you over some extremely steep terrain. Very useful for plotting paths with vehicles.

Cryptobiotes spawn at these weird formations. Also if you piss a lot.

#4: Look for cryptobiotes to rapidly restore tour Blood Level! You can carry a total of 999, so try to grab As many as you can. Multiple spawn at strange growth sites. Use your scanner to spot them.

#5: If you see a holographic mushroom, that means it’s a spot someone has urinated. Urinate on the exact same spot, and if other players online do it too, the mushroom will turn into a cluster of mushrooms that spawn a load of cryptobiotes you can collect.

#6: Fighting MULEs isn’t too hard. You don’t have to run! Instead, equip the Strand. You always have it equipped! Equip it, then hold [L2] and press [R2] when a MULE attacks. You’ll counter and stun them, making it easy to hit them with a three attack combo.

Get more tips on the next page!