If you’ve spent any time hauling cargo across Death Stranding 2’s sprawling, BT-infested landscape, you know how draining long cross-country trips can get. One wrong turn into a timefall storm or a herd of roaming BTs can ruin a perfectly good delivery run, not to mention waste hours of your time. That’s why so many players are eager to figure out how to fast travel death stranding 2 as early as possible, to cut down on tedious traversal and focus on the parts of the game they enjoy most. I’ve put in over 80 hours of playtime since launch, testing every traversal mechanic in the book, so I’ve got all the details you need to unlock, use, and make the most of fast travel in the game.
How to Fast Travel in Death Stranding 2: Core Requirements to Unlock the System
Unlike many open-world games that give you fast travel right from the opening hour, Death Stranding 2 gates the feature behind a small amount of main story progress. You won’t be able to access it until you complete the third main delivery order, which tasks you with connecting the first two coastal Knot Cities to the updated Chiral Network. Once you finish that mission, you’ll get a pop-up notification telling you the fast travel system is unlocked, but you still need to meet a few more conditions to use it.
First, every location you want to fast travel to must have Chiral Network connection level 2 at minimum. That means you can’t just stop by a prepper shelter, drop off a single small item, and jump there later. You’ll need to complete enough deliveries for that location to raise their connection level to 2, which also unlocks other perks like access to their storage and shared structures from other players. I made the mistake of trying to fast travel to a remote mountain prepper shelter I’d only visited once early on, and wasted 20 minutes fumbling with the menu before I realized my connection level was too low.
You also need to be standing in a connected location yourself to initiate fast travel. You can’t pull up the menu and fast travel from the middle of a snowy mountain pass or a BT-infested forest, no matter how desperate you are to leave. You have to be inside a Knot City, connected safe house, or prepper shelter that’s fully linked to the Chiral Network to start the process.
Step-by-Step Process to Use Fast Travel Anywhere You’re Eligible
Once you’ve unlocked the system and meet all the requirements, using fast travel is pretty straightforward, but there are a few small details you might miss if you don’t know what to look for. First, make sure you don’t have any high-priority timed delivery cargo in your inventory that explicitly forbids fast travel. Most of these deliveries are marked with a red warning label when you accept them, and they require you to make the entire trip manually to count as completed.
Next, head inside the connected Knot City, safe house, or prepper shelter you’re currently in, and open your cufflink menu. Navigate to the Chiral Map tab, which will show you all connected locations across the map. Greyed-out locations are either not connected enough or currently unavailable for fast travel, so stick to the bright blue marked spots. Once you select your desired destination, you’ll get a pop-up asking you to confirm, and warning you that any cargo not stored in your personal inventory will be left behind.
That last part is really important, so I’ll repeat it: any cargo on your bike, truck, or stored in a local storage locker will not come with you when you fast travel. I once left a truck full of rare, timefall-sensitive medicine parked right outside a safe house when I fast traveled back to a coastal Knot City, and by the time I hiked back to get it, 70% of the cargo was ruined by a sudden timefall storm. If you need to bring large or extra cargo with you, move it to your personal inventory first, or plan to come back for it later.
Key Limitations of Fast Travel You Need to Plan For
Fast travel is an incredibly useful tool, but it’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card for every situation. There are a handful of hard limitations you need to keep in mind if you want to avoid making costly mistakes during your playthrough. I’ve compiled the most important ones below:
- You cannot fast travel while carrying special classified cargo assigned for main story missions, as these require you to traverse the terrain manually to complete the delivery conditions
- Fast travel consumes 150 Chiral Crystals per trip, so you'll want to stock up on these if you plan to jump between locations regularly. You can farm Chiral Crystals from BT zones, completed deliveries, and shared crystal deposits left by other players
- You cannot fast travel to a location that is currently experiencing a extreme timefall storm or voidout event, you'll have to wait for the weather to clear or the event to pass first. You can check the weather forecast on your cufflink menu to plan your trips around these events
- Any vehicles or placed structures you leave behind will stay in their original location, so you won't have access to them at your destination unless you travel back manually. It’s a good idea to park vehicles inside connected safe house garages if you plan to leave them for a long time, to protect them from timefall damage
These limitations might feel frustrating at first, but they’re intentional design choices to keep the core traversal loop that Death Stranding is known for intact. For trips that are only 10 or 15 minutes long, it’s often cheaper and faster to just hop on your upgraded bike and make the trip manually, instead of wasting Chiral Crystals on fast travel. I only use fast travel for cross-continental trips, or when I’m stuck in a remote area with no supplies and no way to get back safely.
Pro Tips to Make the Most of Fast Travel for Efficient Deliveries
Now that you know how to unlock and use fast travel, there are a few small tricks you can use to make it even more useful for your playthrough, whether you’re a casual player just working through the main story or a completionist trying to get S rank on every delivery in the game.
Unlock all fast travel points first before tackling late-game high-difficulty deliveries, that will cut your delivery time in half easily. Every time you pass a new prepper shelter or safe house, take 10 minutes to complete a few small deliveries for them to raise their connection level to 2, so you can add them to your fast travel network. It might feel like extra work upfront, but it pays off massively later when you’re trying to make tight delivery deadlines across the map.
Another good tip is to keep at least 500 Chiral Crystals in your personal inventory at all times, so you never get stuck without enough crystals to fast travel out of a bad spot. I always make a point to farm 200 or so crystals every time I pass a BT zone, just to keep my stock topped up. You can also get a ton of crystals as rewards for completing high-rank deliveries, so you don’t have to go out of your way to farm them if you’re doing regular deliveries.
If you’re someone who likes to build shared structures for other players, you can use fast travel to jump between regions quickly to repair your placed bridges, roads, and safe houses. Structures degrade over time from timefall and use, so checking in on them regularly helps keep the entire community’s traversal experience smoother. You’ll also get likes from other players for repairing structures, which helps raise your connection level across the network.
Of course, you don’t have to use fast travel at all if you don’t want to. A lot of players prefer to make every trip manually for the immersion, and that’s totally valid. The system is there as an option to make your life easier, not a requirement to beat the game. Play around with it, and find what works best for your personal playstyle.
At the end of the day, knowing how to fast travel death stranding 2 is all about balancing efficiency and the core open-world experience the series is loved for. It’s okay to use it to skip a tedious 2-hour trip across a snowy mountain range, but don’t forget to stop and enjoy the stunning views, help out other players with shared structures, and take the occasional detour to explore hidden areas too. With the tips I’ve laid out here, you’ll be able to unlock, use, and make the most of fast travel without making the costly mistakes I made in my first playthrough. Happy delivering.
