Death Stranding Franchise Taught Me Eternal Life is a Mess

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In Death Stranding 2, Higgs challenges Sam Porter Bridgess eternal life and the concept of immortality being meaningless even if one cannot be eliminated.
The villains in Death Stranding franchise exploit this immortality, as they can still be exhausted, burned, and subjugated by enemies despite their inability to be killed.
Kojimas work in the Death Stranding series shows that eternal life can be a beautiful mess, particularly in a world moving towards its end.
Kojima is known for imitating his own work and using repetitive gameplay models, storylines, and structures in his games. However, he also conveys deeper themes in his most authorial franchise.

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By Pedro Zambarda, Chief Editor In Death Stranding 2, Higgs returns from the world of the dead for a confrontation on the beach with Sam Porter Bridges before their battle against a red tentacled creature. During this encounter, Higgs dismantles Hideo Kojima’s citations of poet Kobo Abe from the first Death Stranding, mocking Sam’s “eternal life.” Higgs satirizes Sam’s status as a repatriate—an experiment resulting from Bridges’s dooms (anomalies) that allows him to return from the Beach. Because of this, Sam cannot end his own existence and is condemned to eternal suffering. The villains of the Death Stranding franchise exploit this concept; though their characters cannot be eliminated, their immortality is meaningless, as they can still be exhausted, burned, and subjugated by enemies. In the first game, Sam avoids killing enemies because the Death Stranding phenomenon—a nuclear explosion—results from the breach between the spaces of the living and the dead. However, after facing hardships and losses, the protagonist is often forced into kill-or-be-killed scenarios, where not dying is worse.

Immortal Chaos and Authorial Echoes in Death Stranding’s Epochal Conflict

Kojima is a pastiche author who frequently imitates his own work, reusing gameplay models, storylines, and structures, unafraid of clichés. Yet, in his most authorial franchise, he ultimately conveys that eternal life can be a beautiful mess, especially in a world marching toward its end, even though the immortal Sam Porter Bridges insists on believing in humanity, men over AI, and a frightening world of disconnection.

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