My name is Rami Porter Bridges, and I’ve survived Death Stranding — so far. In a world without Amazon Prime, FedEx or UPS, people put their trust in me to deliver their most precious packages, like pizza (true story).
Here are the misadventures of your favorite mailman, not the handsome Norman Reedus, but the jaded tech journalist Rami Tabari turned porter.
Death Stranding: Day 1
This job isn’t really so bad.
I’m just walking from place to place in a gorgeous post-apocalyptic environment on a mission to reconnect all of America. The grass is green, the mountains are tall and the rivers flow –– it’s all pretty bucolic. The rain, however, is a little funky — people around here call it Timefall, given that it accelerates the age of everything it touches (yikes). But hey, the rain converts itself into my favorite Monster energy drink when I’m in a river!
The coolest thing about being a porter is that other porters leave their equipment around all the time for me to use, like ladders, bridges and climbing anchors. You best believe I smash the “like” button on each one of those that I use to make that porter feel warm and fuzzy inside. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, currency means nothing around these parts. It’s all about those “likes.”
The more likes you have, the better porter you are.
Death Stranding: Day 1 (part 2)
I met some people on my route today.
They weren’t very nice. I think someone back at Capital Knot City called them MULEs — they track any cargo out in the wild and attempt to procure it by any means necessary. Whatever they’re called, they were annoyingly accurate with those lightning spears they kept throwing at me. I didn’t appreciate that; It really f**king hurt!
Luckily, they were scared off by BTs that were close by. BTs are basically ghosts that refused to pass on to the otherside because they just want to make my life harder (they call this the Death Stranding). I have a cute baby attached to my chest called a BB (my girlfriend named him Popo), which can detect BTs and guide me out of a BT-infested area.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any weapons to defend myself, and it’s not like people carry guns anymore. You see, if someone dies, their soul won’t move on and instead will attempt to go back into their body, which causes a Voidout aka a massive explosion that could level a city and lead to another BT being born.
Bodies need to be cremated within 48 hours upon death to circumvent a Voidout.
Death Stranding: Day 2
I finally have a weapon: a piece of rope.
The team at Capital Knot City cleverly called it a Strand, you know, like the strands that keep a piece of rope connected, like how I’m keeping America connected — yeah, like that. Don’t knock it, though!
I managed to stealthily incapacitate and detained a MULE in his own camp no less. I was assigned to pick up some cargo that they stole. His two buddies spotted me and charged at me with those damn lightning spears, but I stood still and glared at them menacingly with my piece of rope at the ready. I quickly did some kung-fu disarming technique with the rope to knock them both out.
Can’t really use a piece of rope on BTs though. Maybe my team will come up with a cool ghostly whip or something! That’d be dope.
Death Stranding: Day 2 (part 2)
So it turns out that BTs are basically allergic to my bodily fluids. Who knew?
Heartman, a Bridges researcher of the Death Stranding, has started collecting samples everytime I shower, pee or poop. I don’t really know how I feel about that. But he does turn my bodily fluids into grenades… somehow. When I shower, the bathroom pops out several EX Grenade No. 0, and when I pee, it churns out an EX Grenade No. 1. I bet you can guess what grenade comes out when I poop. I haven’t used one of these grenades against a BT, though. I’m a bit of a hoarder, as it turns out, even with my own reproducible fluids, which is how I inevitably got screwed on one of my runs.
I was walking through BT territory when I accidentally tripped a ghostly… umbilical cord(?). Anyway, that BT bolted towards me and sucked me into a black tar swamp wasteland filled with drowning vehicles and buildings from a time long forgotten. I jumped from car to building to car in order to escape what could only be described and a squid-like tentacle monster. I managed to leave the swampy hellscape with my life and Popo intact, but my cargo was severely damaged.
I also had to give Popo a little shaken baby syndrome (just kidding, I shook him lovingly) so he could stop stressing.
Death Stranding: Day 3
It’s been a long time coming, but I’m finally leaving the eastern region and heading on a boat to the central region to start reconnecting the rest of America.
Mama, another genius working for Bridges, developed Hematic Grenades for me, which are more advanced BT killing weapons. Guess what they’re made from? My blood! Mama also makes me carry a bunch of blood bags with me for exactly that reason.
With these, I’m all set to head west.
Death Stranding: Day 3 (part 2)
I was not all set.
It turned out that this jerk Higgs, who sounded a lot like renowned voice actor, Troy Baker, ambushed me before I can set sail. He spawned a BT tentacle monster on me. A damn boss! It was very similar to the last encounter I had with a squid BT, but this time I wamalambammed it into oblivion with a ton of Hematic Grenades. Overall, it wasn’t too bad, especially since there were white gooey people who looked like me that threw grenades my way so I wouldn’t run out (it was weird).
After my run in with Higgs Baker, I finally set sail with this porter named Fragile, who’s super clingy and kept trying to touch me, but I really don’t like being touched at all.
People say I have aphenphosmphobia, but I think they’re all just salty because I won’t give consent.
Death Stranding: Day 4
I made it safely to the central region.
Fragile gave me a way to fast travel back to the east region, but she has to touch me in order to do so (of course). Anyway, I helped build a road today, which not only makes the path smoother to walk on, but it also prevents any battery-operated equipment from losing charge.
This was especially useful when I finally got a Power Skeleton from the Engineer, who kind of looked like the popular manga artist Junji Ito. The Power Skeleton basically allows me to carry double what I could carry before, which is awesome.
No more two-trip deliveries for me!
Death Stranding: Day 4 (part 2)
I met the Craftsman today, who is a spitting image of Hermen Hulst (PlayStation's new head of Worldwide Studios), and he tasked me to go into the depths of a BT hell-zone to pick up a package.
Of course, I packed only 2 cases of Hermetic Grenades (5 per case) and headed into the mountains. Normally, you can kill BTs before they combine and turn into the squid monster, but because I’m the luckiest porter around, I couldn’t get past them before they did that. I got sucked into another black gooey swamp and went head to head with yet another damn monster. To my surprise and delight, I managed to kill the BT with my second to last grenade, and all of a sudden the BT area was clear. The sun even came out.
In response to this, I started to run around the area and pick up lost cargo, but of course after only about five minutes, the BTs came back to ruin my life. I ran out of there as slowly and as fast as I possibly could.
The Craftsman was more than pleased and even gave me a little present: A Bola Gun.
Death Stranding: Day 4 (part 3)
Okay, now I have an actual weapon.
It’s too bad that I literally didn’t have enough ammo to take down a camp filled with MULEs. The Bola Gun has roughly 12 bolas in it; that’s a lot of MULEs for one freaking camp. I attempted to run away, but these jerks and their damn super-precise throwing arms nailed me with one of their lightning spears and knocked me out. They took all my cargo and dumped me on the side of the road somewhere. I was furious.
I went to the nearest waystation and picked up three Bola Guns and trekked back to the MULE camp and viciously incapacitated every single one of those grubby shmucks that I saw. But even with a ton of ammo, the MULEs were pretty relentless with their spears, and they would not stop coming. I stole their truck and didn’t let go of the gas until I was miles away from the camp.
What a day.
Death Stranding: Day 5
I decided to take a trip back east to see if I missed anything, or anyone, and it turns out that I did.
I found a very enthusiastic Ludens Fan, who resembled Geoff Keighley — some guy I saw at an award show once. I also discovered a Musician, and if I didn’t know any better I would’ve thought it was Japanese singer Daichi Miura, who did one of the songs for Dragon Ball Super: Broly. He gave me a harmonica, which I haven’t found a use for yet.
Then, I spent the entire day doing runs for waystations and distribution centers all over the east coast to see if they would like me enough to give me something as cool as a Bola Gun, but no. All I got was new colors for my hat and glasses. I crashed down on my hands and knees three times out of pure exhaustion for these cheap fools. Colors won’t scare the BTs or MULEs away.
Ugh.
Death Stranding: Day 6 (today)
Whoever said being a mailman was like a walking simulator is full of crap.
Sometimes I run, and other times I drive. I just delivered pizza to some dude in the mountains, and now I can easily fabricate a Reverse Trike anytime I need it. Being a porter post-Death Stranding is rough, but it’s most certainly not boring — that would just be too easy. I wholeheartedly recommend being a porter, especially for Bridges. I mean, they have a dude named Die-Hardman, how much cooler can you get. Also, I need the help.
Anyway, back to the grind.
Read next: Open-world hit Death Stranding comes to PC Game Pass today.
