Death Stranding boasts some kooky cameos from some of Hideo Kojima’s pals, but what’s surprising fans most of all is the unique like system that’s part of the game’s Social Strand System. In Death Stranding, likes can be instrumental for impacting and influencing the five categories of the Porter Grade system, and changing how players interact with each other and the world.

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Accessing the Network

While players are feeling a connection with Norman Reedus as Sam, a big component of Death Stranding is finding other players to connect with, too. When players arrive in a new area, they’ll be all on their own. That is, until they’ve connected a region to the Chiral Network, which will unveil other players’ structures, signs, vehicles, and lost cargo. While Death Stranding players may never see each other, they will see the signs and structures left behind from other players’ games.

Types of Likes

There are two types of likes in Death Stranding: Active & Passive.

Players can actively award likes to each other for things like completing missions, building useful structures that provide useful services to each other, and for leaving behind items such as ladders and ropes that make traversing the harsh environment easier. Players can choose to actively award each other with likes for these items.

But since so often players are focused on their journey, the use of these items will also result in a passive like to the Porter that originally placed it there. This is a way of thanking people for doing things like building bridges, and best of all it isn’t active, so the players won’t need to give it consciously.

Rewards

The reward for getting likes in Death Stranding adds to the pool of total social cash, which increases Porter reputation. As players move up the ranks will change, thereby improving Sam’s abilities. Likes also create a bridge link between players’ individual games, making them more likely to interact with each other’s structures & items in the future. If this connection grows, players can even enter Strand Contracts with each other, which increases the crossover effect of items and structures.

Death Stranding is available now on PS4, with a PC release coming in 2020.

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