Death Stranding Really Doesn’t Want You To See Sam’s Junk

Death Stranding‘s recent PC release has finally answered one of the most burning questions about the game’s post-apocalyptic world: Does protagonist Sam Porter Bridges have a penis? The answer is no, and that’s probably for the best.

These new details come courtesy of brief video to Twitter showing what happens when you use camera hacks to sneak a peek at Sam while he’s relieving himself.

The developers tried hard to keep this sort of thing from happening during normal gameplay. If the player attempts to spin the camera around during this animation, Sam will always keep his back turned to preserve his dignity. And the photo mode, which came in a post-release update, can’t be activated until Sam is finished.

Sam is played by Norman Reedus, whose likeness was intricately replicated for the role. Death Stranding further blurs the lines between the two by including advertisements for the AMC reality show Ride with Norman Reedus. In that context, giving Sam genitals would have felt pretty voyeuristic, much like the time Beyond: Two Souls included fully nude models of Ellen Page (but, notably, were not based on scans of her actual body). And while this may not have been an explicit attempt by Hideo Kojima to respect Reedus’ bodily autonomy, I appreciate the self-control.

Death Stranding is a very good game, combining intricate traversal mechanics with Kojima’s own penchant for the extravagant into a touching adventure about human connection. It’s also a game where you can team up with players around the world to grow mushrooms with your piss. Fortunately, Kojima and his team have appeared to show more restraint than David Cage when it came to modelling characters based on real, recognisable people.