Death Stranding 100% Achievement Guide

Overview

This is a Guide to help you get all 63 achievements in Death Stranding. I compiled it as I played the game and hope I can clarify some of the misunderstandings I had at the beginning. This way you should be able to collect all achievements without doing too much repetitive and unfun stuff. I sincerly hope I didn’t put any spoilers in there somewhere.[Note: I plan to do my 2nd playthrough in the summer of 2021, where I’ll try to test some other ways or clarify information that was relatively loosly on my first go.]

Introduction

I divided all achievements into different sections and put them roughly in the order I got them myself. I hope this overview is appealing and clear so it can help you to plan on how to get all achievements yourself. There are lot of achievements you get by just playing the game and following the main story, so I can’t really give tips for those.

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One last remark before I start:
Because of a suggestion in the comments I’m going to change the screenshots of the achievements including the text into the picture alone and the achievement titles written out, so you can easily “ctrl + f” to find specific achievements. Please be patient and give me some time do so. I have other stuff going on and it’s a quite laborious task to be honest. I will do my best 🙂

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Story Achievements

The Story contains 14 chapters, every chapter gives you an achievement after completing it (I won’t provide any information for those since you can’t miss them). Some additional achievements are naturally unlocked by completing all story-relevant orders, although a few of those can also be done independently from above mentioned story-relevant orders.

Delievering Is What I Do
Complete the prologue: Porter.

A New Day For The UCA
Connect your first new affiliate to the UCA.

You get this one after connecting the first waypoint to the chiral network. Can’t miss it.

Rebuilding America
Complete Episode 1: Bridget.

Catcher Crusher
Defeat a Catcher.

It it possible to kill a catcher (the big fishy BT that appears after the ‘human’ BTs get ahold of you) just randomly when you walk around, but when you reach Port Knot City it is story-related to kill one.

We Need You
Complete Episode 2: Amelie.

All Roads Lead to the UCA
Complete your first road.

After reaching the Distribution Center South of Port Knot City you get the order to build a road.

I Won’t Break
Complete Episode 3: Fragile.

BB…
Complete Episode 4: Unger.

We’re Whole Again
Complete Episode 5: Mama.

BBs: A Bridge Between This World and the One Beyond
Complete Episode 6: Deadman.

BB
Complete Episode 7: Clifford.

Sixty Deaths and Sixty Births in a Day
Complete Episode 8: Heartman.

The Particle of God
Complete Episode 9: Higgs.

I’m Your Die-Hardman
Complete Episode 10: Die-Hardman.

Bring Back My Baby
Complete Episode 11: Clifford Unger.

She’s waiting for you on the Beach
Complete Episode 12: Bridges.

Thank You, Sam
Complete Episode 13: Sam Strand.

Thanks for Everything
Complete Episode 14: Lou.

Delivery Achievements

Before I start with this section, let me clarify the following: All orders in Death Stranding are divided into four categories: Condition, Time, Quantity and Miscellaneous. Each category has a specific symbol that will help to see what order counts towards what category. This information can be especially helpful towards the Birth of a Legend, Growth of a Legend and Great Deliverer achievements. (Thanks to @canadianburger for this suggestion)

Good Samaritan
Deliever your first piece of lost cargo.

To find lost cargo, use Q to scan the sorrounding area. It shouldn’t be very hard, the world of Death Stranding is full of lost cargo.

Prominent Porter
Reach Grade 10 in any delivery evaluation category.

Accumulation Achievement. Just a little patience and you’ll get it.

Everyday Delivery
Complete a standard order.

On terminals you can take up Standard Orders right under “Orders for Sam”. You will have to complete a lot of them in order to collect all achievements.

Deliveries Done
Complete 36 standard orders.

Whenever you’re headed somewhere and have free space on your back or a vehicle, I’d recommend taking on some standard orders aswell. You can set standard orders to “premium” to get even more likes if you fulfill the additional requirements. Beginning early with these premium orders can safe you time later with the Birth of a Legend and Growth of a Legend achievements. Unless you want to spent some extra time in the world of Death Stranding.

Well Connected
Reach connection level three with any facility.

Accumulation Achievement. Just a little patience and you’ll get it.

The People’s Porter
Reach a total of 2,400 Likes on the Results Screen.

Accumulation Achievement. Just a little patience and you’ll get it.

Building Bridges
Reach Bridge Link Grade 1.

Bridge Link is displayed as the top spike of the star on the result screen. Getting likes from other players increases your level. You should get this relatively early in the game.

A Helping Hand
Issue your first supply request.

You can male a supply request via your cufflinks or the terminal in your private quarters. Select the item you want delieverd and the facility it should be delievered to and you get this achievement.

The Automation Revolution
Complete a standard order with a delivery bot.

After reaching the Distribution Center South of Lake Knot City Mama will introduce you to auto-delivery bots. She’ll walk you through how to use it by making you issue the first order with it. Now, to get this achievement you have to wait for the bot to reach its destination to use it again (the second delievery, your first ‘real’ one). After the bot succesfully delievers this order, the achievement should pop up.

Well-Traveled
Travel 80 km and complete an order.

Accumulation Achievement. Just a little patience and you’ll get it.

Pumped Porter
Deliever 3,000 kg of cargo.

Accumulation Achievement. Just a little patience and you’ll get it.

The World’s Most Popular Porter
Reach a total of 50,000 Likes on the Results Screen.

Like the achievement The People’s Porter. You need a total number of 50,000 likes. If you get them while roaming around in the world, the achievement should pop up after you complete an order at any terminal.

Hooked on Delievering!?
Deliver 700 items of cargo.

Accumulation Achievement. Just a little patience and you’ll get it.

Equipment Achievements

Especially in the beginning of the game you are not very mobile and have to navigate through rough terrain. A ladder or climbing rope will help you with that. Press 1 and choose the structure you want to build.

After you begin Chapter 5 in Mama’s lab, you will get the zipline addition to your PCC. This is the last structure you need for this achievement. Just build everything you can with a PCC lvl.2.

• ladder
• climbing anchor
• sign (open compass (G) and press 5 to select from a large variety of signs)
• Bridge (PCC lvl. 1)
• Postbox (PCC lvl. 1)
• Generator (PCC lvl. 1)
• Watchtower (PCC lvl. 1)
• Timefall Shelter (PCC lvl. 1)
• Safehouse (PCC lvl. 2)
• Zipline (PCC lvl. 2)

On every termial you find the option “Donate Equipment”. There you can send pieces of equipment to an online storage every player can access. You can claim stuff other people put in there aswell.

Depending on the difficulty, your shoes will dissipate over time. You can get new shoes by finding them lying around or by crafting a pair of new ones at a terminal.

Miscellaneous Achievements

You cannot really miss this. Whenever you see a structure built by another player, you can press 5 to give a like. When passing signs you can’t even prevent it from happening.

I can’t really say anything usefull for this one. Just wait and it will happen. You can look at the Childminder achievement to get some tips on how to get likes from BB. But I think you will get your first like before even having the chance to do most of the stuff I mention for this achievement.

When you trip and fall down or get in a fight with BTs, BB will start crying. Press G to open compass, look down, press 3 to take the BB and press F to soothe him by pressing W repeatedly.

In your private quarters you can access the music player via your terminal. Just play any song and you get this achievement.

Chiral cristals are the hand-formed glowing gold thingies on the ground; some can be found randomly, a lot will appear if you kill BTs. You can detect them with Q and can pick them up by holding F. You have to wait until you get the chiral crystal harvester (fairly early in the game, I think about when you reach the Distribution Center near Capital Knot City).

There are 56 memory chips spread across all parts of the map. Some are detectable from the start, some will only be unlocked to find after reaching 2,3,4 or 5 stars at facilies or reading specific E-Mails from preppers where they report of weird glowing objects in the vicinty of their shelters. Chances are high that you stumble across one at some point. (There’s also an achievement to collect them all, see Fount of Knowledge)

Press 1 and “equip” the symbol with the peeing kid. Press right mouse button to prepare and hold left mouse button until Sam is finished. You have to do this outside, peeing in your private quarters doesn’t count for this achievement.

By making deliveries, you raise the connection level of facilities and unlock new equipment and customization options with it. You also unlock new stuff by progressing in the story.

You can sit down by holding C and sleep to recover and restore your blood levels by holding F. You can only do this as long there is no “potential threat” like rain or BTs in your proximity.

Press 5 to shout. To get this achievement, another player has to hear you and return a shout, so you’ll have the best chance by doing it near big and important cities like Lake Knot City.

When you reach the Junk Dealer for the first time, he will ask you to get rid of chiralium-contaminated cargo in the crater sea. Just take some from next to his bunker (there is always plenty of it there) and head south (where I am in the screenshot). When you arrive, equip the contaminated cargo to your hand, press V and click the mouse button to throw it.

There are multiple springs and lakes you can go to on the map. I used the Crater Digestive Bath that’s located between the Junk Dealer and Film Director. For all hot springs I can recommend the app I mention below for the Fount of Knowledge achievement.

All Crater springs and lakes allow you to spend time there when you transport people (like The Chiral Artist or Mama). I didn’t try it myself, but I guess this doesn’t work when you’re transporting dead bodies)

At some point in the Central Region you will come across npc porters. They often hang around waystations (Engineer or Distribution Center South of Lake Know City). Approach them with something equiped on your hand (like a PCC) and stand in front of them. They should hand you their cargo, you have to press a mousebutton (the one you don’t have something equiped on) to accept it. After that click the other mouse button (the one with your cargo) and you should put in the ground. After the npc porter picks it up you should get this achievement.

To get this, you need to go a MULE territory. There are a lot spreaded over the whole map. You can recognize them by the orange circles on the map and their scanning pulses that hit you when you go too near to them. When you reach a MULE territory, you need to neutalize every single one of them in this particular camp. Use only non-lethal weapons, you don’t want to cause a voidout.
In my experience it’s most effective when you shoot them with a bola gun and then kick them (pressing V when they’re on the ground) to knock them out. I did this fairly early in the game, if you wait long enough you get all sorts of non-lethal rifles that are far more effective than the bola-gun.

In Chapter 5, after returning from Mountain Knot City to Mama’s Lab, she gives you a modified cuff link with the ‘cut umbilical cord’ addition. Only after aquring that, you can tackle this achievement.
In a BT area use C to crouch. Slowly approach a BT and use your scanner to locate them. Use Alt from time to time to hold your breath. When you’re close enough, the option use F to cut umbilical cord should pop up.

After completing the 4th and last pizza delivery for Peter Englert, the door in his shelter should be open for you to go in. Alternatively, after completing Episode 14 of the mainstory the door should also be open.

Completionist Achievement

If you played the game in a similar fashion I did, you will have some achievements left to collect after finishing the main story. I put them in this category because you can make progress for nearly all of them simultaneously by delivering standard orders (preferably as “premium”).

By completing orders and increasing the connection level (while simultaneously farming for the Birth of a Legend and Growth of a Legend achievements), you will trigger a lot of E-Mails and interviews.

You need a lot of likes from BB for this. The following will help you get them: Taking photos in front of the mirror in your private quarters, going fast with vehicles, zip-lines or sceletons, killing big BTs, finding you blance shortly before tripping, soothing him, playing the harmonica to him. You will get a harmonica from The Musician, see two achievements below.
Just to give you a number: When I finished the main story I had 759 likes from BB and was only at 4 (out of 5) star connection level. So I had over 1,000 when I finally got this achievement.

Just upgrade the seven structures you can build with a PCC lvl. 2 to the third level. You don’t need you build them in the first place, you can upgrade those from other players aswell.

Chances are that not all preppers are persuaded by the “new united nation“-idea when you first encounter them. They will try out the chial network without UCA affiliation at one star connection level and will join the UCA for good at two star connection level.
There are also 6 preppers that you won’t meet as a part of the main story (these additional preppers are listed in section below)

Prepper Locations

• Luden’s Fan. Eastern Region. East of the Distribution Center West of Capital Knot City.
• The Musician. Eastern Region. West of the Distribution Center West of Capital Knot City.
• The Collector. Central Region. South of the Distribution Center South of Lake Knot City.
• The Veteran Porter. Central Region. Northwest of the Timefall Farm.
• The Novelist’s Son. Central Region. Southwest of the Distribution Center North of Mountain Knot City.
• The First Prepper. Central Region. South of the Spiritualist

I plan to do a more detailed description (including screenshots) of where exactly those preppers can be found that are not included in the main story. I think most of all The Collector can be tough to locate.

Completionist Achievements (Cont’d)

This achievement is the biggest grind in the game. I don’t think I can give many usefull tips here, you just have to deliver orders to every facility and prepper until the likes are enough to reach five star connection level.
You get a star patch for your suit from every facility you reach a five star connection level with. If you have all it looks like this (excuse the impaired visabilty, I got my last star from the First Prepper and he lives on a snowy mountain ^^):

There are five evaluation categories: Volume, Time, Condition, Miscellaneous and Bridge Link.

• Delivery Volume: I’d recommend using a truck and just packing as much cargo as you can on it. Big facilities like Lake Knot City, Distibution Center South of Lake Knot City and South Knot City often have big supply or material requests with several hundred kilos.
• Delivery Time: All time-sensitive orders will help you with this. The Film Director has one particular order for Lake Knot City that gives 2,500+ likes for completing it. Don’t forget to bring a truck.
• Cargo Condition: Whenever you see “[Fragile]” standing in front of an order, you have to deliever the packages with minimum damage. Using a truck can help you here aswell, because cargo in trucks only get damage when you drive it off a cliff and smash it on the ground. As long as you avoid that, you should be good to go.
• Miscellaneous: Everything that isn’t part of Volume, Time or Condition will be sorted into this category. It was the first of the four mentioned so far that I reached level 60 in.
• Bridge Link: This category is all about interactions with other players. You get likes when you pass signs, deliver lost cargo or when other players use structures you built. The fastest way to level up is to build roads. Everybody uses them.

For these two you have to set the standard oders to premium. On difficulty normal you get Legend-, on hard you get Legend of Legends– and on very hard you get Legend of Legends of Legends-evaluation. You need to complete unique orders for these achievements, doing the same multiple times only counts as one.
I played the game on “normal” and switched it to “hard” after obtaining the Birth of a Legend achievement. I didn’t notice any significant changes. Note that all Legend-evaluations will be lost if you change the difficulty setting. Either play on normal until you get the Birth of a Legend achievement and switch afterwards or play on “hard” or “very hard” and tackle them both at the same time.

Raising the connection level with facilities unlocks all kinds of equipment (you will unlock everything but one item by raising the connection level with each facility to five stars). Most of the craftable stuff has a little box in the item overview (as you can see on the screenshot). If the little box is checked it means you already fabricated it. If there is no box, producing this particular item doesn’t count towards this achievement (that’s the case for the different styles of sceletons for example). Note that one vehicle is only unlocked after retrieving memory stick #31. It’s the bike in “Ride with Norman Reedus”-style.
Besides driving faster and having more battery, riding this bike will also trigger lines like this:

There is a really helpful app that I used to collect all memory chips. You can see it on the picture to the left. I use an Android phone, I don’t know what you use (if you own a smartphone) and I haven’t checked if the Apple and Windows app-stors also have this app.
The app contains all facilities, MULE territories, memory chips, hot springs and points of interest. You can mark them as found and plot your own ideal route to retrieve all 56 (or how much you’re still missing, probably less than 56) memory chips. I used the Fragile Jump to collect them all in the Eastern Region, then the Western Region and then I went from Lake Knot City to the Timefall Farm and from the Craftsmen to Mountain Knot City in the Central Region.

Here is an additional tip:

Originally posted by Bender (https://steamcommunity.com/id/bender_bf):

If you’ve completed the story, go to Options -> Game settings -> Show signs containing spoilers and set it to “Show All”. This will show “Memory Chip” signs placed by the other players and will make them easier to find. This way you can spot some of the chips while doing other activities

There is also a guide on steam for this achievement:
[link]
I used both: With the app I plottet my own route. The guy or gal in the guide collects them in the game defined order which requires a lot of jumps arcross the map. But this guide also lists requirements to unlock the memory chips, because some only appear after reading a particular E-Mail.
I wanted to show you your options, so can decide for yourself how you want to do it. Maybe you find a better way somewhere else or compile one yourself. If you do, leave a comment so other players can profit from your knowledge.

Closing

After you unlock the last of the 62 above mentioned achievements, you will be rewarded with the 100% achievement.


I hope you have as much fun as I had playing Death Stranding. Please leave a comment if you stumble across mistakes I made or if you have comments, suggestions or other feedback of any kind.
Before parting ways, lets appreciate this epic scene: