Death Stranding 2 Ending Explained

Death Stranding 2’s ending is a bittersweet one, marked by the loss of a beloved character, the joy from a reunion, and the hope of a future. The ending is protracted (no surprise there) and will take a while to complete. We will discuss what happens on the Beach during the mission of saving Tomorrow, Neil Vana’s final flashback, and, finally, Fragile’s memories coming back about what went down in Episode 1. 

This will be a spoiler-heavy article, but you already know that from the title.

Death Stranding 2 Ending: What Happens At The End?

By the time we arrive at the Beach, there are a few major things players already know about:

• The truth behind APAC and the President.
• The truth behind Die-Hardman being Charlie all along.
• Tomorrow has the same DNA signature as Sam.
• Higgs plans to use Tomorrow to trigger the Last Stranding event.
• The story about Lou and BB-28.
• The history between Neil and Lucy.

The Beach that the player is on is a unique one – namely, 4000 souls are stranded in that one place. This is what bound together to APAS in creating this singular Beach, and where the player will find Higgs. As Sam sets out of the DHV Magellan, he sees a glimpse of Amelie. What follows is Sam dealing with BTs on the coastline as he makes his way forward, while the DHV Magellan contends with the creatures while being airborne. The graphics truly play into the immersion of the moment, especially when the BTs fit in together and then later when the Magellan Man comes into being.

Higgs And The Last Stranding

At the end of Death Stranding 1, Fragile strands Higgs on the Beach. This is one of the main catalysts behind Higgs wanting revenge on Sam, Fragile, and Amelie. On the final Beach, Higgs speaks about the loneliness of his exile that spanned tens of thousands of years. At the end, he decided to end his suffering, but in his words,: 

“When I finally embraced oblivion, these dead folks right here up and called me back.”

Higgs mentions that to the 4000 souls, he was simply another ghost, and that they thought he should team up with their company. Higgs decided to play along while planning towards his own personal goal – to trigger the Last Stranding with Sam’s daughter, Tomorrow. 

As the seam on the beach starts widening, Higgs notes that the Last Stranding was upon them, and there was no stopping it. Once you defeat Higgs in the guitar fight (literally), the seam changes into the shape of a handprint, and Tomorrow, in her casing, falls through the game into a giant white ball. The seam instantly closes itself after Tomorrow. 

Seconds later, a giant baby seeps out of the tar-like wall. She’s revealed to be Lou, who stands up and looks at Sam and Higgs. The latter tried to calm Lou and sang the BB’s Theme song. Before he could finish, the giant baby Lou grabbed Higgs and swallowed him. The giant baby gave Sam a thumbs-up. The BTs on the beach all fell apart after this. Lou then floats away into the opening in the wall. 

Amelie appears directly below where the opening closed and walks towards Sam. She turns around, and the frame shifts to Fragile walking up to her with a baby in her arms. She places the baby on the ground in front of Sam. Finally, Amelie walks up to Sam and hugs him. She then pushes him back onto the ground, and he submerges in the water. A giant explosion seems to happen over the water afterwards. 

When he comes to, he finds himself atop the same hill as the beginning of the game with Lou attached to his chest. The task is to reach Sam’s Shelter with Lou. When you do so, the DHV Magellan arrives and wakes Sam back from his stupor. He finds himself still on the Beach and with Tomorrow lying on the sand ahead of him. 

Fragile And Lou

At the end of Episode 1, Fragile and Lou are attacked at Sam’s Shelter by Higgs and his mechs. The duo almost manages to escape before Fragile is injured by gunfire. What Fragile tells Sam in Episode 1 is that she couldn’t jump out with Lou and thus couldn’t save the child. In reality, she had lost her memories of what actually took place and finally regained them when they arrived at APAS’s Beach at the end.

When Sam gets back on the DHV Magellan after rescuing Tomorrow, the others tell him Fragile is dead. While one may think it’s solely from the strain of the jumpshock, it turns out Fragile has been dead all this while, precisely from the end of Episode 1. When she tried to jump Lou to safety and was between the world of the living and the dead, Higgs shot her. The difference in the flow of time between the two worlds allowed her to stretch her death and make her physical form endure for a while. 

In Fragile’s words, her Ha and Ka separated at the instant Higgs shot her. It was Lou who jumped both of them out to the land of the dead, where the lost souls walked about. You will have come across these souls the first time you visited the world of the dead and encountered Neil Vana. Fragile decided to give Lou to the lost souls, as with them, she thought the child would be safer.

But Fragile lost the memory of what transpired and what she had done. So when Sam saved her, she was unable to recount what had happened. The only thing she knew for certain was that she was dead, which she decided not to tell Sam. Instead, she wanted to spend whatever little time she had left travelling with him. With the relationship between Fragile and Sam building from Death Stranding 1, this doesn’t come as a surprise.

“It’s my fault that you never got to watch Lou grow up-me who stole all those precious years.”

Fragile blames herself for Sam not getting to watch Lou grow up, but she hopes that he will “make the most of [his] future with Lou”. She once more promises that Sam will never be alone, pointing at the picture in his private room. She muses, “Death can’t tear us apart” before disappearing.

Neil Vana

We learn the truth about Neil Vana and Tomorrow as the DHV Magellan and its occupants are making their way to the real world. We see a scene where all the occupants and other major characters are in a circle, submerged. The camera pans to Neil Vana before showing the pivotal cutscene regarding what happens with him and Lucy. Once that is over, it shifts to show the truth about Tomorrow.  

In the cutscene, we see Neil visit Lucy upon her invitation. The latter mentions that Bridges is after her unborn child, Lou, because it is the offspring of a repatriate, Sam. Bridges wishes to use Lou as a sacrificial BB. Lucy asks Neil for help to save the baby, and she wants to tell everyone that Neil is the father of the baby. Neil reluctantly agrees to help and says they need to run to Mexico and that they will do so next week when he comes to pick them up. As he’s leaving, Lucy gives Neil a necklace with a storage device (the same that Neil gave Sam) which contains everything she knows about what Bridges is doing. 

When Neil comes back for her to make their escape, they run into trouble in the corridor when Lucy’s badge is greenlit, but Neil’s is not. Lucy manages to fool the guards by swiping her card instead of Neil, but they soon get chased by armed men and the Bridges Officer you have seen earlier. The latter says they can’t be allowed to leave as the child is that of a repatriate. Neil claims that it’s his child and threatens them with a gun. In the chaos, Lucy is shot. Neil negotiates with the Bridges Officer that he will surrender the child if they can save Lucy. The Bridges Officer gives Neil his word and opens the door. Neil is shot the moment the soldiers step in.

After the black screen, we see two doctors over Neil’s body talking about the BB extraction and then realising that Neil has gone necrotic. The doctors run away, calling for corpse disposal. You will then get control in a floating first-person mode. You will have to explore the hospital corridor that now looks submerged and find Lucy’s body. When you do, Sam will talk up to her, remove the covers, and start crying, holding her hand. He starts carrying her outside when it seems a voidout is triggered.      

Tomorrow

Fragile’s Ka picked up Lou in the land of the dead. She walked along with the lost souls and the soldiers (whom you have fought before). She passes Lou to them. We see the bundle, which contained the baby, has transformed into a coffin-like container from which Tomorrow emerges. She is protected by Neil Vana (keeping his promise to Lucy) and his soldiers. That is, until Sam is able to bring back Tomorrow after his first trip to the land of the dead in Episode 3.

When the DHV Magellan gets back to the real world, Tomorrow remembers the journey Sam and she took connecting America. They share a heartfelt hug. We are also shown that Tomorrow indeed has the heart-shaped birthmark on her left elbow, the same as Lou’s. The end credits start playing soon after, but hold on!

We have one last glimpse of Tomorrow. This time, she is sitting on the ground in a porter’s outfit. The camera pans around to show her lighting a cigarette with the help of the hands that hung about Fragile’s neck.   

“Me, I’ve always loved porters. Through freezing rain and biting wind, across rivers, mountains, and endless deserts… They come to deliver something priceless. A glimpse of a life I’ve never known. They are my window – my sole connection to the outside world. And I know they’ll be back again today. And every day – even when we’re long gone. Death can’t tear us apart. That’s why today is another day on the road.”

She starts looking at Polaroid pictures that tell us a bit about what happened in the aftermath, like Rainy finally overcoming the stillbaby syndrome and giving birth, and memories from the game’s run. Tomorrow keeps the pictures in a BB Pod and gets up. It’s revealed that she has Rainy’s toy tied around her ankle. The frame finally shows her face (till that point in the cutscene, we don’t know who the figure is).  

Death Stranding 2: Explaining What Happened At The End

As you can see, the ending develops in three distinct parts. The first is where we save Tomorrow and stop the Last Stranding from kicking off. We learn about how Higgs came back, his motivation for this revenge, and his end goal. We get a beautiful look at the bigger BTs on the APAS Beach and how they join up together to make one large hybrid. There will be more to unpack here, especially the imagery deployed (the equations on Higgs, the trope of the 1v1 fight, and the large hybrid BTs).

The imagery especially comes into play when we discuss the seam ripping apart into a hand-shaped tear, and Tomorrow falling in. The hand symbol has been a recurring motif in the Death Stranding world. The giant baby Lou taking away Higgs makes sense, given her obvious affection towards Sam. The question then becomes, why did the giant baby Lou appear after Tomorrow fell in?

My current guess is that the Last Stranding triggers once all the Beaches are connected to Amelie’s Upper Beach. At the end of Death Stranding 1, Amelie chose to shut herself in there and postpone the Last Stranding. Higgs thinks he has found another Extinction Entity in Tomorrow. In trying to trigger the extinction event, the APAS Beach got connected to the Upper Beach and thus we see Amelie appear. Amelie could have postponed the Last Stranding yet again, save Tomorrow, and eliminated the threat of Higgs through Giant Baby Lou.

Neil Vana’s and Lucy’s relationship’s culmination is shown in the ending. It is clear why Lucy wanted Neil to be known as the father of Lou. In my opinion, there’s not much to decipher in-depth here. But, the cutscene intricately shows their relationship, the final moments, Sam finding Lucy, and the final voidout. It is also heartwarming to realise that Neil was able to keep his promise to Lucy by protecting Lou (Tomorrow) in the land of the dead when she appeared there.

Tomorrow’s reveal as Lou was layered in through the game. Even if it comes off as predictable, it was beautifully played out and one that had emotional depth and connection. The final focus on Tomorrow as a potential porter plays into the hint of her being the protagonist of a hopeful sequel.

FAQs about Death Stranding 2 Ending

Are There Multiple Endings in Death Stranding 2?

There are no multiple endings in Death Stranding 2. 

Who is Tomorrow?

Tomorrow is Sam’s and Lucy’s child. She is BB-00 and was later classified as BB-28. She is Lou, the BB, who journeyed with Sam in Death Stranding 1. 

Is It Really Amelie At The Death Stranding 2 Ending?

Yes, in my estimate, it is actually Amelie that hugs Sam Death Stranding 2’s ending and not something that Sam conjures. 

My reasoning behind it is that Higgs needed to access the Upper Beach (Amelie’s) to trigger the Last Stranding. He manages to do so with Tomorrow. This allows Amelie to appear, who was isolated on her Beach. 

Is Fragile Dead?

Fragile is dead in Death Stranding 2, as is clear by the game’s ending and her own monologue. 

But life and death aren’t exactly clear-cut binary concepts in the world of Death Stranding. While we heard about Deadman’s death in Episode 1, we do see his Ka make quite a few appearances in Death Stranding 2. One can only hope Fragile will make similar appearances, especially considering her bond with Sam and Lou. 

Will Tomorrow/Lou Be The Next Protagonist In The Death Stranding Series?

If the mid-credit cutscene is anything to go by, the Death Stranding series is hinting at Tomorrow/Lou being the next protagonist. 

It is hard to say it definitely, of course, but that will be a welcome change, albeit a difficult one, as the developers will have to incorporate her powers into the gameplay. If it’s Tomorrow (consider her naming) who becomes the next protagonist in a potential sequel, the Death Stranding series will have followed The Witcher route, where Ciri is set to lead the next installment.

Is Death Stranding 3 confirmed?

No, there hasn’t been any confirmation regarding Death Stranding 3. But we have seen Hideo Kojima talk about the future of the series (in an interview with VGC), stating he has a concept for another sequel but that he wasn’t going to make it himself. 

---

We provide the latest news and create guides for Death Stranding 2. Meanwhile, you can check out the following Death Stranding 2 articles or catch us playing games on YouTube:

• Death Stranding 2 Controls Explained
• Death Stranding 2: All Difficulty Levels Explained
• Death Stranding 2: How to Save Game
• Death Stranding 2 The Motherhood Password Explained
• Death Stranding 2: Best Tips and Tricks You Need To Know