“Death Stranding 2” is here. Kojima Productions’ strange new game is kicking off with a bang. And for a game that a lot of people call a walking simulator, there sure are a lot of complicated gameplay systems and mechanics, and a lot of stuff the game doesn’t spell out for you. We got 10 tips and tricks, some things you should know if you’re jumping into the game.
10. Combat Moves You Might’ve Missed
So a lot of combat stuff was originally added to the definitive edition of “Death Stranding” later on. But if you didn’t play the updated release or just flat out didn’t notice it there, because it was not something the game really took the time to explain or tell you about. So for a lot of players like myself included, a lot of these new combat moves are new to us.
So one thing “Death Stranding 2” does explain is how to perform a jumping knee attack, which is done by simply pressing the jump button, X, followed by the attack button, circle. It’s a useful combat move, but nothing too flashy. The real point of this point, you know, the real magic happens when you’re sprinting. If you get into a full sprint, then jump and press the attack button, then Sam will flip out and do a full on flying drop kick. It’s a pure power move. Just look at the majesty. He manages to get some impressive weird air on these attacks.
It’s not perfect for every situation, unfortunately. Sometimes it does not land. Like if you’re getting shot at and flinching, then the drop kick seems like it’s not gonna work. But if you catch a guy by surprise or are taking on guys who are mostly just melee focused, then it’s a powerful ability.
It’s also not the only thing you can do from a sprint. There’s also a body slam, which is functionally quite similar, but it’s performed by pressing the crouch command while in the air instead of attack. You know a game is on the right track when the main guy starts whipping out some wrestling moves, and Death Stranding’s got ’em here. Some of these moves will come in handy later on, trust me. No spoilers, but possibly during some boss encounters.
9. Tranquilizer Sniper Rifle Strategy
The tranquilizer sniper rifle you unlock for helping out the Lone Commander might not sound that good from the description. It’s a long range rifle, but it only stuns enemies and doesn’t knock them out for good. And it’s not silenced so enemies will be alerted to your presence after firing.
So on paper that might sound sort of limited, but the downsides actually make this thing more effective in certain situations. Used correctly, you can easily clear out a brigand base with very little effort with a rifle. It’s actually kind of crazy just how useful this thing is.
The important thing to do when preparing for an attack is to first use Dollman for recon. So you can’t mark targets from the sniper scope, only your regular like, viewing goggles. But you can also use Dollman’s tracking ability. So throw a little guy into the air, mark everyone you see, then get set up in a distant location with a nice wide view of the surrounding area.
Now just start taking guys out. One or two shots is usually enough to knock out the average enemy. You just need to make sure you’re actually hitting them, like making sure that the shots are actually connecting. There is some bullet drop off in the game, so check your distance and adjust your aim a bit.
You should be able to take out at least a few guys before they get fully alerted, and then at that point they’ll all just start running towards you. But if you’re in a place with a lot of open spaces, then they’re kind of just sitting ducks. Them running towards you just makes them easier targets, yes. Does that mean the AI is not very good? Yeah, but hey, it makes it easier for you. Take ’em out, then run ’em down and kick them to permanently take them out of action. That’s all it takes to clear out quite a few bases in the early game. Frankly, it’s a strategy that’s almost too powerful, so try not to overdo it.
8. Securing Cargo for Stability
Here’s a mechanic that the game does introduce at some point, but it’s far later in than you’d think given just how useful it is. Have you ever had a ton of cargo strapped to your back so much that it’s flopping all over the place, knocking you off balance and then is in danger of just like, completely falling all over and getting damaged?
Nobody wants that damaged cargo obviously. And you might think that this is just what you have to put up with if you’re carrying too much stuff, but it’s actually not, because there is a way to secure cargo and it’s actually pretty easy to do if you know the trick.
So if you wanna make your backpack stuff just more sturdy at no cost, then just drop your backpack on the ground using the command in the cargo menu, then equip the strand tool in your hand. Hold it out while near your pack and you’ll see a new option to secure your cargo. So do that, put your backpack back on, and then continue on your way with safer, more secure cargo.
You can tell it worked because of the added ropes and like, visual effect everywhere. So it makes it so your cargo no longer shifts around as much when you move. You’re still going to need to be careful, but this definitely helps.
7. Mastering Bare-Hand Parries
We’ve seen a lot of people online struggling with how parries work in “Death Stranding 2”. Yes, another game with parries. There are a lot of mechanics in this game and it’s easy to misunderstand or struggle with some of them because like, they’re all not that difficult individually, but just keeping track of everything all together can be tough.
So how bare-hand parries work is that you’ll need to press L2 or R2 right before an enemy hits you to deflect their attack. Don’t get it twisted, it’s not L2 and R2 at the same time, and your timing doesn’t need to be crazy precise, just press either of these buttons just as an enemy is hitting you.
It doesn’t matter what angle you’re standing at, and as far as we can tell, it doesn’t even matter which button you press. At first I was under the impression that like, the attacks coming from the left had to be parried with L2 and the attacks coming from the right had to be parried with R2, but after testing it doesn’t really seem to matter.
The best advice we can give is that if you wanna learn how to effectively parry, which you should because it’s a useful skill to have, there’s more combat in this one, just run the VR simulation, then go into the combat mode and get a little practice in. You’ll figure out the timing in no time.
6. Sneaking with Breath Control
Holding your breath now isn’t just for dodging BTs, it actually has a few alternative uses. One of the most effective is sneaking, believe it or not.
So in “Death Stranding 2”, holding your breath also makes it so your footsteps are silenced, making you much quieter, which can be very effective in situations where an enemy might notice you sneaking around.
So when you wanna sneak up and get the drop on a guy, holding your breath is a surefire way to really hopefully prevent them turning around and spotting you outta nowhere. So whatever you’re moving into like, just like, tie up a bandit or something, just hold your breath while you’re at it. It’s a simple way to make sneaking easier.
5. Secret Stat Upgrades
There are secret stat upgrades. These are interesting, because while they do appear as popups when you complete missions or enter safe zones after a long journey, they’re never really completely explained to you.
You just see a little popup saying something something level one to level two, like endurance or something, and you’re just there kind of left scratching your head, like what does that mean?
Well, how it works in “Death Stranding 2” is that there is an actual progression system for Sam’s skills. Depending on what you’re doing a lot of, you’ll start seeing certain skills improve, starting at level one, seems like they can go up to level five. And some of these improvements are significant.
And one extremely useful one you get early on is carrying capacity, which increases when you’re carrying cargo near your weight limit over a long distance. When this goes up, it increases your total weight limit by 10 kilograms for every level.
There are a lot of stats like that which all get better depending on your play style. Upgrade by doing. Use a lot of handguns, then you increase the handgun mastery rank, which increases reload speed, reticle sway and recoil and stuff. Maybe you use melee a lot. Then you end up not only doing more damage, you can actually unlock more consecutive attacks.
Importantly, if you want to break down of just what each stat does and how to upgrade them, then open up the menu, dig through, and then check out Sam’s Stats. Here, and I’ve seen some people not realize this yet, but this is where you just get a full breakdown of this whole thing.
For those of us who played the first game pre-definitive edition, you’d probably just assume stats are like, you know, just total walking distance and amount of stuff delivered, like just gameplay statistics. But no, there’s like, full on video game style upgrade systems here.
4. Grenade Throwing Technique
Here’s another ability that can actually entirely pass you by. So you’re gonna be using grenades a whole lot more in this game compared to the first. The blood grenades are just way more effective this time around. Obviously aiming and throwing these things is simple, but this type of throw you might’ve missed.
So the trick here is to hold down the throw command, you know, like you’re cooking a grenade in an FPS game. But instead of making it explode sooner after the throw, holding the button down in this game makes it so that Sam will switch his stance and throw the grenade harder, farther, and in more of a straight line.
So when you wanna hit an enemy directly with a grenade, this is just a really useful ability. When you’re actually trying to throw a grenade over cover, then this is not what you want to be doing. But for clearing out BTs, it is a useful little ability that makes it a lot easier to chuck grenades from a safe distance.
3. Chiral Crystals and Carry Weight
Kind of a newbie tip, but growing all over the place you’ll find these things called chiral crystals. You might remember ’em from the first game. There are easy ways to collect them. You get them from taking a shower, you can pick them up off the ground, they’re dropped when certain things die. But the purpose of them might not all be that clear to some of you.
So the reason why you want to pick up as much of these as possible is because for every 1000 chiral crystals you have, your overall carrying weight is increased by one kilogram. That might not sound like much, but over the course of an entire game scooping these things up, it does make a difference.
So from just random deposits, you’re not gonna get that much. But if you kill dangerous BTs, especially the large hunter varieties that come out when you get caught by the watchers, those guys drop a lot of this stuff, as do any boss enemies you encounter.
Don’t just leave the area, make sure you look at these things, walk up to them, and pick up the crystals left behind. There are also these large tar pit deposits that can have a lot of crystals in the middle of them. And of course, don’t forget to shower once in a while because you collect like, a whole bunch of these because in the game’s lore, like, they accumulate naturally over time on you.
Anyway, our suggestion, if you see the random growths of these crystals in the world, then they’re probably not worth running over to pick up. But in BT zones and any large collections of them, they are absolutely worth going for. Even if the carry weight boost is small, trust us, it adds up after a while.
2. What Likes Actually Do
Like the first game, “Death Stranding 2” is kind of vague about what the thumbs up or likes actually do. You can give and receive likes all over the place, kind of like in real life. But what’s the actual point to doing any of this?
Well, we’re just gonna tell you because like in the first game, it confused us. So now here you go. So what this does is basically it makes you more connected to the ever important chiral network, meaning that more users and NPC structures will appear in your world that you can make use of.
And of course more likes from NPCs means you’ll get a higher star rating with them, which is very important. It can unlock more resources you can use to then take and go build stuff. But getting higher star ratings also unlocks additional equipment from NPCs. Like, some of them can be huge.
But the nature of how likes affect NPCs is pretty straightforward, but how they affect everything else is more vague. It’s never really made entirely clear how exactly it works. But essentially if you build structures people use and give likes to and you like other people’s stuff in return, then ideally more useful structures will appear within chiral network range.
Look, it might sound weird, but likes do have an effect on the online portion of the game as well as just the NPC stuff.
1. Fighting Watcher BTs
The newly announced watcher BTs in “Death Stranding 2” are a huge pain. These things can’t just detect you from sound, but also sight, which makes them pretty annoying to try and sneak around.
So in “Death Stranding”, you were mostly just stuck trying to slowly avoid BTs. But in 2, you’ve got a lot more tools to help you out and weapons to neutralize these guys. So while it might be tempting to just try and ghost these things at first, it’s really not worth the hassle. Just kill ’em, man. The game kind of wants you to.
Chuck a few blood grenades their way and make ’em disappear or shoot them with an MP machine gun. The gun is gonna make noise and draw in other nearby BTs, but the blood grenade is quieter and has the added benefit of stunning the BT when hit, so you’re basically in zero danger of setting it off.
Just hit it with a grenade, then another and another, you know, and it’s usually dead. It disappears and then it’s no longer a problem that you gotta deal with. In the original “Death Stranding”, trying to fight BTs was almost always a losing game, but in 2, honestly, it’s the easier option.
And no spoilers, but the further you get in, the more interesting things they give you to take these baddies out. So stick with it.
Anyway, these are 10 things “Death Stranding 2” either doesn’t really spell out to you too well or things we’ve figured out for ourselves. Either way, just some tips and tricks for you to get started. Let us know what you think of the game so far, and hopefully this helped you out. But anyway, thanks for reading, and we’ll see you guys next time.