How to cross the tar belt in Death Stranding

Dear concerned reader, it seems you’ve been faced with a tar belt in Death Stranding and you don’t know how to cross it. Don’t worry, I’ve been there myself. It was a late October evening and I too was stumped on what to do with Sam as he looked out onto a sea of gooey black ectoplasm. Now that Death Stranding has released on PC, you too will need to cross the expanse of sticky tar.

I don't want to admit quite how long I was stood here in a state of complete cluelessness, so there’s no judgment here. Read on and you shall learn how to cross the Death Stranding tar belt, without getting much black goo all over your shoes.

How to get to the Death Stranding tar belt

So you’ve somehow made it past an army of terrorists with shotguns, shouldering a back-breaking amount of cargo from one side of the map to the other. You may have already repatriated multiple times to get to the supposedly useful Chiral Relay at the edge of the Central Region. Once you’ve connected it in Chapter 8, some story beats will play out. Now heinous killjoy Die Hardman hits your codec to let you know that you now need to cross the tar belt ahead of you to reach Edge Knot City, your final destination. 

Unlike previous objectives, there's very little signposting as to what you have to do here. You can check your emails first for a couple of hints or wait for Die Hardman to drop a few coy notes about BTs. Either way if you’re still stumped, you need to know how to make this journey possible. Fortunately, it’s really simple.

How to cross the tar belt in Death Stranding 

To cross the tar belt (and you’re going to kick yourself, I promise) you have to willingly summon a BT. This means going into the black goop and allowing the lost souls to pull you under near the belt. If you remember from previous battles, BTs summon buildings that you can climb atop to protect yourself during combat.

If you summon a BT at the tar belt, it creates a path made out of buildings for Sam to leap between and cross. During this section you’ll have to watch out for leaping whale BTs and other evil beasts, but as long as you treat it like a less wholesome game of the floor is lava, you'll be fine. With that, you now have all the necessary knowledge to cross the tar belt in Death Stranding.