Death Stranding BT guide: how to avoid and kill BTs in Death Stranding

death stranding bt beached things — (Image credit: Kojima Productions)

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Should you fight or escape from Death Stranding BTs? Exploring the lush green wilderness and rugged mountainsides in Hideo Kojima's first post-Metal Gear Solid game is a relaxing and serene experience. Well, it would be if you were left to deliver your packages in peace. The lands of Death Stranding are home to BTs (Beached Things), invisible supernatural beings that attack you on sight, completely ruining your pleasant stroll and making you lose your cargo in the process.

You’ll have your fair share of Death Stranding BT encounters, but fear not, there are ways of detecting, avoiding, and, as a last resort, fighting these otherworldly creatures. Here's a quick guide on how to handle them.

How to detect a BT in Death Stranding

The first indicator of a BT encounter is when it starts to rain. Rain in Death Stranding is called Timefall—obviously—and anything that the wet stuff accelerates its ageing. That includes your cargo, the structures you've built, and the equipment attached to your suit. When it starts to rain it’s time to start paying attention to your Odradek, your extendable mechanical arm. As soon as that robot arm-fan starts flapping, it's panic stations.

Your Odradek always faces the direction of the nearest BT, indicating the area you should try and avoid. When it glows white and blinks slowly, there's nothing to worry about and you can still move at normal walking speed. It'll blink faster the closer you are to a BT, so adjust your speed to the rhythm of the arm’s flapping. When it starts blinking a little faster, you can still move—just make sure Sam is crouched. If you're really close to a BT then it will change to an orange glow and start flipping out, spinning and beeping all over the shop.

How to avoid Death Stranding BTs

Fighting should always be a last resort when it comes to BTs. If you can see the BT, hold your breath, crouch, and slowly move away from it. Don’t run, just move slowly and carefully.

Hold your breath so the BT can’t hear you, but can't do this forever. Sam has a stamina meter that goes down when he holds his breath; if the gauge empties, Sam takes a loud gulp of air. This is bad news.

You'll know you've been spotted when intense music starts playing. If it reaches you, thick black tar appears around you and lifeless bodies emerge from the ground and try and drag you down. You’ll need to keep your balance, knock the bodies away, and struggle towards the edge of the area to escape. Once you reach outside the black tar you're safe. But if you fall down, you'll be dragged under the ground and rushed across the landscape to a Catcher mini-boss.

How to fight Beached Things in Death Stranding

BTs are difficult to fight, but not impossible. You can use a number of your bodily fluid-based weapons to stun and deter them, but the best weapon to defeat them is blood-based weaponry. Hematic grenades, also known as blood grenades, can one-shot a BT. If you lob one at an attacking BT, the grenade explodes on impact, launching your assailant up into the air and dissolving in a flash of Chiral Crystals.

There are other weapons you can use as you progress through the game, like the blood bullets and BT Anti-guns that unlock after Chapter 3. Fighting BTs is a massive drain on your resources and risks your cargo getting damaged, so it’s best just to avoid them altogether.

Rachel had been bouncing around different gaming websites as a freelancer and staff writer for three years before settling at PC Gamer back in 2019. She mainly writes reviews, previews, and features, but on rare occasions will switch it up with news and guides. When she's not taking hundreds of screenshots of the latest indie darling, you can find her nurturing her parsnip empire in Stardew Valley and planning an axolotl uprising in Minecraft. She loves 'stop and smell the roses' games—her proudest gaming moment being the one time she kept her virtual potted plants alive for over a year.