Death Stranding

=== Setting ===
The game is set in an apocalyptic United States, where a cataclysmic event known as the "Death Stranding" caused "Beached Things" ("BTs")—invisible creatures originating from the "Beach", lands thought to be unique to each person that are typically visited during near-death experiences and are said to be the link to the afterlife—to begin roaming the Earth. BTs are created from the dead via necrosis, and when they consume a living human being, they create an explosion on the scale of a nuclear bomb, known as a "voidout". They produce rain known as "Timefall" that rapidly ages and deteriorates whatever it hits. These events damaged the country's infrastructure, leading its remaining population to confine themselves to remote colonies known as "Knot Cities", which form the remaining "United Cities of America".
These colonies have relied on the services of a company known as Bridges, whose porters brave the BTs, bandits, and terrorists to deliver supplies to the cities. Bridges performs various governmental functions on behalf of the UCA. If they achieve a mental connection to a "Bridge Baby" (a "BB")—a premature child reflecting a state between life and death—it is possible for a person to sense the presence of a BT. Porters carry a BB with them, stored in a pod simulating the womb of a "stillmother". Depending on its severity, a condition known as "DOOMS" allows a person to naturally sense, see, or even control a BT, as well as granting a variety of powers, such as teleportation or travel to other people's Beaches. There are individuals known as "repatriates" who can travel back from "the Seam"—a place between the world of the living and the Beach—upon death. As such, these individuals can effectively return from death, though their deaths will still cause voidouts if killed during contact with a BT.

Plot

Freelance courier Sam Porter Bridges (Norman Reedus) is transporting cargo to Central Knot City but is interrupted by Timefall and takes shelter. He receives assistance from Fragile (Léa Seydoux) in evading a BT. Sam arrives at his destination, where a citizen died by suicide, with the corpse on the verge of necrosis. Due to being both a repatriate and having DOOMS, Sam is given an emergency assignment to accompany the disposal team to an incinerator to dispose of the corpse. However, an encounter with BTs causes a voidout that destroys Central Knot City.
Sam revives in Capital Knot City and meets Deadman (Guillermo del Toro/Jesse Corti), a doctor from Bridges who has Sam deliver morphine to the dying President of the UCA: Sam's adoptive mother, Bridget Strand (Lindsay Wagner/Emily O'Brien). Bridget pleads with Sam to rejoin Bridges and help realize her dream of "reforming America" before succumbing to her illness. Sam takes her body for incineration but refuses to incinerate a Bridge Baby involved in the Central Knot City voidout. With the BB's assistance, Sam evades a horde of BTs and decides to adopt it as his own Bridge Baby; against UCA instructions to treat Bridge Babies as pieces of equipment, Sam gradually forms an emotional bond with it and nicknames it "Lou".
Upon his return to Capital Knot City, Sam receives a message from his estranged sister Amelie Strand (also Wagner/O'Brien). She tells him that over the past three years, she led an expedition across what is left of the contiguous United States, making contact with isolated cities and settlements and setting up terminals that would connect them to the Chiral Network: a system that facilitates instant communication and data transfer across vast distances through the Beach. Upon reaching the last city on the West Coast (Edge Knot City), Amelie was captured by Homo Demens, a terrorist group, to guarantee Edge Knot City's independence. She pleads for Sam to follow her expedition and complete the Chiral Network, thus "reforming America". As this pilgrimage ends at Edge Knot City, Sam can then rescue Amelie, and she can take Bridget's place as the President of the UCA. Sam reluctantly accepts the mission.
Following the instructions of Die-Hardman (Tommie Earl Jenkins), Bridget's personal aide and Director of Bridges, Sam begins his journey from the east to the west coast of North America. Along the way, he delivers valuable cargo to various Knot Cities and settlements; helps research the Death Stranding with Bridges staff such as Mama and her twin sister Lockne (Margaret Qualley) and Heartman (Nicolas Winding Refn/Darren Jacobs); and thwarts deadly plots by terrorists and their leader, Higgs Monaghan (Troy Baker). While connected to Lou, he experiences memories depicting Clifford Unger (Mads Mikkelsen) and his hospitalized wife and BB child. Occasionally, he is pulled into Clifford's Beach; there, he fights a BT manifestation of Clifford, who seeks his lost BB.
After reaching Edge Knot City, Sam fights and defeats Higgs at Amelie's Beach. Higgs reveals that Amelie is an Extinction Entity: a godlike being manifested by the universe to trigger mass extinction events. Amelie is revealed as the true leader of Homo Demens, having conceived the Chiral Network to enable the Last Stranding, the end of life on Earth. It is revealed that Amelie and Bridget are the same person; Bridget's soul separated from her body during early experiments into the Beaches and used the alias "Amelie" as a cover. Amelie is conflicted over her cosmological duties, finding the Last Stranding more humane than perpetual cycles of growth and extinction.
With the help of allies made on his journey, Sam reaches Amelie and convinces her to delay the Last Stranding. Moved, she accepts but must separate herself and her Beach from the world forever. Sam is rescued by his Bridges allies, returning to the living. Die-Hardman becomes President of the UCA, and Fragile resolves to rebuild her company. Sam is told that Lou is dying. Although UCA law demands dying BBs are incinerated, Sam follows Deadman's advice and removes Lou from the pod in hopes of saving its life. In doing so, Sam connects with Lou one last time and discovers the memories he has viewed are his own: he is Clifford Unger's son, who Bridget Strand had transformed into one of the first BBs, accidentally killed alongside Clifford during a botched escape attempt, and resurrected by Amelie. In doing so, Amelie accidentally caused the Death Stranding, which allowed the BTs to cross over. The spirits of deceased BBs help save Lou's life, and Sam destroys his UCA cufflinks, going "off the grid" to live a peaceful life raising BB, whom he reveals is actually "Louise" in a post-credits scene.