Bridge Site Alpha

Lore & Background

The world is defined by the cataclysmic event known as the Death Stranding, which caused invisible creatures originating from the Beach to roam the Earth. These BTs are created from the dead via necrosis and produce Timefall, a rain that rapidly ages and deteriorates whatever it hits. When a BT consumes a living human, it triggers a voidout, an explosion on the scale of a nuclear bomb that permanently damages the location with an untraversable crater. The remaining population confines themselves to Knot Cities within the United Cities of America (UCA), relying on Bridges porters who carry Bridge Babies (BBs) to sense these invisible threats. Individuals known as repatriates can return from death via the Seam, though contact with a BT still causes voidouts.

In Their Own Story

Freelance courier Sam Porter Bridges is interrupted by Timefall while transporting cargo to Central Knot City. After evading a BT with assistance from Fragile, he arrives to find a citizen dead and on the verge of necrosis. As a repatriate with DOOMS, Sam joins a disposal team, but an encounter with BTs causes a voidout that destroys Central Knot City. Reviving in Capital Knot City, he meets Deadman and delivers morphine to his adoptive mother, President Bridget Strand. She pleads for him to rejoin Bridges to reform America before succumbing to her illness. Sam refuses to incinerate the Bridge Baby involved in the voidout, adopts it as 'Lou,' and accepts a mission from his estranged sister Amelie. His task is to traverse the continental United States to connect isolated cities to the Chiral Network and rescue Amelie from Homo Demens.

Reader's Guide

Players control Sam Bridges to deliver cargo to Knot Cities and researchers while connecting them to the Chiral Network. Performance is evaluated based on delivery success and cargo integrity, earning 'likes' that improve statistics like stability and weight capacity. The game features asynchronous online functions where players leave structures like ropes and bridges via the Portable Chiral Constructor (PCC), though Timefall eventually destroys these creations. Sam uses an odradek sensor to scan for invisible BTs, which are surrounded by damaging Timefall. If killed by a BT, Sam revives in the Seam but risks causing a voidout if consumed. The game extensively utilizes music from Silent Poets and Low Roar to enhance traversal.

Did You Know?

• As of March 2021, the game had sold 5 million copies worldwide.
• The game won the most Game of the Year awards of any title in 2019.
• Kojima stated that without Low Roar, Death Stranding would not have been born following frontman Ryan Karazija's death in 2022.
• A sequel titled Death Stranding 2: On the Beach was released on June 26, 2025, for PlayStation 5.
• The game features likenesses of film directors Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn as supporting characters.