Death Stranding 2: On the beach trailer and PHYSINT reveal analysis
More than a year has passed since the first reveal of DS2. A considerable amount of time that has seen Kojima Productions announce their second title in the works, OD, in collaboration with Xbox Game Studios, which according to Kojima himself is a smaller, more experimental title that he’s been tinkering with for a while in his mind.
Thankfully for Playstation and Death Stranding fans, the wait to get an update on the project didn’t last much longer, with the latest exceptional State Of Play delivering a whole 10 minutes of Death Stranding 2 footage, gameplay, a final title, a release window and, surprisingly, a major second reveal for another new IP Hideo Kojima and his team will be working on with Sony after the release of Death Stranding 2: On the beach in 2025.
Now, before getting to the meat and potatoes of this analysis, I wanna give some order to what you are going to read. This new trailer is an extremely long and complex one with tons of footage and information thrown at viewer and it connects in many ways to the first trailer released in 2022. Thankfully the trailer itself is divided into named sections that I will follow throughout this analysis by naming each chapter after one of them while adding: an intro, an outro and a small separate section dedicated to PHYSINT. So, without further ado, here’s the list of chapters you will encounter in this analysis: Intro, On the ship, On the strand, On the edge, On the road, On the Drawbridge, On the beach, Outro, PHYSINT.
Intro
The trailer opens up on an operating room. Fragile and a new character that we later find out to be the captain of the DHV Magellan are operating on someone.
Highlighted in red and white are the most important parts of this shot. In red we see one of the logos Kojima used to tease DS2 back in 2022, which also appeared on the livery of the DHV Magellan in the first trailer. Now, we can see that it is the logo of the Magellan itself, as written on the captain’s jacket.
In white we see the pair of bionic hands that Fragile carries on her all throughout the trailer. They are not a new sight, as they made a brief appearance in the first trailer while holding BB’s pod when Fragile meets Sam out of his prepper bunker. Throughout this new trailer, they’ll perform all kind of actions and seem to be directly controlled by Fragile’s mind like normal limbs. I don’t think there’s any story implication with them and they most likely just represent a cool piece of technology developed by the UCA or Drawbridge themselves and, of course, an element that adds depth to Fragile’s new character design.
In this second shot we see Fragile and the ship’s captain using a medical saw on a sarcophagus. The sarcophagus itself is showcased on a screen on the right side of the shot, along with the pulse rate of whoever is inside, showing that they are indeed alive.
After we get a shot of the saw cutting through the sarcophagus and the tar that breaks loose out of it, we get a glimpse of…a BT cat.
This same cat is present multiple times throughout the trailer and is revealed to be the captain’s personal pet. Developers in recent years have taken a habit of adding pets totheir games, so it is really nice to see Death Stranding 2 following this wholesome trend. As for the cat itself, notice how its tongue is replaced by a tentacle, further adding to the light cosmic horror and Lovecraftian elements Death Stranding has always been known for.
On its back there is also a pair of small wings, very similar to those that BT Lou sports in the first trailer. Could these little wings indicate a kind of “domesticated” or friendly BT? On the nature of BTs in DS2, once again, there will be more to say later.
In the following moments we finally get a clearer picture of the sarcophagus and the person within it. The whole imagery reminds that of an hatched egg and of a chick coming out of it and being born. In the context of this imagery, it is curious to note how the tar might serve as nutrient for the person inside to grow, just like the lipids present in yolk in normal eggs. Similar imagery was present in the first trailer with the cultists carrying Higgs in an artificial sarcophagus that leaked tar. Could tar be a way to revive the dead or create new life?
Fragile and the captain clean up the tar off the sarcophagus inhabitant’s arm and attach it to intravenous feeding. At this moment it is revealed that their skin presents a pattern similar to that of the suckers present on a squid’s tentacles. Once again, we have squid imagery, just like the cat earlier and Lou in the first trailer. I think this proves that this person, who is later revealed to be Elle Fanning’s character, is related to the BTs somehow or that she rapresents the first specimen of a new human species born out of the contact between the world of the living and that of the dead. Of course, another theory is that of Elle Fanning’s character and Lou being somewhat related, something which is still an open question. This is one of the most important plot elements that the trailer introduces, there’s so far very little to make up a clear picture of it but it’s nonetheless worth keeping an eye on for the future.
Next up, we’re shown how tar flows beneath the suckers, probably making up what would be blood in a normal human being. When they get touched, needles come out of the suckers before retracting after not being able to detect touch anymore. Another interesting reaction to touching comes from the skin on the arm becoming red and like that of a goose when touched, exactly like Sam’s skin in DS1 due to his aphenphosmphobia.
After pulling on the needle of one sucker for a bit, it spits tar onto Fragile’s glove. The rubber of the glove gets eaten away by the tar that quickly ends up reaching the skin beneath it causing the same aging effect as Timefall. Here we get proof that, somehow, Fragile has indeed been able to heal herself and reverse the timefall effects that afflicted her in the first game and is probably able to access this healing whenever she wants as her hand comes back to normal during the rest of the trailer, even in scenes most likely set after this contact with the tar. The other implication of this little section here is that Elle Fanning’s character cannot touch people for too long or hug them as the needles on her arms would attach to anyone who is touching her and inject them with tar.
Why her body would do this is unkown, BTs in DS1 only grab people to drag them into the tar, they never attach to them to inject it. Perhaps, if this really is a new kind of human, her body is built to create new instances of her species through those needles. Maybe one of the implications of the last Stranding?
Finaly, Elle’s character wakes up. There’s nothing that relevant to analyze here despite the fact that she is not only covered in tar but also chiralium, further giving credence to the idea that she is being born by the Death Stranding itself. What is most noteworthy here is the sheer amount of detail this simple shot has, something that will be present again and again all over the trailer. Decima is one of the best engines around and a testament to how the industry needs more proprietary tech, not less.
The intro sequence of the trailer ends on BB spitting the DHV Magellan out of her mouth. This is most likely nothing important plot wise, but it gives more context to the next part of the trailer. The DHV Magellan is not a conventional ship. It doesn’t travel through air or water, but through the space between life and death, just like BBs.
In a way, we ought to think of the Magellan as a massively upgraded version of the umbrella Fragile has in the first game. We also get a better look at the ship itself with its big crane mounted on top of it and what seem like two huge MLRSs on the back.
On the ship
After the intro, we are presented with a look at the DHV Magellan’s interior with Fragile dressed in what looks like a ship commander outfit greeting Sam onto the ship and showing him around. Their skin is blue, just like when Sam was on the beach in DS1 or in the seam after dying during gameplay. But this should be no surprise as BB’s shot right before this section already hinted at this
Next, Sam gets introduced to te ship armory and oh boy there’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s follow the numbers I highlighted and let’s check out what’s new in Sam’s arsenal.
1: A melee weapon of some sort, probably a Katana or a Bō staff, a weapon typical of Japanese martial arts.
2: A scoped gun. I’m not too sure on the real world counterpart of this gun, but I think it might be a reference to the Manurhin MR73 Sniper, a French manufactured sniper pistol born as a modification of a 1973 revolver built for the national police and the French special units of the GIGN (Groupe d’intervention de la Gendarmerie nationale).
3: A silenced pistol or a non lethal gun like the tranquillizer gun present in numerous MGS games.
4: A blue revolver, the blue meaning it is non lethal. There will most likely be a lethal version as well but it’s interesting to see so many handguns whereas DS1 only really had a standard pistol that developed into a scoped, silenced variant as the player levels it up.
Circled in red: A VR headset for Sam to try out his weapons like Fragile mentions. If you’ve played the Director’s Cut of DS1, you’ll be familiar with the shooting range and VR missions from it. They were very fun additions to the original game so I’m happy to see them make a return, hopefully along with the leaderboards and online ranking tiers.
5: What looks to me like a non lethal sniper rifle. Despite the vast plains he could explore in DS1, Sam never had the chance to use a weapon to deal with mules and terrorists from a distance so it’s great to see we’re getting a sniper rifle this time around. Of course, once again, we should expect a lethal variant as well.
Circled in green: Attached to a standard assault rifle from the first game there’s a new kind of attachement. I checked and it’s not present on any weapon from DS1 so it is definitely something new. If I had to guess, I’d say it is a laser sight and maybe an hint towards a larger focus on stealth along with the silenced pistol I mentioned earlier.
6: An LMG. Another glaring omission from DS1’s weapon arsenal that finally makes its way into DS2.
Despite all the new additions, I think it is interesting to note how there’s still tons of space in the armory to host other weapons, so definitely expect to see many more weapons in the final game and future trailers.
After we get a look at the armory, we hear Sam and Fragile discuss the nature of Drawbridge and of the DHV Magellan. Fragile explains that they do not work directly for the UCA, but that they are a civilian outfit with a wealthy patron to finance them behind the scenes. Only thing is that Fragile has never met this patron of hers as she says “They value their privacy” to which Sam expresses some doubt and disappointment in the fact Fragile would believe such a lie.
A somewhat funny thought that came up to me when I saw this scene is that Drawbridge is a “good” version of Wagner or other PMCs around the world that governments use to excercise their influence around the globe with the cover of plausible deniability. It is entirely possible, in this sense, that single members of the UCA might be financing Drawbridge behind the scenes to expand the chiral network and extend their influence all over the American continent and, possibly, the world(Remember, Magellan was the first man to circumnavigate the world), without going to the extreme measures of annexing territory and possibly causing wars and turmoil among the nations they seek to influence.
On the strand
The third section of the trailer starts out with Sam preparing for a mission and getting a debrief on the situation outside of the UCA from Fragile. She mentions that it’s the exact same deal as before, people are scattered all around Mexico and need to be latched up to the network in order to reconnect to society.
As Fragile explains Sam’s new misison, we get a new look at the outfit he’ll be wearing throughout the game, a Drawbridge version of the Bridges one he wears in the first game. Also, notice how Sam does not have white hair here as in the first trailer, but is instead back to his normal, younger self. Perhaps, like Fragile, Sam is able to cure his condition that I theorized was brought to him by his extended stay on Amelie’s beach? Finally, focus your attention on the part circled in red.
Circled in red: Sam’s new Q-pid which was revealed months ago at TGS as new merch that people could buy on the Kojipro website at the usual exhorbitant prices Kojima merch is known for. There’s lots to unpack here so let’s go with order.
To aid myself in this analysis I’m using this Reddit post which did lots on research on the new Q-pid last September. The post’s author goes into much more detail as I ever could as my understanding of physics and mathematics is next to none and I don’t want to annoy you with endless ramblings about equations, but suffice you to know that the new Q-pid has on it equations that suggest a much stronger and capable version of the first one, probably capable of building bigger structures, connect people on much larger areas (hence, the entire world) and interact with Sam’s equipment in new, innovative ways like affecting gravity which we actually see later in the trailer and in the gif below:
Secondly, the new Q-pid (or at least part of it) makes an appearance in DS1 as well, more specifically in the small story addition in the Director’s Cut where Fragile’s mom, Coffin, wears a coffin shaped necklace that resembles an individual tag from the new Q-pid.
The connections between the events described in the few short missions added to DS1 through the Director’s Cut and DS2 run very deep, but I will come back to them later. So, for now, keep it in mind.
Moving on, we get introduced to what is the most bizarre part of the trailer, a living puppet that Sam will carry along with him on his travels like Kratos does with Mimir in the new God of War games. Fragile refers to him as someone with knowledge and experience that could come in handy during Sam’s missions, a detail that makes his nature all the more weird. There are many guesses one could make on who or what he is, but I theorize he was once a human whose soul, probably after death, got trapped in the body of a puppet. Similar imagery is present other times in the trailer so, once again, keep it in mind as I will come back to this later.
Another small, but interesting detail of this shot is that Fragile’s “second pair of hands” carry a ring that looks like an updated version of Bridges’ handcuffs. It’s easy to imagine Drawbridge deciding to do away with the handcuffs, they look imposing and implied Bridges’ ability to basically spy the wearer at all times, surely something people outiside of the UCA wouldn’t look kindly upon.
At last, the trailer starts showing us real-time gameplay of DS2. Sam is told by Fragile to connect the “Mexico-side plate gate terminal” meaning Sam’s first mission in DS2 probably starts right at the southern border of the US with Mexico. Now, let’s focus on the parts highlighted in red and white.
Circled in red: A gas mask hinting at missions where Sam will need to use it. DS1 had something similar with the oxygen mask but it was used scarcely and only in a tiny area on the map. The trailer showcases many areas like deserts and frozen lakes that were discarded during DS1 development (They can all be seen in the amazing Death Stranding official artbook). Among them there were volcanoes with volcaninc gases only barely making it into the original game. Maybe there will be an area with a proper volcano this time? Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores has introduced them last year, so it’s not something foreign to the engine.
On the border
This next part of the trailer is full of incredible gameplay clips with the DECIMA engine flexing its muscles with its first current-gen only release. There’s a couple of major gameplay implications to discuss but first I wanna analyze something Fragile says as Sam is shown walking out of the Magellan.
As Sam expresses doubt on anyone wanting to join the UCA beyond its borders, Fragile says “That’s not the plan, Sam. The UCA isn’t looking to expand its borders. Just like with Mexico, they want to bring new regions into the network”. The words “Just like with Mexico” make Fragile imply there are also other regions the UCA is interested in, so maybe Sam’s mission will extend beyond the immediate neighbors of the real-life USA and indeed, later in the trailer, there’s a pretty big hint about it being the case.
The next shots are pure bliss as we are shown Sam traversing multiple enviroments, during different times of the day and with different weather conditions. One of the few things DS1 lacked in my opinion was variety in the biomes the player explored and the lack of a proper day/night cycle and dynamic weather beyond the predetermined spots where Timefall would rain every 10 or so minutes. Just these few seconds of gameplay already seem to improve on what DS1 had to offer, with even more impressive sights coming later in the trailer.
On the edge
Another issue one could have with DS1 was how long it took for structures to actually break down. I once picked the game up again one year after beating it and most of my structures were still there, albeit in a very rusty state. DS2 seems to do away with this problem thanks to rapid floods like in the gif above which can destroy all the structures in their wake.
I’m sure there will be a pletora of possible natural disasters that will make Sam’s life harder but what I am truly interested in is how these will trigger. DS1 had a nice feature where players could create safe paths to traverse the more everyone walked in the same area which leads me to think that, if expanded, this feature might allow for players to change the geography of an area and make it harder or easier for natural disasters to impact it. Another way this could work would be the other way around with natural disasters themselves changing the geography of an area and forcing the whole community to find a workaround to the destruction brought by floods or avalanches or who knows what else.
After the look at the flood we see Sam traversing a surreal enviroment with floating rocks and ascending tar. It reminds me of the sight players would be welcomed with upon reaching Mountain Knot city in DS1. In that mission players are tasked with delivering an anti-matter bomb to the nearby distro center to stop the spread of a tar belt that was forming right in the middle of the city. Could the return of the Death Stranding that Fragile explains to Sam during this shot have created more and more of this tar belts all over the world?
In addition to the flood seen earlier, we are now shown a landslide caused by a mountain crumbling into pieces. This is probably a scripted event unlike the flood, but it’s still very impressive to see in action. Notice once again the clear skies and the sunset lighting indicating more diversity in the times of day compared to DS1. Notice also the reverse rainbow indicating that the Death Stranding is indeed back and, finally, the birds flying in the distance as the landslide begins, maybe a sign that there will finally be wildlife to be found around the open world?
BT encounter seem to have had a revamp as well, at least cosmetically with this red fog making them seem much more ominous and dangerous. I’m sure there will be much more than just a simple cosmetic change, but for now let’s focus on two things.
Sam’s suit glows in the dark: Most likely to still be recognizable during the night and particular lighting conditions like that of this very shot.
BT’s have glowing white eyes: A small detail on which I don’t have much to say, but something to keep an eye on. I suspect there is much more going on with BTs this time.
Moving on, we’re shown probably the most impressive shot of the whole trailer and also one of the most mysterious. The references to the moon were plenty in DS1 with many players left disappointed by the fact we never got to visit it during the game, but this might change in DS1. I’ve been told this is how the moon looks if observed from the Southern Emisphere which is a strong indicator that Sam might go well beyond Mexico in his journey and that the moon will get much closer to earth during the game’s story. Another possibility is that Sam is on the beach in this shot, something that would imply people found a way to start living there. But let’s entertain the idea this is earth for now and let’s focus on the parts circled in red and blue.
Circled in red: The strands seem to be coming from the moon itself. As we have seen earlier, tar belts present tar floating upwards and ascending towards the sky. Later in the trailer, we see that Elle Fanning’s character is attached to white strands that, sometimes, cause her to levitate upwards in similar fashion to the tar. I’m gonna throw a wild hypotesis out there but could it be that the moon rapresents a center of gravity for everything related to the Death Stranding? Hinting at a possible origin of the whole event there? After all, when Sam visits Amelie’s beach in the first game, he sees earth from a similar perspective of that of the moon so maybe Amelie’s beach is a physical place present in our dimension and not only in that of the beaches. I admit this might be a bit of a stretch but it is an interesting thought nonetheless
Circled in blue: a big BT creature flying in the sky. Its presence makes me think that big BT battles might be a thing that randomly happens in the open world without getting dragged by BTs first like it happened in DS1.
To end this section, we see a new kind of catcher BT type. A huge severed hand that forms itself from a piece of road with cars and other rubble on it. Surely a departure from the wildlife inspired catchers from DS1.
On the road
The “On the road” section starts with Fragile explaining how, after the UCA was formed, the need for human porters started to diminish to the point that the profession disappeared altogether as, what I suspect is APAC, came in and took over the whole logistics business. Fragile further explains that after she shut down operations with Fragile Express, she decided to set up a new group that would operate in areas outside the UCA borders, Drawbridge.
Among the things we are shown during Fragile’s speech is a closer look at the ship’s captain. I really like his character design full of vintage looking bits seemingly out of context in a hyper sci-fi world like that of DS but that instead I feel fits great and perfectly encapsulates the look of great captains from literature like Captain Ahab from Moby Dick and Captain Nemo from 20.000 Leagues Under The Sea.
Next, take a special look at the patch on his hat symbolizing two chiralium hands with an anchor in the middle, a sign that the DHV Magellan travels thanks to the use of chiralium and, as we see a few seconds later, tar, with the captain putting his arm in the ship’s controls as tar starts to float out of them.
As we see in the very first moments of the trailer, the captain is missing an arm and uses a prosthetic one with a medical saw attached to it. Here, we get to see what’s left of his right arm and it’s not the usual injury you’d expect. There’s no stump, only an arm sharply cut off where the hand would start with the tar implying that maybe the captain lost it in an unfortunate encounter with BTs (Like Captain Ahab’s missing leg?)
Having taken a better look at the Magellan’s captain, we are next introduced to a new snowy area and the Magellan diving into a lake or into a pool of tar formed by the Magellan itself like we see in the first trailer.
Next up we see Sam traversing a large dry desert in a new veichle that mixes a car with a bike. A small detail noticeable here is that Sam is wearing his cap back to front, something that wasn’t possible in DS1.
Next, we are shown another new veichle roaming another desert area (maybe set in the African continent?). This time Sam is using an open seater truck. One thing that this truck and the bike from earlier share is that they do not have a driving wheel, but a joystick like the bike in the pic above. Could it be to free one of Sam’s hands and allow him to use a gun while driving? Either way, it’s an interesting little change.
To end this section we are shown a new customization option for Sam’s private room in the various distro centers and cities he will visit. This time Sam will be able to display a 360° animated image that runs through the whole room. We are shown a cityscape and a colored wave.
On the Drawbridge
We’ve made it halfway through the trailer. After Fragile ends her speech about the origin of Drawbridge, we hear once again the voice of the mysterious character that Alastair Duncan (Mimir’s VA in God Of War) plays, which I assume is APAC president. He talks to Sam about how thanks to the chiral network and APAS (Which I assume stands for Automated Public Assistance Services), humanity will not need to move around anymore as bots will be able to handle deliveries.
The feeling I get from the post DS1 UCA and their seeming collaboration or submission to APAC (Remember in the first trailer it is said that it was APAC who took the final decision, not the UCA. A decision I think pertains the full shift towards automation) is very bleak. After all Sam went through to rebuild America and reconnect its people to end the Death Stranding and allow for life to come back to normal, all that the UCA does is not changing a thing and relegate its people even more into their prepper bunkers and walled off cities. With the Death Stranding coming back this would make sense, but it seems as if this decision came right after the end of DS1.
Overall it seems that, whereas our societies have largely gone back to normal after the Covid pandemic, the one in Death Stranding has been very wary of doing so preferring, instead, the safety and comfort of isolation.
As we listen to Alastair Duncan’s character talking we are shown a group of armed robots patrolling what seems like a border crossing point or a facility of some kind. There’s a couple of very interesting details so, as always, focus on the parts circled in red and blue.
Circled in red: In the first trailer we are shown a bunch of cultists in robes going on a pilgrimage in a desert while carrying Higgs’ coffin with them. Some of them carried a ceremonial stick with a little statue of Amelie on them. To my surprise it seems that the cultists are not human at all, but they are all robots as they are carrying that same stick, implying they were the cultists all along.
Circled in blue: Every bot/cultist is carrying a small coffin on their back, similar to Sam’s Q-pid tags and Coffin’s necklace. Notice how they have a blue light very similar to the one the BB pod has when it is hooked up. For this reason, I believe the small coffins carry BBs which operate the robots.
The bots carry other, smaller, dog-like bots on their shoulders and they can deploy them at any time when they sense a nearby threat.
When in stand-by, the bots levitate on the spot, but notice how they also seem to be attached to some white strands. The white strands come up again in the trailer right at the end where we get a better look at Elle Fanning. I don’t really know what to think about them but it is noteworthy that they look a lot like the strings of a puppet . It is also interesting to note how we are shown these bots as what I think is APAC’s president is speaking. Could they be related to the mysterious new corporation? And, by extension, could Higgs be related to it too?
On the beach
In the final section of the trailer before the outro we are finally introduced to Higgs and a major plot point of the game regarding Lou. The section begins with Sam explaining to Fragile why Higgs came back, to get revenge and kill them both. Sam also tells Fragile that Higgs calls himself a “Ghost”.
After the tease at the end of the first trailer, we finally get to see that it is indeed Higgs who is hiding behind the mask with Amelie’s likeness. People online have noticed how he seems to be wearing make-up similar to that of Joker, but his whole character design screams The Crow to me.
As for why he seems to be the leader of this cult dedicated to the Extinction Entity, Higgs is a character prone to having messianic complexes and a big ego, hence he may have interpreted having come back from the beach as a sign of his mission being holy and just which may have led him to believe he is the EE himself. Of course this is just wild speculation on my part and it is important to note how we don’t really know how this cult was formed or how Higgs came back from the beach without any DOOMs powers.
After revealing his face, Higgs makes a little speech on how he expected Sam to pay him a visit as he has been distributing guns and violence all throughout the continent thanks to the factory the scene is set in. I’m curious to find out on whose hands these guns Higgs is smuggling end, maybe a new kind of Mules and Terrorists from the first game? We have already seen bots and BTs, but human enemies are to be expected as well.
After his little speech, Higgs takes interest in the living doll Sam carries on his hip and we get to see a funny reaction the doll has to Higgs holding it and shaking it around. As noted on Twitter, this face expression is typical of Bunraku Puppetry, an ancient form of theatre typical of Japan where puppets act out dramatic stories with religious and moral themes. It is also believed that such dolls and their shows had a religious and healing role in the first iterations of their exhibitions.
After annoying the living doll, Higgs takes BB’s pod away from Sam and puts his hand on its glass. BB isn’t really there, Lou is dead, but a part of her soul or her BT form is still there somehow and Higgs seems to sense it and get surpised by it. Sam asks him if it was him who killed Lou to which Higgs replies that Sam still doesn’t know the full picture on Lou, something that gets reiterated later in the trailer with Higgs saying Sam doesn’t know “a goddamn thing about Lou” and that the more he finds out the more his pain will get worse.
Now, as I said earlier, I think the little bit of story content that got added in DS:DC has major ties with what is told in this trailer so allow me to explain what I mean. In DS:DC we find out that Bridges used to produce BBs at an industrial scale in factories all over the country. BBs were used to expand the chiral network, something essential for the survival of post-Stranding society which led Bridges to decide to keep the whole origin of the network under wraps, in fear that the public would revolt against what was left of the US government after finding out they were using fetuses to power up the whole network.
Fragile’s mother, a Bridges employee, finds out about the project and decides to train a team of likeminded people to sabotage the operation as she takes on the nickname of Coffin. Unfortunately for the group, one of these sabotages ends up badly, Bridges catches wind of the attack and orders to destroy the whole factory with the BBs and the stillmothers still inside. All members of the team die but one, Peter Englert (Higgs’ real name), Coffin’s adoptive son whom she had saved from an abusive family. In her last moments, before burying all her friends and the dead BBs, Coffin asks Peter to watch over her daughter, Fragile, and to keep fighting against Bridges.
How does this connect to DS2? Well, at the end of the trailer, we find out that BB-28 (Lou) was supposed to have been incinerated well before she met up with Sam, meaning that she may have been inside the factory that Bridges ordered to destroy during the events I just described. In the first trailer we listen to Higgs singing BB’s theme to Lou, could it be that it is actually a flashback to Higgs saving BB years before DS2 and even DS1? I’ll go even further, could the UCA have killed Lou and not the cult? This is, once again, lots of speculation, but I think it does have a logic when we connect the dots between DS:DC and DS2. If this pans out true, Higgs and his army of BB controlled robots (?) might have a more complex role than previously believed with the UCA probably ending up as the real antagonist of the story.
Once again, we get proof that the cultists are in reality bots or a particular type of BTs (notice how they vanish after they get killed) with little to no human characteristics to them. The elephant in the room of this scene is the huge figure attacking Higgs with a katana while speaking like a baby (quite eery, I know). This may be Lou herself connecting to one of the bots and taking control of it to defend Sam and/or settle an old issue with Higgs. This behaviour would be pretty atypical for a baby, but Lou is a special BB who has endured many hardships in DS1 which led her to grow and understand Sam on a deep human level. Also, she displayed similar behavior before so it shouldn’t be discarded that it is indeed Lou controlling the Katana wielder that attacks Higgs.
During the fight we also witness the true nature of Higgs’ guitar, which also serves as a railgun and an axe.
After the fight we get a few flashback scenes with Sam living in what looks like Fragile’s prepper bunker from the first trailer and hanging out with Lou in the snow. It’s interesting how he wears the standard porter suit in this last shot, maybe he never left everything behind completely and kept doing porter jobs here and there
An interesting detail about the title drop in the trailer is that, this time, the strands are not coming down from the letters but, just like the puppet-like strings I described earlier, they come from something above them.
In DS1 the meaning behind the strands in the title was that of the world of the dead leaking onto that of the living, maybe in DS2 we are seeing the title from the point of view of the living?
Also, between Lou’s mysterious powers after her death and Elle Fanning’s character bizarre nature, I think we are witnessing an effect of the Last Stranding. It is often said in DS1 how each extinction has the consequence to force the hand of evolution and bring about new species that adapt in new conditions. Could the next step of evolution be creatures like the BT cat, Elle Fanning’s character and BTs like Lou? In that sense the new strands in that title would symbolize the world of the living merging with that of the dead to bring about this new evolution and should be seen as the strands of the DS1 title ending up on the letters of DS2’s one like I tried to replicate above.
The section ends on Fragile encouraging Sam to “Finish the journey” after he started it to find the strength to carry on (seemingly after losing Lou) but she also begs Sam to understand that they (most likely Drawbridge since their logo appears as Fragile says this) never meant to “String him along”. Does Fragile keep something secret from Sam throughout the game? It may be connected to BB and my theory about the connection between DS:DC and DS2 that I explained earlier.
Higgs spent a long time working with Fragile after promising to her mom to stand by her side, so it’s possible Fragile got access to knowledge about the BBs that came from Coffin and Higgs’ efforts to undermine the UCA. Also, remember that Fragile was never too friendly towards the UCA and her partnership with them was merely an opportunistic one, it’s easy to imagine how she might have held grudges against them similarly to Higgs, even if she didn’t seem to know her mother’s fate in DS1.
Outro
Finally, we are reaching the end of this long analysis with the conclusion to the trailer. In this section we get a better look at Elle Fanning and at the aftermath of the opening of her “Chrysalis” as the captain calls it. But before we analyze the shots, it’s always worth discussing what gets said during them.
We hear the voices of three characters: The captain, Sam and a mysterious other one. The Captain explains how they found Elle in the chrysalis we see at the beginning of the trailer, he then goes on to say how the liquid they found within it contained amminoacids like the ones that can be found in tar, the mysterious character is surprised by this information and the captain responds that amminoacids , and hence proteins, are there to make “chiral creatures” come out of the tar and that the tar itself is considered by some like some sort of primordial soup. This confirms what I said earlier, the Death Stranding has ushered the birth not only of BTs and their various forms but also of new beings that seem to be able to co-exist with humans and Elle’s character might very well be one of them.
Sam then says something interesting, he mentions he’s been in “Her home” and that it was “A hellhole”. What do “Home” and “Hellhole” mean in this case is not revealed, but I guess we know how we will come about finding the chrysalis. I also wonder if there will be more in the game or if Elle is an isolated case.
At the very end of the trailer we hear Deadman’s voice who informs Sam of how BB-28 was set up for disposal long before Sam met her, but I have already mentioned and discussed this part before. I’ll just add that I’m glad to hear that Deadman is back as he was a beloved character from DS1 and that I hope we see more returning faces. Now, let’s analyze some shots.
Here we see Elle Fanning hiding behind a wall to eavesdrop on a conversation the Drawbridge crew is having. Two things are interesting here, the legs I circled in red belonging to a character we haven’t seen yet (Shioli Kutsuna’s maybe) and the bandage on Elle’s arm which I imagine is to cover the suckers we saw at the very beginning of this analysis.
When Elle goes away as Sam is about to spot her, we see that she as well, like the bots, has white string-like strands attached to her once again reminding me of a puppet.
I don’t have much to theorize here but, detached from everything else I said earlier, if we assume that the theory that sees this character being a grown-up version of Lou as true, we can theorize that the puppet strings actually lead to Amelie who saved her when Sam took her away from the incinerator. A theory that would also fit with the bots being controlled by Amelie as they are part of her cult, hence some kind of assets to the extinction entity and so to the Last Stranding. But again, this is just one theory that has little to do with the others I explained earlier and may even contradict some of them, this is just me purely thinking out loud along with you.
Another interesting detail of Elle’s character is that she comes out of her chrysalis fully clothed in an outfit that does not seem to reflect the sci-fi looks of the world around her that much. I don’t know what to add to this but it’s worth pointing out.
One final detail. I was able to translate along with KojiMan on Twitter that on the suit Elle wears in her poster there’s a phrase written which should be “This garment contains chiralium leak detection dye” hinting at how the Drawbridge crew is probably worried about Elle’s nature and try to prevent any possible incidents concerning the tar and chiralium seemingly inside her body.
In the very last shot we get a glimpse of two noteworthy details.
Circled in red: BB’s pod is lit up even without Lou inside. Another sign that she is able to communicate with Sam through the pod even after death.
Circled in blue: Moby Dick and The Voyage of the Beagle. The first is a constant presence in Kojima games and might well refer to the captain of the ship and the story of the Drawbridge crew. The second one is the book Charles Darwin wrote to report his findings about the new species and the rules of evolution behind them that he came across in his voyage to South America aboard the HMS Beagle, an interesting parallel with Sam’s situation aboard the Magellan and the discoveries of new species born from tar.
PHYSINT
A huge surprise came from the very end of the State Of Play with Kojima announcing yet another title in collaboration with PS Studios and, interestingly enough, with Sony/Columbia Pictures. There’s very little information on this project that will start production only after DS2 ships in 2025, but we can speculate on the little bit we have.
This is the description Kojima Productions gives of the project. The first thought that came up to my mind were the live action moments of Alan Wake 2 and how they blended with the game’s narrative and gameplay. But, upon further thinking, the way this tweet is worded makes me think of a normal game with insane production values and shot with with new tech like Sony’s torchlight, movie-like sound and photography and a big focus on photorealism, basically bringing the way games are made and shot closer to how movies are, an evolution to the already cinematic focus PS Studios games are known for.
But what will PHYSINT be about? All we know is that it is a return to the espionage origins of Kojima, an MGS in all but name. The title, PHYSINT, though, gives us a few more hints. In the military world there exist many different types of Intelligence:
HUMINT: Human Intelligence, the good old 007-like agents working personally on Intelligence gathering.
SIGINT: Signals Intelligence, information obtained through intercepted signals and other forms of signals that stuff like satellites or radars can pick up on.
IMINT: Image Intelligence, information gathered through the analysis of images like shots taken by satellites of enemy hideouts ecc.
MASINT: Measurement and signature intelligence, all kinds of intelligence gathering that can’t be classified in any of the categories described above.
In this context, PHYSINT might be another form of intelligence gathering based maybe on physical objects? A thought I had was about Physical Intelligence in the sense of gathered physically, but HUMINT already describes that.
Another hypothesis comes from so-called PHYSINT scores where PHYSINT stands for “Physical Integrity Rights Index” and there are “Scores” because they measure how much a country adheres and respects human rights. Maybe we’ll play as a spy travelling the world trying to gather information on how much countries respect human rights in the search to expose the hypocrisy of those who don’t? I don’t know, but this is all we’ve got for now.
This concludes this very lengthy analysis, I hope you found it pleasant to read and informative. I personally can’t wait to get my hands on Death Stranding 2 and seeing something like PHYSINT getting announced makes me realize how Konami firing Kojima ended up being the best decision for everyone involved.
Ever since 2015 KojiPro has affirmed itself as one of the most talented and succesful studios in the whole industry, success which allowed them to spread their wings and work on many cross-media projects, from games, to movies and podcasts and I’ll certainly be there for all of them.
