Death Stranding is finally in the hands of gamers all over the world. I might have not liked the game very much but as I mentioned in my review, it will definitely appeal to a lot of people.

For those of you have begun your quest to reconnect America, this beginner tips and tricks guide will come in handy.

1. Equip Spare Boots On The Boot Clip

There’s a bunch of meters and percentages you have to keep track off while you’re out doing your deliveries. One particular detail that most players will overlook in the early parts of the game is that your boots will degrade as you traverse the beautiful world of Death Stranding.

You start with Level 1 boots which will probably only last you a few deliveries, assuming you don’t get distracted in taking out MULEs and exploring the environment. The game starts you with an extra pair of boots on your boot clip by default so make sure you continue this habit all the way until the end of the game.

Jogging through the world without any footwear will drain your stamina a lot quicker. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock the option to fabricate Bridges Boots of higher levels which will last longer.

Even if you do forget to clip an extra pair, just be on the lookout for Sandalweed plants which you can gather to use as makeshift shoes. They don’t last long but hey, they’re better than being barefoot.

2. Parry Hard

After you find your first MULE camp, you’ll also be taught that you can use Sam’s Strand (that blue and red rope he has) to do sneak attacks on MULEs. You’ll also learn to use the strand to parry a MULE’s melee attack.

Most players understand that parrying in most games requires skilful timing. That’s not the case in Death Stranding. The game will actually go into slow motion if you have strand equipped and ready when a MULE is about to hit you with those electrical stick weapon of theirs. Metal Gear Rising this ain’t.

This means that you’ll have a huge window of opportunity to perform parries. Once you successfully parry a MULE, you can immediately follow it up with a bind (exactly the same as a sneak attack) which will immediately subdue them.

3. Use Tools To Make Two-Way Paths

From ladders to 3D printers, the game gives a lot of tools to help you overcome the many environmental obstacles that will make deliveries tougher for you. Here’s an extra piece of advice: Don’t be stingy. Just use those tool whenever and wherever because you’ll probably get more along the way thanks to other players dropping their own tools.

Aside from being generous with your tools, you should also be a bit more strategic when placing them in the world. When you put a ladder to traverse a river or climb a steep cliff, try to see if you can position it so that you can also use it in the reverse direction. If you put a ladder to climb up, make sure you can use it to climb down as well.

There will be a lot of future deliveries that will require you to backtrack and go through the same paths you’ve taken before. Timefall might degrade and destroy some of your tools but in the event that they remain strong and steady, you can use them to make those to-and-fro deliveries a lot easier.

4. Always Have Spare Tools

Speaking of tools, make sure you never forget to bring them on your deliveries. Sure, you can just skip them in hopes that you’ll find tools along the way but there are times where you might take a path no one else or at least a very small amount of players have taken so there won’t be that many tools lying around.

I would recommend bringing these on every delivery:

• 1x Ladder

• 1x Climbing Anchor

• 1x Floating Carrier

• 1x Container Repair Spray

• 2x PCC

The ladder, climbing anchor, and container repair spray are self-explanatory. A must-have is definitely the floating carrier. Once you unlock it, I recommend always having one with you because it can really help lighten the load. The only downside is that you can’t use a vehicle or climb ladders and ropes while you have one attached with you.

PCCs are super helpful because they give you a huge amount of options in terms of what you want to build. Most of the really important structures such as a Timefall Shelter and Generator can be built without needing you to contribute any materials.

5. Gotta Gather Em’ All

When you scan the environment with your Odradek, you’re bound to see a lot of things pop up on your screen but pay attention to gathering spots for cryptobiotes, chiral crystals, and sandalweed. Collecting these things will not add any carrying weight and won’t take up any package space.

Cryptobiotes can be eaten to restore blood and they do so a lot quicker than blood bags. Before you come across and defeat your first BT, you won’t have a lot of chiral crystals which makes it imperative for you to pick up as much as you can because they’re often used in fabricating equipment.

I explained the significance of sandalweed earlier in my tip of bringing an extra pair of boots.

6. Red Means Stop

Your Odradek’s scanning capabilities also lays out potential hazards in the environment. The most obvious one being strong river currents that you’ll have no chance of walking through. Once scanned, these zones are marked in red dots.

Always, ALWAYS scan a river before you cross it. Some areas might seem safe and you would probably assume they are yellow zones at worst but believe me, looks can be deceiving.

To avoid losing your precious cargo in the rivers and potentially destroying them in the process, scan those rivers.

The simplest workaround for red zone rivers is to put ladders down as makeshift bridges. If ladders don’t extend long enough, you might have to build a bridge using a PCC. If that fails as well, scan again and check if you can find yellow zones in the same river.

There’s actually a lot more that you need to know to make things easier for you in Death Stranding. I’m sure you guys will learn it all yourself but I’m always to share the lessons I learnt (the hard way) with fellow porters.

Stay tuned to Kakuchopurei because we’re going to be publishing an analysis of Death Stranding’s plot.