Death Stranding 2: What's the difference between lethal and non-lethal weapons?

In Death Stranding 2 you have a wide range of weapons at your disposal, all with different properties. One of the most important traits is the lethality of a weapon - some weapons only incapacitate targets, while others kill them. However, killing in the Death Stranding series has much more serious consequences than in other games. On this page of the guide, we explain why you generally should not kill enemies and what the difference is between lethal and non-lethal weapons.

• Why shouldn't you kill enemies?
• How to tell the difference between lethal and non-lethal weapons?

Why shouldn't you kill enemies?

The reluctance of Death Stranding characters to kill is justified by the plot. In the game world, every corpse turns into a BT after a few days. BTs can cause a devastating voidout - to avoid this, the body must be cremated as soon as possible. This also applies to the corpses of enemies you have killed. If you kill an enemy, their corpse will transform into a BT after a certain amount of time. Sooner or later, some independent character - a courier or a bandit - will come into contact with this BT, which will cause a voidout and an immediate game over.

This mechanic means that if you kill a human, you must immediately take their corpse to the nearest larger Knot. They are equipped with incinerators - hand the corpse over by selecting the dedicated option and it'll be taken care of. Killing people just creates additional problems and complicates deliveries. Lethal weapons deal more damage to humans than non-lethal ones, but due to the risk of a voidout, using them should be restricted to specific situations, e.g., boss fights. If necessary, you can also use it against mechs, which are not alive, so destroying them isn't dangerous in any way. Usually, a non-lethal weapon will suffice, as unconscious enemies don't seem to wake up on their own until you're very far away.

The skeleton soldiers are also worth mentioning; they're a unique kind of enemies that you'll encounter in combat in the other dimension. They are human and BTs at the same time, so they're affected by both anti-human and anti-BT weapons. Killing them will not cause a voidout, so you can safely use lethal weapons against them.

How to tell the difference between lethal and non-lethal weapons?

You can distinguish between non-lethal and lethal weapons by the icons that appear next to the weapon when you select it in the inventory menu. Each weapon has three icons showing its effectiveness against BTs, humans, and mechs. If the icon is grey, it means that the weapon has no effect on that enemy type. If the icon is blue, the weapon incapacitates that enemy type and it can be used without any risk of causing a voidout. If the icon is orange, the weapon kills that enemy type. You will come across the first lethal weapon quite late into the game, in Order No. 17. Every weapon you've found up until that point is non-lethal, even the seemingly dangerous MP grenades.

In enemy camps you can often come across turrets or heavy machine guns that you can also use. These are also divided into lethal and non-lethal, and their type depends on the type of enemy you are fighting. If it's a bandit camp, the turrets you encounter are non-lethal - the bandits don't want to cause a voidout, so killing isn't really what they're after. If it's a terrorist camp, their turrets are lethal - they are not afraid of a voidout and will even try to cause one, so be careful if you manage to capture a turret in a terrorist camp.

Death Stranding 2: On The Beach

June 26, 2025

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