Fighting BTs in Death Stranding requires special equipment and strategies. Unlike the human foes you’ll face in the game, beating a BT can be a boss-level battle. Given the fact that they can create void outs, you’ll always want to make sure you’re prepared to kill a BT in Death Stranding if need be.
We’ll show you how to take on each type of BT, what their weaknesses are, and how to avoid combat entirely. Ideally, you’ll only have to fight a BT during the mandatory battles or when you’re farming crystals. Still, the strategies below will allow you to win any encounter at any time.
What are BTs weak to in Death Stranding?
Standard weapons (usually) won’t cause any damage to BTs in Death Stranding. In fact, they’ll only give you position away without any other effect. Instead, you’ll need to use weapons utilizing Sam’s bodily fluids to do any harm to BTs.
During the first part of the game, the only weapon you’ll have access to that do damage to BTs is the Hematic Grenade. Luckily, these are pretty devastating and will be more than enough to make down the early-game BTs without much issue.
As you get further in, you’ll unlock new weapons that allow you to fight BTs more efficiently. Hematic Grenades remain effective throughout Death Stranding, but they lack in range compared to firearms. It’s a good idea to keep anti-BT grenades for close-up work and a gun that can fire Hematic Rounds for when they get further out.
If you want to get advanced, you can adapt a normal weapon to do damage to BTs. By throwing a Hematic Grenade down between you and a BT, you can fire any gun through the resulting blood cloud to cover them in blood. This gives them the same effect as firing a Hematic Round without actually using up any extra blood.
How to kill a BT in Death Stranding
As long as you have a weapon that can affect BTs, you can kill one. However, when fighting Gazers, the standard human-shaped BT, you have to be careful about alerting nearby creatures. This means it’s usually just best to sneak past until later in the game when you get the means to stealth kill them.
When fighting one of the larger BTs, whether its a mandatory story fight or you’ve been pulled in by a Gazer, your best bet is to keep on the move. Buildings, rocks, and broken vehicles will drift in and out of the tar, and you can use these to keep from having your movement slowed. Getting up on the buildings also gives you a much better vantage point and gives a modicum of protection from the BT’s attacks.
The main thing to avoid in a fight against a big BT is getting eaten. I’ve been insta-killed by standing in one place too long. As soon as they bite you, boom, void out. This can make navigation very frustrating, depending on where it happens.
Fortunately, most BTs can be stunned if you hit them when they’re winding up for an attack. A quick blow with a Hematic Grenade will cancel their action and usually drive them back under the tar. If your timing is good, you can pretty much stunlock a BT by slamming it with powerful attacks. Especially with smaller ones, you can kill one without them getting close to landing a hit by keeping your distance and hitting them at the right time.
Later in the game, getting pulled under by Gazers can pit you against multiple large BTs, and that’s where things get tricky. However, you’ll also have better weaponry, and the same basics from above apply.
