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In Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, Sam’s backpack, aside from his little baby Lou, is his best friend. There are plenty of items you can make, weapons you can use, tools you can utilise. But his backpack is the one constant in this entire journey to connect Australia and Mexico to the Chiral Network. So it only makes sense that Sam can put a personal touch onto it.
Sam’s backpack is more than just for carrying cargo, though. You can personalise it to your own preference, but you can add a series of components to it to give it new and unique functions as well. And here’s how to do so.
How To Customise Your Backpack
Customising your backpack is simple.At any prepper, you may bring up backpack customisation from the fabrication menu.You can also customise your backpack from any Private Room. Once Sam is in his room, all he has to do is look at the backpack hanging up on the wall andclick ‘Square’ to bring up the customisation menu.
From here,you can change the colourof your backpack, where and whatpatchesare on it, and create newcomponentsfor it, too. Your backpack does havelimited spacethough, so only put on what you really want to make sure you have the space for everything.
How To Unlock New Backpack Colours
The very first feature of backpack customisation available to you is the ability to change its colour. Whilethis has no impact on your visibility like the camo of Sam’s outfitsdo, it does still pay to have a nice coloured backpack. It’s what you’ll spend most of the game looking at, after all.
The colour can be changed completely free-of-charge, with no materials or Chiral Crystals needed to do so. There’s only a small selection at the beginning, but each new connection level you make withThe Artist prepper will unlock new coloursfor you to use.
These colours can also be applied to Sam’s outfit, BB’s pod, and Dollman’s suit.
How To Unlock New Backpack Attachments And Accessories
After the colours, there are three other major ways of customising your backpack. These arePatches, Components, and Attachments. Patches are purely aesthetic, and take up very little space on the backpack. Components offer new functions and abilities for both Sam and his backpack, and consequently take up much more space. Accessories dangle from your backpack, and offer a unique, though typically less directly useful, effect.
Each of these are unlocked differently. Here’s how.
Patches
As you might expect fromPatches being purely for visuals, there are quite a few of them. All of them are very small, taking up a single spot on the whole backpack. These are unlocked in a variety of different ways, though the vast majority of them come frommaxing out your connection level with any prepper. Each prepper has a unique patch for Sam.
When choosing what to put on your backpack,you should absolutely prioritise Components. Patches are more for customising the space that’s left over after putting on all the components you want.
Components
Components are where the backpack really shines in terms of customisation. As you progress through the game, completing main orders and increasing your connection level with preppers, you will unlock even more components to use.These can take up quite a bit of space, so make sure you’re only putting on the ones you need so you’re not over-packing your backpack.
As we advance through the game, this table will be updated with even more of the backpack components.
Completer Order No. 9.
Grenade Pouch
Allows you to hold a single extra grenade per pouch added.
Complete Order No. 9.
Spare Ammo Container
Allows Sam to hold some extra ammo for his weapons. Small in size.
Antigravity Device
Reduces the weight of the backpack, increasing Sam’s max carry weight.
Connection level 2 with The Government
Connection level 3 with the Government
Large Spare Ammo Container Lv2
Allows even more ammo to be held for weapons, and is smaller.
Connection level 4 with the Government
Electric Shock Absorber
Transfer energy from being hit by electric weapons to your batteries.
Connection level 2 with the Western Environmental Observatory
Most of the components work in a rather unique way. Rather than being one-and-done, they can be increased in strength.The more you equip, the more powerful they are. You can equip all Grenade Pouches if you want, or put multiple Antigravity Devices to make Sam’s cargo light as air. It’s all up to you, and you can change it whenever you want for a very small material cost.
You cannot, however, store backpack componentsto equip later. If they’re not equipped, they will be automatically recycled for their creation cost after you have completed customising the backpack.
Accessories
Accessories are the rarest items of all, and only one can be equipped to your backpack at a time. These offer brand-new effects unlike any other items you can equip to your backpack. Unlike both Patches and Components, however, they are not crafted.
Instead, all Accessories are given to you by preppers and other characters you meet. For example, the earliest Accessory you are likely to come across is the Porter Accessory. This is given to you by the Bokka back in Mexico once you reach Connection level 4 with him. This allows you to see the location of other NPC porters on the map.
There are plenty others for you to find, either as rewards for completing certain orders, or from the aforementioned preppers with increased Connection levels.
