Death Stranding Director’s Cut Easter Eggs Add New Nightmares

The new Director’s Cut edition of Death Stranding has only been out for a few days, but folks are already finding a slew of new Easter eggs, some of which add to the nightmare fuel that occasionally haunted unsuspecting players in the original game’s private rooms.

When you’re not lugging cargo from point A to point B, every major facility in Death Stranding includes a private room in which protagonist Sam Porter Bridges can rest up. These areas are fun diversions from the stress of the rest of the game, allowing you to observe the excellent model the team at Kojima Productions made of actor Norman Reedus, and to just generally goof off between missions. Focus on Sam’s crotch enough times, for example, and he’ll go from playful coyness to straight-up assaulting the camera.

Death Stranding Director’s Cut expands on these moments in some creative ways. The shower, normally a refuge for Sam as he washes off the detritus of his latest haul, can at times play host to a creepy figure who spasms and squirms wit the horror genre’s now-ubiquitous head-shaking effect. The creature then rushes Sam before, as with similarly nightmarish scenes in the original Death Stranding, he wakes up.

Some folks are convinced this is a reference to P.T., the “playable teaser” Kojima Productions released in 2014 to reveal its now-canceled Silent Hills project, but I’m not so sure. One fan even pointed out that the dark figure that bursts from the shower may be Hideo Kojima himself, adding to his previous cameos in the game he wrote and directed.

Another new Director’s Cut scene involves the door to the private room opening by itself, with something on the other side producing otherworldly noises. Sam, obviously confused, gets up to investigate, only to be greeted with an underwater scene. A crab scuttles along the ground, but get this: it’s upside-down for some reason. Not the weirdest thing in Death Stranding by a long shot.

We’re then treated to an unsettling image of a whale or large dolphin approaching Sam from behind as he sticks his head out the doorway. Right before the monstrous sea creature devours him, Sam again wakes up with a jolt. Dude definitely needs to invest in some melatonin.

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But that’s not to say Death Stranding’s private rooms were entirely safe from random creepiness in the original game. Hidden cutscenes involved BB (the Bridge Baby that helps Sam detect BTs [the Beached Things that make traversing the world a nightmare]) transforming into Guillermo del Toro’s Deadman and sometimes even breaking out of its containment vessel before—you guessed it—Sam wakes up.

Death Stranding players still aren’t sure of the exact steps needed to see these new nightmares, but if the previous version of the game is anything to go by, we’re sure to see them at least once or twice as we play through the Director’s Cut. In any case, I’m going to keep my lights on while I play, just to be sure.