while largely adhering to the same loop, death stranding 2: on the beach still manages to introduce a bunch of features and mechanics that weren’t present in the original. one of my favorites so far is the ability to capture gigantic, tar-covered beached things (also known as BTs) variants known as catchers for use in battle against other catchers, kinda like pokémon. as always, spoilers ahead.

this monster-catching addition to the core gameplay comes dozens of hours into death stranding 2, after bringing a prepper known as the chronobiologist into the chiral network. doing so allows hero sam porter bridges to create ex capture grenades, special throwable weapons meant for tossing into a catcher’s mouth after its been significantly wounded. doing so produces a white BT crystal sam can collect and use when confronted by other catchers.

unlike the first game, where catchers only appeared if sam was caught by the normal, ghost-like BTs, encounters with catchers in death stranding 2 also kick off automatically at specific locations, providing yet another obstacle to deliveries and a good reason to want to make sure you have backup. and while you can’t really control your catcher after it’s summoned, it’s worth trying it out at least once to listen to excellent, old-school kaiju tunes by legendary composer kunio miyauchi.

death stranding 2‘s monster-catching diversion culminates in a battle against an even bigger catcher dubbed the lord of the tar lake by a local fisherman. you have to catch a specific catcher to use as bait and, yes, you can capture the lord for use elsewhere, though it costs a bunch of chiral crystals to summon.

if you’ve followed my work at all, you know i love stuff like this. i wrote a piece for kotaku shortly after the release of bravely default ii praising the complexities of its beastmaster job. here’s a quick excerpt:

But of all the Beastmaster’s talents, I was most struck by its ability to turn Bravely Default II into Pokémon. Capturing monsters early on is a balancing act of depleting their HP as much as possible without killing them. The weaker they are, the easier they are to trap. Leveling up the Beastmaster with continued use, however, unlocks skills like Mercy Strike and Mercy Smash which, much like False Swipe in the Pokémon series, never kill targets but rather leaves them at 1 HP, providing the perfect chance to add them to your arsenal. Most of the time, turning an opponent into an ally is simply a matter of giving the Beastmaster multiple actions with the Brave mechanic, hitting a monster with a couple of these safe attacks, and then capturing it all in the same turn.

but it doesn’t stop there. another favorite game of mine is dragon quest v, which despite releasing four years before the first pokémon games gave its protagonist the ability to befriend classic monsters like slimes, drackies, and golems. this spawned an entire sub-series within the dragon quest franchise, appropriately dubbed dragon quest monsters, focusing entirely on the capture and battling of wild animals that were once just fodder for experience grinding.

my beloved monster hunter series also provides players with the option to capture monsters rather than kill them outright. it’s a complicated dance compared to just stabbing them to death and requires different resources, but the technique provides more (and sometimes better) rewards if you’re able to master it. much like dragon quest, monster hunter also has a monster-befriending spin-off series known as monster hunter stories. i’ve never played but people seem to like them well enough.

tl;dr, games are better when they have a little pokémon in them (hence, the headline). death stranding 2 is a massive game with a lot to see, some of which is completely optional. in no way do you need to capture catchers and pit them against each other to get to the end, but the mechanic’s inclusion is another great example of how kojima productions seemingly left nothing on the cutting room floor when it came to making a sequel to its first original release. it’s almost like there are half a dozen little games within the larger experience to which players can devote hours upon hours instead of making progress in the main story, and i love it.