with death stranding 2: on the beach finally in the wild, folks are starting to discuss what they like and dislike about the early hours of the sequel. one topic i’ve seen brought up frequently online is main character sam porter bridge‘s lack of emotion in the game’s private rooms, and i think kojima productions could have made the absence of his past playfulness more meaningful.

in the first game, sam would constantly break the fourth wall by striking random poses, making funny faces, and even attacking the camera if, say, the player was persistent about zooming in on his crotch. the director’s cut release expanded on this feature, introducing the chance for “nightmares” like spooky, convulsing shadow creatures and sea life to appear during this downtime. sadly, none of this is present in the sequel, and fans of the original are pretty bummed.

the video below shows off a lot of these animations and cutscenes but is also your chance to dip out if you’re trying to avoid spoilers for death stranding 2. you have been warned.

it’s not like sam doesn’t have a massive reason to be stoic in death stranding 2. a few hours into the story, a mysterious group attacks his shelter, presumably in search of lou, the bridge baby who accompanied him throughout the previous game. sam is out trying to connect mexico to the chiral network, having left lou in the care of a friend named fragile, and returns to find his adopted daughter missing. lou‘s ghostly form appears in the pod she occupied as a bridge baby, leading sam and fragile to believe she’s dead.

death stranding 2 skips forward in time by a month. sam is understandably devastated. his shelter, once a happy home for he and lou, is now a trash-filled depression cave. he drinks heavily and, more than once, tries to kill himself. as a repatriate, however, he doesn’t stay dead for long, a fact that only exacerbates his grief. fragile soon appears to recruit him on another mission, and as my colleague maddy myers put it on bluesky, he decides to travel across australia rather than go to therapy.

in this context, it makes sense that the developers wouldn’t want sam hamming it up between deliveries. the first game was moody as hell, sure, but the underlying tensions of death stranding 2 are straight up bleak, no matter how eccentric hideo kojima‘s writing and design can get. the only problem? private rooms are accessible before these developments in the story, and the ability to watch sam do silly things like flex and stick his tongue out at the camera is still missing when he’s supposed to be living a happy life.

far be it from me to question the decisions of a visionary like kojima and rest of the talented death stranding 2 team at kojima productions, but if they were dead set on not including moments of levity in the private rooms anyway, i feel like the devs could have used their absence to further sell the depths of sam‘s despondency.

imagine how impactful it might have been if, before lou‘s apparent death, sam was his old self during these breaks. he’d playfully mean mug the player, maybe spray a can of timefall beer into the lens after having a few too many and shoot finger guns at himself in the mirror. but following the tragedy, he’d change. no more flashing the peace sign or tapping his feet when the player focused on him from different angles. no more protecting his dignity. his daughter is gone, so do whatever you want. he’s not your dancing monkey anymore.

i’m sure this may change further into the death stranding 2 story, but sam as he is now appears numb. and while some players have ascribed meaning to the feature’s disappearance, the devs definitely could have gratified and then betrayed expectations for how sam is supposed to act in these moments to provide a more intimate look into his changing mental state. this marriage of gameplay mechanics and narrative is something we’ve come to expect from kojima over the decades, and i’m surprised more wasn’t done with this opportunity.