It's the understatement of the century to say that Death Stranding is just a tad complex. Whether it's with the gameplay, story, themes, or even the menu navigation, Death Stranding makes you work to understand it. We even recommend checking out explanation guides. Personally, we love the game, no matter how stupid the plot is.

The gameplay elements are a blast while the story is a rollercoaster ride, exactly what Kojima's known for. But, as we plowed through this massive title, we found that there were tons of little tricks that people weren't talking about. So, let's clear a few things up gameplay-wise to counteract the thousands of unanswered plot-related questions.

10 You Can See Your Own Stats

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At every Distribution Center or Prepper Station, Sam builds a connection between 1 and 5 stars. Upon ranking up, he'll unlock rewards such as cosmetic holograms or new weapons. But as players get closer to the end of the game, they'll find that it's a bit hard to tell just how many they've maxed out. In fact, a lot of the connections like to sit at 4.9 stars.

Luckily, if players go to the Bridge Links screen and select their own name, they'll then be able to see all the current stations in a row, all with their links enlarged for easy viewing. A rather minuscule trick, but one that will prove important for many players.

9 Oxygen Mask + Crouching = Easy BT Snips

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About halfway through Chapter 5, Sam unlocks the Cord Cutters: a weapon that allows him to defeat BT's up close. This is given to him by Mama who, along with Fragile, is part of DS's cast of rad female characters. But, players might notice it's hard to get close to a BT without getting caught.

For that, we have two simple tips. First, try crouching. And second, use the Oxygen mask you unlocked from connecting the Paleontologist to the network. This mask is basically a way to keep Sam's breath quiet without using the Endurance gauge. Doing both makes clipping a BT quite an easy task.

8 Use The Sticky Gun More Often

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The sticky gun is a very valuable tool unlocked from a Standard Order at Lake Knot City. This "weapon" allows Sam to yank cargo to him from the road, from across canyons, and right off MULE's backs.

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Though, our absolute best use for it is during the fourth Pizza Delivery. The game really, REALLY wanted Sam to travel by foot through a BT area near the Timefall Farm. But, we were able to use the destroyed bridge as a way across the river separating South Knot and the Farm. How could we do that if we can't climb anything with a "By hand" cargo? Oh, that's right, Sticky Gun.

7 Build A Huge Pile Of Ceramics & Metals

During your travels as Sam Porter Strand, you'll come across many facilities that are flush with Materials by default. We recommend setting aside entire play sessions towards one purpose once Trucks are unlocked. And for what purpose, you may ask? Why, building roads of course.

As you drive across the map, stop off in every facility and knab all their ceramics and Metals. The truck can carry and an almost impossible amount of them, and you can easily build a Safehouse or Post-Box to store them all in. The faster you build all the roads, the faster you'll be able to make difficult deliveries.

6 Keep A Carrier At All Times In The Mountains

The snow area of Death Stranding is probably one of the slowest to get through. There are constant steep hills, Sam moves slowly, BT's are rampant, and Stamina drains quickly. It's one of the more harsh yet beautiful areas of the game. But, as soon as players set up their Zipline network, it becomes a cakewalk.

Still, while traversing the peaks to set that up, a Carrier is more than necessary. Once attached to Sam he can then ride it (as long as you have Chiral Crystals) and it's a perfect way to get down any large slope. Even better, it can also hover right over water sources, even the ones that would instantly cause Sam to be swept away.

5 Clear Out Catcher Then Continue Deliveries

This next tip applies at really any point in the game, but it is especially handy for the deliveries where the game forces you through BT territory. Essentially, just always keep a couple of PCC's on you. We commonly rolled with two of each, one for a generator, one for a postbox, and two for Ziplines. However, the postbox is our biggest recommendation.

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Frankly, it's easier to clear out a BT zone rather than sneaking through it. So, just pop down a postbox, put any important cargo inside, and fight the Catcher! Most are relatively easy fights and it's a great passive way to build a stockpile of Chiral Crystals.

4 Leap Over MULE Scanner Pings

So, the MULE pinging system is a bit confusing at first. But, there are a few ways to avoid this enemy scanner so that Sam can sneak into the camp Big Boss style:

1) Use the hologram rock whenever the pings about to go off. 2) Shoot out an odradek ping of your own right as their scanner is about to go off. 3) Drive perpendicular to the scanner poles as fast as you can to evade it or 4) just jump right over the ping wave - which is something we had no idea about until a couple of hours ago!

3 Retrieval Missions Are A Cake Walk With The Sticky Gun

A lot of times, the game likes to give Sam missions where he has to retrieve some cargo from a precarious area. The expectation is that the player will have to cross a giant river, sneak around BT's, or dive into the Vog craters to get the cargo back. But, you know what our answer is? Sticky Gun. Yes, really.

Cargo stuck at the bottom of a crater and you don't have your oxygen mask? Sticky Gun. Cargo sitting right underneath where rocks seem to keep falling? Sticky Gun. Got a BT that just seems to be camping one of your briefcases the one time you didn't bring blood bags? Sticky Gun.

2 Turn In Deliveries Individually For Certain Preppers

Throughout the game, there are a couple of Preppers that have "soft-locked" stars as we like to call them. Basically, you get them to 1 or 2 stars, then the advancement suddenly stops. Well, a few are story locked. But most of the time players just need to go rest in a safe house and wait for their emails to pop up.

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But, it's a bit hard to tell when this will happen, so we devised this method: Take a delivery for them, and along the way grab as much lost cargo as possible specific to that Prepper. Then, once you get there, store everything in the private locker. Afterwards, turn in 1 piece of cargo, see how far their stars go. If it stops suddenly, leave the rest of the cargo in the locker, rest, and check for emails. if it doesn't stop, turn in another one, rinse and repeat. This really helps out with the more annoying Preppers like the First Prepper or The Veteran Porter.

1 Always Go Premium

Lastly, and maybe this is just a tip for unobservant people like us, but do Premium deliveries as soon as the option appears. We remembered seeing a tutorial pop up about them, but it seemed like it was implying only timed deliveries could be accepted as "Premium." No, as it turns out almost all Standard Orders can be accepted as Premium.

Doing so has a variety of effects where Sam will have to either collect more cargo, keep it in better condition, or finish the delivery in a certain time limit. Most of them are still pretty easy to S-Rank even when accepting multiple at once, and doing them awards Sam with more Bridge Connection points, a stack of the "Living Legend" award on his Porter Card, and a ton of likes.

NEXT: 10 Biggest Tips For Death Stranding At The Beginning