Quite early inDeath Stranding 2: On the Beach, you encounter your first squad of Ghost Mechs, from which Sam is saved by what appears to be a friendly variant, cutting down the hostile robots with a katana. This Red Samurai turns into one ofDeath Stranding 2’s longest-running mysteries, and the reveal of their true identity fooled me, despite thinking I’d had it figured out. The mysterious mech featured prominently in pre-release footage, dueling with Higgs, who shoots bolts of lightning from a guitar, and the red samuari turned out to be a highlight of the game.
[Warning: Spoilers for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.]
Ghost Mechs are introduced as a new enemy type inDS2, somehow controlled by Higgs from the Beach. The Red Samurai is noticeably different from the other Ghost Mechs, even aside from the fact that it cuts down the others in droves. It has a more prominent head shape, and its face is replaced by an Odradek Scanner, much like the one Sam uses to detect BTs. Kojima Productions includes a lot of clues to who’s controlling the Red Samurai, and it ends up being an incredibly clever misdirection.
The Red Samurai Shows Up Throughout Death Stranding 2 To Save Sam
A Hulking, Deadly Guardian Angel
You first encounter the Red Samurai very early inSam’s emotional journey. It’s just afterLou has died, and Sam is ambushed by a large group of Ghost Mechs at a derelict border crossing in Mexico. The red samuari appears, cuts down the Ghost Mechs with ease, and disappears. Sam’s guardian angel notably reappears to battle Higgs directly, after the terrorist leader laid a trap for Sam in a weapons manufacturing warehouse in the desert near Heartman’s lab. It’s an excellent scene teased in one ofDeath Stranding 2’s long trailers, showing off Higgs' battle guitar, which doubles as an axe and a lightning-firing gun.
Every time the Red Samurai shows up, there are two clear hints about who’s in control of it. First is the Odradek it uses as a face. Odradeks are used to scan the terrain and highlight cargo that can be picked up, but when connected to a BB, they crucially are able to point in the direction of BTs. The Red Samurai is clearly using the Odradek to locate the Ghost Mechs, which are BT-adjacent, hailing from the Beach and controlled by Higgs.
The name “Odradek” likely comes from Franz Kafka’s short story, “The Cares of a Family Man,” about a creature that “looks like a flat star-shaped spool for thread.”
The second clue is the sounds the Red Samurai makes. While it’s fighting, you hear a baby laughing, and a couple of times, it plays the same music that comes from Sam’s Odradek when it’s functioning as a mobile to calm Lou. The way it takes care of Sam, it’s almost like the Red Samurai is returning a favor, using the music to calm Sam once the danger is over. Considering all this,I was positive that the Red Samurai was being controlled by Lou, who was somehow manipulating the mech from the Beach.
Deadman Is The One Controlling The Red Samurai
The Other Obvious Answer
Late in the game, it’s finally revealed thatDeadman is not only controlling the Red Samurai, his corpse is inside the mech. Deadman’s death is one of the early heartbreaks inDeath Stranding 2. He was instrumental in helping Sam understand BB-28, aka Lou, throughout the first game. As a Frankenstein’s Monster of donated organs birthed from an artifical womb, Deadman was worried he didn’t have a Ka, and thus his own Beach, and that he wouldn’t make it to the afterlife. These worries are assuaged at the beginning ofDS2, when he tells Sam that he’s discovered – on account of his condition – he has multiple personal Beaches.
Aside from Sam, Deadman is the closest person to Lou. There’s an obvious connection between the Red Samurai’s Odradek, its BB sounds, and Deadman. Even before his demise, Deadman had a clear connection to the dead, having had all his body parts donated by the deceased.In hindsight, it seems much more obvious that the Red Samurai was Deadman, rather than an infant being able to control the mech from the Beach.
Deadman Controls The Red Samurai The Same Way He Does Heartman
A Grim Puppeteer
Deadman seems to have manifested powers similar to Higgs, being able to control objects and even someone’s Ha from the Beach. There’s an eerie saga regarding Heartman where he appears to be sleep-walking, sending people messages he doesn’t remember. What’s actually happening, is Deadman is controlling Heartman’s body – his Ha – while Heartman is temporarily dead, mapping the Beach and searching for his family.
Heartman has a condition where every 21 minutes, his heart stops, and by the end ofDeath Stranding 2, seems to have come to an agreement with Deadman to share his Ha. After the reveal, I really should have put the pieces together and realized it was Deadman controlling the Red Samurai. Strands have always come from the sky to indicate where BTs are, like a puppet’s strings, andDeath Stranding 2takes the imagery even further than the first game.
Higgs acts as a puppeteer to the Ghost Mechs, and Dollman shows that a person’s Ka can be sequestered in an inanimate object. With all the clear references to controlling objects, and Deadman’s noted obsession with BBs, the Odradek-wearing, baby-laughing Red Samurai’s true identity really shouldn’t have surprised me as well as it did. It ends up being a very clever subversion by Hideo Kojima, whose writing is often unsubtle, despite how esotericDeath Stranding’s world is.
It’s also nice that Deadman’s role wasn’t as diminished as it first appeared. When he posthumously announces his own death at the beginning of the game, part of the sadness stems from the implication that Sam won’t have any more conversations with a character that was ever-present in the originalDeath Stranding. Guillermo del Toro’s likeness and Jesse Corti’s great vocal performance wouldn’t get as much of the spotlight this time around.
Deadman doesn’t feature nearly as much inDeath Stranding 2, but he ends up having one of the more fascinating roles in the game. The Red Samurai is a delight in every one of its appearances, showcasing stunning choreography that also contributes to anunhinged anime Easter egg, a pizza dough brawl withGhost in the Shelldirector Mamoru Oshii. Kojima played me like a fiddle when it came to the Red Samurai reveal; I thought for sure it was going to be directly connected to Lou, but it turned out to be a brilliant new role for Deadman inDeath Stranding 2: On the Beach.
