Death Stranding Carry Capacity - How to Increase Sam's Carrying Capacity

In Death Stranding, the maximum weight that Sam can shoulder will judge what orders you can take on, as well as the lost items you can pick up and rescue out in the open world. There's a pretty strict limit on the weight of the cargo that you can put on Sam's back, arms, and legs, and you'll need to adhere to it at all times. In our Death Stranding carry capacity guide, we'll be taking a look at how you can increase the maximum weight of items that Sam can take on, so you can carry an increased amount of cargo at once.

Death Stranding Carry Capacity Explained

The main gameplay loop of Death Stranding goes something like this: take on an order, pick up the required cargo, and deliver it to the destination intact. Through this, Sam can be asked to carry increased loads, sometimes weighing upwards of 50 or 60KG, depending on the additional equipment like grenades and ladders that you've taken along for the journey.

When you're equipping items to Sam through the Cargo menu, you'll see the accumulated weight of all the cargo items near the bottom of the screen. Immediately below this number, you'll see the maximum weight that Sam can carry, before he's rendered physically unable to move.

When you equip items for Sam to carry, you've got a few options to play with. You can either stow items on Sam's back, left shoulder, right shoulder, left leg, or right leg. While you can only store a single item on the legs and shoulders of Sam, there's no limit to the amount of items that you can attach to his back. The only limit on cargo carried on Sam's back is the overall weight, of course.

The heavier the cargo carried by Sam, the more effort he's going to exert in just walking around. The stamina meter will always be present next to Sam while he's walking around, represented by a blue horizontal bar, and this will gradually decrease as he's walking along. However with increased cargo loads, the stamina meter will decrease quicker, leading Sam to either rest up where he is to restore some stamina, or down some Monster Energy Drink from his hip flask.

How to Increase Carrying Capacity

If you want to increase your carrying capacity in Death Stranding, you need to firstly progress the story of the game. You need to make it to the Central Region, and Lake Knot City, where the game deposits Sam in the second open world section of the game.

At this point, you're given a few new orders to undertake from Die-Hardman on behalf of Bridges. You need to complete the order that takes you to the Engineer, who thankfully isn't located too far away from where you start at Lake Knot City.

Once you've reached the Engineer at their outpost, deliver the required cargo to them. As a reward for completing this task, they'll give Sam a Power Skeleton, and also grant you the ability to fabricate new Power Skeletons from any delivery terminal in the game.

The Power Skeleton, once equipped, will immediately increase Sam's carrying capacity. The skeleton stabilizes him to a degree, but basically allows Sam to move quicker while carrying increased loads. So for example you can now sprint while carrying cargo that weighs upwards of 50KG.

If it's more Kojima Productions-related coverage you're after here at USG, you can always read our own Death Stranding review. Alternatively, we have guides covering Death Stranding weapons and how to unlock them, Death Stranding vehicles and how to repair them, or there's our Death Stranding carry capacity guide for more.