On Life and Death (Stranding)
I spent the last three years of my life caring for my mother who was dying of terminal cancer. She passed away in August and in the months prior I played the original Death Stranding both to prepare for the release of the sequel and for my ongoing series reviewing the works of Hideo Kojima. I had wanted to do a fun analysis of Sam Porter Bridges' demisexuality (a fact I had missed on my first playthrough in 2019) but I found myself unable to write about this game without untangling the pervasive themes of life and death that only became more potent due to my own life situation.
So after a few months to gather my thoughts here is that untangling in the form of an analysis of one of the most interesting games to grace the AAA video game space in the last decade, Death Stranding.
Connection
The most obvious theme of Death Stranding is that of connection, a theme only further thrust into the forefront by the obvious parallels between the people-less world of Death Stranding and the empty streets that became common place mere months after the game's release due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, the world of Death Stranding in 2025 mirrors that of our modern day world. The game's core gimmick, allowing built structures and roads to appear in your game from other people's worlds, created a United Cities of America that already felt well connected and lived in, recovered, if deeply scarred, from the worst of the isolation. There was always a bridge ready to cross, a zipline route ready to take and the signs of other players lives that define Death Stranding's ludonarrative cohesion on full display.
It runs in stark contrast to the UCA of 2019, one that still had the need for active collaboration among players. On my first playthrough at launch I would often feel like I moved in parallel with 1000s of other players as we navigated the difficult terrain together, no player left behind. In 2025, the path has been charted and now you follow in the footsteps of those who came before you. While this is something that leads to a smoother gameplay experience, being able to sidestep many of the game's intentionally unintuitive gameplay choices, it is a distinction that leaves the world of Death Stranding feeling notably lonelier than it did before.
In many ways, Death Stranding is a game that is throwing ideas at a wall and hoping to see what sticks, an all too familiar feeling to those who have tried to grapple with ideas of human connectivity in relation to death. What does stick is a comprehensive exploration of unbreaking familial ties both bloodbound and chosen.
Death
Death Stranding is a game filled with characters running away from death. Sam Porter Bridges is, in particular, a character haunted by it. But before I begin to dive into him lets make our way through a selection of the game's cast, starting with Mama and Lockne. Mama (or Målingen) and Lockne are twin sisters who were born conjoined. After separation at birth, and thanks to their DOOMS abilities (the game's in universe explanation for those who can interact with the supernatural), the pair can telepathically communicate with each other over any distance. However, at the time that Sam first meets Mama, the pair are no longer on speaking terms. Mama is stuck in a small laboratory looking after what appears to be a baby BT. BTs (or Beached Things) are the game's primary enemy type, the spirits of the dead that have slipped out of the world's afterlife (the Beaches) and back into the world of the living, only detectable to those with DOOMS. Their existence as beings made of antimatter mean that on contact with living humans they trigger large explosions, called voidouts, capable of wiping out entire cities.
Despite this, Mama is able to freely interact with and take care of this BT. It is revealed that the BT is actually the child of Lockne and her deceased partner that Mama had been the surrogate for. On the day of the child's birth the hospital Mama was at was attacked by the terrorist organisation, Homo Demens, who serve as the games human antagonists. This explosion left Mama trapped under the rubble, where she actually died. But due to "giving birth on the beach" she was able to keep living. The BT that she was tied to, Lockne's child, acting as her soul. Her death severed the telepathic connection and in shame Mama also cut off all other communication with her sister.
The game's second act is primarily Sam working to repair this relationship, physically building the network needed to connect them once more. The sisters must work together to stabilise the Chiral Network and prevent further timewarping natural disasters from happening. After some persuading, Sam gets Lockne on board. However, in order for the sisters to actually work together, their telepathic bond must be restored and the only way to do this is for Mama to sever the tie to her BT child and allow herself to pass away. After her death, Mama's soul returns to the body of Lockne, the pair reunited as one for the first time since their birth. Lockne comes to represent the 'Ha' or living body, while Mama represents their 'Ka' or soul, a description of life the game borrows from ancient Egyptian religion. The sacrifice demonstrates the importance of embracing the necessity of death but also enforce the strict balance of the Ha and Ka and of Life and Death itself.
Beyond 'Ha' and 'Ka'
It is explained that in order to reach the Beach, the game's version of the afterlife, humans must possess a Ka that can travel to the Beach upon death. This mirrors the ancient egyptian understanding of this concept, where the 'Ka' will journey to the afterlife after the death of the person, while the 'Ha' remains in the land of the living. People with DOOMS have a much stronger connection to their beach and by extension the other side and this is how their supernatural abilities are able to manifest. Mama and Lockne, for example, share a beach and this is how they're able to communicate telepathically. So long as the Ha is preserved, the Ka continues to live in the land of the dead (this is why Egyptian burial techniques were so intense). But what happens to you if you don't have a Ka?
That is the predicament of Deadman, a person born artificially and made mostly from cadaver organs due to multiple organ failure at birth. Deadman acts as one of Sam's closest allies throughout the game, working as a high ranking scientist for Bridges, the group trying to reform America. Bridges are deeply fascinated by the Beaches for a wide variety of reasons, such as their use in the creation of the Chiral Network that will reconnect America. Deadman uses his position as a leading scientist to explore his own worries about life after death.
This allows him to play a pivotal role in the development of one other way living people can see and interact with the supernatural BTs, the Bridge Babies (or BBs). The BBs are unborn fetuses collected from the wombs of stillmothers (women who died during pregnancy and are kept alive but braindead in an ICU facility) and placed in artificial wombs. Much like with Mama and her deathly childbirth, the BBs place between life and death allow them to see the BTs and aid delivery workers like Sam in safely navigating around America.
We'll get into the specifics of Sam's BB later on but due to the affinity Deadman shares for both Sam and that specific BB, he is able to be transported to the beach ton multiple occasions throughout the game despite the lack of a Ka. Through the arc of Deadman, Kojima accomplishes the establishment of 2 major themes. First that human connection is what allows us to have life after death and not in fact the existence of a Ka but also that death itself is a key part in what makes us human. Kojima has long been fascinated about questions of artificial life, that can be dated as far back as his 1988 release Snatcher but here he presents a stance not too dissimilar from that of German philosopher Martin Heidegger who posits that human life gains its meaning by being directed towards death.
Embracing Death
Death Stranding's most mysterious character is that of Clifford Unger. For the first half of the game, Unger only appears in a series of flashback sequences that Sam sees when plug in to the BB that accompanies him throughout the game. These scenes show Clifford visiting a BB and an unconcious woman (presumed a stillmother) from the perspective of a BB already in an artificial womb. Primarily, these scenes depict Clifford trying desperately to remain a sense of normalcy in order to avoid confronting the horrors that have befell his family. In one, he delivers Christmas presents while wearing a Santa hat, in others he celebrates birthdays or drunkenly recreates a romantic dance he once had with his wife Lisa.
Eventually, these scenes develop into revealing a grander conspiracy. An overheard conversation where a woman in a mask calls the BB "A foundation. A Bridge." A scene where the man she told this too is revealed to be a former soldier who served under Clifford and informs him that he should take the BB and try to escape. This culminates in a number of flashbacks depicting the attempted escape, which ends with Clifford being shot dead mere moments after he chooses to open up the BBs pod in an attempt to give them a chance at life.
These scenes initially seem like an interesting insight into the family of the BB that Sam carries with him, while pointing to a wider conspiracy within the Bridges organisation for the player to explore as the game progresses. This is until, after connecting South Knot City to the Chiral Network, Sam finds himself transported out of time into the trenches of World War 1 (or at least a facsimile of them created on the Beach) by a mysterious storm that would become known as a "Supercell Event." The trenches are covered in tar, the same tar associated with that of the BTs but from these rises Clifford Unger and 4 skeleton soldiers he has command over.
Clifford is not, however, a BT but instead falls in the more standard understanding of a vengeful ghost or spirit. Clifford's Ka has moved on to the beach and can no longer return to the land of the living but due to deep regrets about being unable to protect his child he now roams the beaches with the single goal of reuniting with his BB, a BB he also believes to be the one carried by Sam, who he now hunts down within the supercell anomalies.
These anomalies become repeated events throughout the game, the second takes place in the midst of WW2 but the third and most important takes place in the Vietnam war. Here Sam, now having been able to piece together some of Clifford Unger's story, comes face to face with Clifford after once again besting him in combat. Clifford, still searching for his BB, hums a lullaby that we have seen him hum to his BB in a prior flashback when Sam is able to hum the rest of it back to him. At this point Cliff turns his attention more directly to Sam and holds him in a tender embrace, calling him his "bridge to the future", before vanishing after the sound of a gunshot.
Clifford had been until this point refusing to accept death. Not just of his own but that of his wife and perhaps even his BB who after all was an underdeveloped fetus he removed from the artificial womb that was keeping them alive. Clifford rejects death through the sheer determination of wanting to be reunited with his child, the connection that he feels was severed leaving him now trapped in eternal purgatory. He finds himself returning to his time as a soldier, jumping around some of the most atrocious battlefields in human history. Clifford is a heavily tortured soul.
The Vietnam war scene is however not the last we see of Cliff. The game's conclusion gives us one last sequence as Sam watches the entirety of his attempted escape with his BB unfold. It goes as we expect, until right before his death Sam jumps in front of the gun and time freezes. Clifford here finally explains what he realised in Vietnam, that his BB was not the BB that Sam was carrying but was in fact Sam himself. Cliff is finally able to accept his death and finally moves on while once again affirming this idea of a "bridge to the future", highlighting the power and importance of strong interpersonal connections such as familial ties in finding meaning from death and in life.
Embracing Life
If his father is a character trying to run away from death, Sam is one desperately trying to run towards it. Sam did survive the events of his father's death but he did so via supernatural means. Bridget Strand, the leader of Bridges and the woman who order the death of Clifford, was in fact an extremely powerful being known as an Extinction Entity (EE). And after undergoing surgery for uterine cancer in her early twenties her Ka became divorced from her Ha, creating two connected but separate beings. The Ha continued to be Bridget while the 'Ka' became known as Samantha or 'Amelie', Bridget's daughter, as this version did not age. This split made her incredibly powerful in regards to death and the Beaches and wracked by guilt she used this power to revive a baby Sam and raise him as her own adoptive child.
Growing up, Sam would suffer from nightmares caused by his DOOMS, often leaving him stranded on the Beach. It was in these moments he would form a particularly strong bond with his adoptive "sister" Amelie, the Ka of Bridget always looking out for the child in his worst moments. As he grew up Sam would become an accomplished member of Bridges, though his DOOMS would leave him with aphenphosmphobia (a fear of being touched). To treat this he would reluctantly enter therapy where he would meet Lucy, a woman he would eventually fall in love and conceive a child with. Lucy, however, would be unable to cope with the nightmares caused by DOOMS she was now experiencing due to the pregnancy and would commit suicide; wiping out herself and their child but also causing a voidout that would wipe out their entire town. The lone survivor was Sam.
As a consequence of his rebirth as a baby, Sam would become known as a "repatriate" someone whose Ka would return to the Ha everytime he died, now unable to move on to the Beach. Distraught by the loss of his family and blamed for the destruction of the town, Sam would begin a life of solitude acting as a freelance porter away from Bridges and the public eye.
10 years later, after making a delivery to Central Knot City, Sam is pressured into seeing his mother for the first time in all those years. Bridget Strand's Ha was now on it's death bed due to the return of her uterine cancer and she uses her final breaths to force a contract on Sam that requires him to help with the construction of the Chiral Network, setting the game's events in motion.
At this point, Sam is a broken human, so scarred by the death of his loved ones, his biological parents, adoptive mother, his wife and expected child, even his own, that he has entirely given up on human connection. He cannot die, so he lives a meaningless, not meeting either of the potential meanings of life the game would go on to present (death and connection). With no other choice he heads west to connect America, told he is following in the footsteps of his sister Amelie who waits in need of rescue from the terrorists all the way in what would be modern day Los Angeles.
Sam does not travel entirely alone, however. Sam acquired a defective BB, BB-28, on a body didposal mission gone wrong and continues to travel with him on this new mission to aid in navigate around BTs. Though he would loathe to admit, Sam takes a liking to BB-28, naming her Lou after his unborn child. This growing parental bond is at the heart of Death Stranding, both reinforced by the themes of the narrative as discussed but also the gameplay. Get in too much danger and Lou will become distressed, needing the player to take time to play with her in order to calm her down. If she gets too tired you have to go take a break at one of the restrooms to allow her to recharge. The player is forced to build affinity for and take care of the needs of Lou. The player (and Sam) thrust into the role of parenthood. The player recieves gameplay benefits while Sam recieves a much needed bond that serves as his lifeline in a harsh and lonely world.
With each step Sam walks, character he meets and location he syncs up to the chiral network he is building the connections that make life meaningful. Despite his inability to die, much like Deadman's lack of Ka he is able to finding meaning in the relationships he builds with those around him.
To Live For Others
When Sam's journey out west reaches it's conclusion, the truth of Amelie's existence is revealed to him. Not only that she is the Ka of his adoptive mother Bridget, not only that Bridget was responsible for the death of his father but also that Amelie is an Extinction Entity. What does that mean? In short every mass extinction in the Death Stranding universe (such as of the dinosaurs or the Ice Age) has been caused by an Extinction Entity, burdened with the responsibility of bringing on the next extinction event.
Amelie grew up with visions of her destiny and eventually became unable to cope with the thought of waiting around to watch the world be destroyed, she instead chose to speed up the process and put herself out of her misery. This would lead her to the goal of creating the Chiral Network and the subsequent experiements into BBs that would lead to the events of Clifford unger's death. The Chiral Network, while an incredibly useful tool for the living, also served of connecting every person's individual Beach to Amelie's triggering "The Last Stranding", Amelie's extinction event.
Sam, through his lifelong connection to Amelie, is able to make it back to her beach where he faced with a final choice, sit and watch the end of the world with Amelie or shoot her, to sever her tie to her own beach and delay the Last Stranding. Sam instead shows compassion, hugging Amelie and assuring her that he will always be their for her, reaffirming their conenction to each other. This gives Amelie the convinction required to remain on her beach but cut off from everyone else, knowing that even without the metaphysical connection to Sam via the Beach their emotional bond provides enough meaning to continuing living. Amelie learns to embrace her own form of life, alone on the Beach but cherishing her connections to the living, overseeing the extinction event as she must but sparing humanity for now.
When Sam returns to the Land of the Living he also is faced with the potential death of his new world. Lou, as a BB, is only supposed to survive for a year or two and by the time he has finished helping set up the UCA her expiration date is due. Sam once again chooses to go off the grid, taking Lou with him and releasing her from the artificial womb, giving her the same chance at life his father did in his dying moments. Miraculously, Lou survives this process and Sam retreats into the unknown to start a new life with her.
Conclusion
Death Stranding and its characters are at constant odds with what it means to live and what it means to die and what those two things mean in relation to each other. While the initial indication the game presents is that of a life given meaning by death and finality it shows the need to thread a line between the acknowledgment and comfort with the inevitability of death, both your own and of the ones that you love but also to make sure you don't look past the life in front of you, the people around you and the bonds that you share because whether you have no soul, you cannot die or even if you're a being whose sole existence is the cause of a species wide extinction event it is within those conenction sthat you will find the reason to keep on living.
