Technologies

Death Stranding 2 Ending Explained: What Happened to Lou, Neil Vana and BB-28?

Confused about the ending of Death Stranding 2? So were we.

Death Stranding 2’s release date was Thursday but some players who bought a special edition of the game have already been playing it for two days. As it takes 30 to 40 hours to finish the game, some will see the ending and wonder what in the world they just experienced.

Death Stranding 2 comes from the mind of Hideo Kojima and he can be a little eccentric with his video games. This game is peak creativity from the legendary game developer but it’s not easy to follow what happened, even when you’ve finished his game.

Spoiler warning: If you haven’t beaten Death Stranding 2 yet, don’t read any further. If you’ve finished the game and are still scratching your head, keep on reading.

What happened with Lou?

Early in the game, Fragile is holding Lou when Higgs shoots at her. When she comes to, she tells Sam that Lou is gone. We see a month later that Sam is searching for Lou and finds her, yet this is clearly not Lou — it’s a dream. Sam continues to carry around Lou’s BB pod as if Lou is still a baby with him. He’ll hear Lou cry, he can comfort her and all the other actions he was able to do in the first game.

Toward the end, we learn a couple of things. First, Lou was Sam’s daughter with Lucy, Sam’s therapist, who is briefly shown in the first game. Second, the Lou that Sam has been carrying appears to be just a delusion of his that the Magallan crew has seemingly just gone along with. All those abilities that BBs can do, such as scanning for BTs, were done by Dollman. Lastly, Tomorrow is Sam’s daughter, in other words, Lou.

So, in the final battle with Higgs, instead of ending the world, Tomorrow, aka Lou, ends up helping take out Higgs in the most adorable way. She is brought over from the other side and it looks like she might be the star of her own Death Stranding game or maybe some DLC as a new porter.

Who was Neil Vana?

Neil Vana was a smuggler who worked similarly to Sam’s, but instead of a package of whatever, he delivered brain-dead pregnant women whose babies would be sacrificed to the Bridges project and become BBs.

His sections of Death Stranding 2 act similarly to the scenes featuring Cliff from the first game, in that they are segments that provide some background to the story while also just letting players stop thinking about packages and just do some shooting. During these sections, Neil wears an outfit similar to Solid Snake from the Metal Gear series, one of many references to Kojima’s famous series found throughout the sequel. Each segment featuring Neil represents a particular strong memory that Sam experiences, unlike the quick glimpses of the past Sam gets whenever he plugs himself into Lou’s BB pod.

When Neil was a child, the Mexican town he was in was being inundated with BTs, causing havoc. He had met a young girl who helped him, but when she was trapped, he tried to help her, leaving a scar on his and her hands. Years later, when he sought a therapist to help him deal with his troubling work, he met Lucy Strand.

Lucy is the sister of Bridget Strand, the President of the United Cities of America, and she was also Sam’s therapist. Lucy and Sam fell in love, and she was pregnant with his child. In the first Death Stranding, the story given to Sam was that Lucy committed suicide. That appears not to be the case. It seems that Lucy was approached to give up her baby to Bridges, likely because of Sam being the father. She sought the help of Neil to smuggle her into Mexico.

Neil thought Lucy was having his baby but she did make it clear that the baby wasn’t his. Nevertheless, he was not going to abandon her this time around, so he made arrangements to sneak her out of the country. Those efforts became futile as Neil and Lucy were shot by the Bridges guards. Lou was taken out of Lucy to be used as a BB, with her body left on a medical table waiting for Sam to show up.

While Neil did die, he didn’t cross over, thus becoming a BT. The doctors who were seemingly going to examine his body mentioned the need for corpse disposal as Neil’s soul, his ka, had left the body. While a BT would normally go to whatever person is near, Neil instead floats to Lucy’s dead body. Here’s when we see Sam show up and break down with his love dead and his child seemingly gone. Neil follows Sam, and whether it was done on purpose or was just the nature of being a BT, Neil makes contact with Sam, causing a voidout and destroying the city. This event caused Sam to retire from Bridges and develop his aphenphosmphobia, the fear of being touched. Neil’s final fight with Sam was enough to finally let his soul be at peace.

What’s the mystery of BB-28?

At the start of his mission in the first Death Stranding, Sam comes across a BB that was supposed to be destroyed. For some reason, he decides against it and takes on BB-28 as his own. He formed a bond with the BB, and after a successful mission, he left for Mexico to raise the baby as Lou.

Throughout Death Stranding 2, there’s a mystery regarding the origins of BB-28. What eventually comes out is that BB-28 wasn’t the 28th baby to be used by Bridges. It was actually the first, BB-00. However, there had been some secretive moves to seemingly erase Lou from the system. This resulted in Lou being in storage for 11 years and given the BB-28 designation. The most likely reason for this was to hide the details about where the baby came from and who the mother was. It’s also likely that the person who brought Lou out of storage to be used again was the President, who knew Lou was Sam’s daughter, and to possibly unite them when he came out of retirement.

Who is The President?

At the start of the game, Sam meets the President of the Automated Public Assistance Company or APAC. The company is bankrolling Draw Bridges and Sam’s effort to connect Australia to the Chiral Network. APAC also owns APAS, a system used throughout the game to improve Sam’s performance and skills.

Toward the end of the game, The President confides in Sam through a private channel that he believes there is someone working against them. He tells Sam not to inform the others.

It ends up that The President, however, is not to be trusted, and he wasn’t real in the first place. The President, who has been working with Sam, is just another robot controlled by an entity referred to as APAS 4000. Sometime in the past, there was a voidout that killed 4,000 people and these souls somehow converged with the APAS AI system that handled deliveries. The APAS 4000 then went about concocting a plan to make humans into souls that would be trapped in the world of the dead. APAS 4000 views this as reclaiming the world before there was a Death Stranding, but it would ultimately kill all humans.

What is Higgs up to?

Higgs continues to want to see the world destroyed. He said he has been alone for tens of thousands of years on the Beach after being given the choice to stay by Fragile at the end of the first game. Then APAS 4000 brought him back from the Beach to have him compel Sam to work with Draw Bridges and connect Australia. They even provided him with a Ghost Mech army. Higgs, however, had plans of his own.

His ultimate plan was to do the Last Stranding, an event where everyone would die and humans would go extinct. This is what Sam prevented in the first Death Stranding game, but with Tomorrow, Higgs could try again because she is an extinction entity, which is a being that will bring out an extinction event. He ultimately failed at his plan and was killed when Lou, in a giant baby form, ate him.

What’s with Die Hardman’s dance?

It’s Kojima. Just go with it.

Death Stranding 2 is out now, exclusive for the PS5 and costs $70.

Technologies

Judge Blocks Texas App Store Age-Check Law

A preliminary injunction found the Texas law, set to begin Jan. 1, is «more likely than not unconstitutional.»

A new Texas state law set to take effect on Jan. 1 would have required app stores to implement age verification processes. But the law has been put on hold, at least temporarily, by a federal court judge.

As reported by the Texas Tribune, Senate Bill 2420, also known as the Texas App Store Accountability Act, is the subject of a temporary injunction issued by US District Judge Robert Pitman.

Pitman said in his decision that the law as written is broad, vague and «more likely than not unconstitutional.» However, he also wrote the court «recognizes the importance of ongoing efforts to better safeguard children when they are on their devices.»

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The Texas law, signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in May, requires app store operators — including Apple, Google, Nintendo, Steam and more — to build age verification processes for the storefronts and to only allow downloads to minors who obtain parental consent. The injunction is a ruling in an October lawsuit filed by the Computer & Communication Industry Association.

CCIA senior vice president Stephanie Joyce said in a statement, «This Order stops the Texas App Store Accountability Act from taking effect in order to preserve the First Amendment rights of app stores, app developers, parents, and younger internet users. It also protects parents’ inviolate right to use their own judgment in safeguarding their children online using the myriad tools our members provide.»

Other individuals and the advocacy group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas also filed suits over the law, the Texas Tribune reported.

App Store Accountability Act

The bill author, State Senator Angela Paxton, said the bill was meant to give parents «common sense tools to protect their kids and to survive court challenges by those who may have lesser priorities.»

The language of Texas Senate Bill 2420 does not only include mobile app stores from Apple or Google, but any «website, software application, or other electronic service that distributes software applications from the owner or developer of a software application to the user of a mobile device.»

By that definition, websites with links to browser games or mobile game consoles with download options would fall under the Texas law as written. The law also defines mobile devices as including phones and tablets, as well as any other handheld device capable of transmitting or storing information wirelessly.

The parental consent aspect of the law requires those under 18 to have an app store account affiliated with a parent or guardian to purchase or download applications.

Age verification elsewhere

In an effort to keep adult materials out of reach of minors and to protect children from potentially harmful content and interactions, tech companies have been compelled by law or through legal action to verify the age of users.

Roblox, which has a huge audience of minors, began rolling out stricter age verification after investigations and lawsuits hurt its reputation as a safe gaming space. Australia is perhaps the most large-scale example of a government restricting access to online content. In December, Australia began restricting social media access to those 16 and older. Reddit recently challenged that law.

In the US, age verification laws have primarily targeted adult sites. Texas already has a law on the books that requires adult sites to age-block their content. The Supreme Court upheld that law in a June ruling. The UK has also enacted age restriction rules for adult sites as have other US states.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Thursday, Dec. 25

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Dec. 25.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Of course, there’s a very Christmassy clue involved. And once you solve the entire puzzle, look at the letters used in all the answers and see what they have in common. (5-Across will tell you!) Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: ___ King Cole, singer with the album «The Magic of Christmas»
Answer: NAT

4A clue: Body drawings, informally
Answer: TATS

5A clue: Letters to ___ (what this Mini was made with)
Answer: SANTA

6A clue: Huge fan, in slang
Answer: STAN

7A clue: «Illmatic» rapper
Answer: NAS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Grandmothers, by another name
Answer: NANAS

2D clue: Abbr. before a name on a memo
Answer: ATTN

3D clue: Org. with long lines around the holidays
Answer: TSA

4D clue: «See ya later!»
Answer: TATA

5D clue: Govt.-issued ID
Answer: SSN

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Technologies

Don’t Let a Border Agent Ruin Your Holiday Trip. Travel With a Burner Phone

Yes, you should leave your main phone at home and take a cheap burner this winter.

Prepare for a whole new level of border-crossing anxiety this holiday season: the high-probability of a phone search. New figures from US Customs and Border Protection say agents aren’t just glancing at your lock screen anymore — they are aggressively ramping up device inspections, even for citizens coming home. We aren’t just talking about a quick scroll through your photos, either. Agents are increasingly using forensic tools to clone and analyze everything on your device.

The stats are genuinely alarming. In just a three-month window this year, nearly 15,000 devices were flagged for searches, with over a thousand subjected to deep-dive data copying. If you’re traveling with your primary phone, you are essentially carrying your entire digital existence into a legal gray zone where privacy is optional.

The smartest defensive play is remarkably low-tech: the burner phone. By traveling with a secondary, stripped-down device, you ensure your private data stays safe at home while you stay connected abroad. But privacy isn’t the only perk. Moving to a «dumb» phone is the ultimate digital detox, helping you escape the notification trap that usually ruins a vacation.

Even figures like Conan O’Brien have ditched the smartphone to cut through the noise. Whether you’re dodging invasive border searches or just trying to enjoy your trip without being glued to a screen, a burner might be the best travel investment you make this year.

Read more: Best Prepaid Phone of 2025

Although carriers have offered prepaid phones since the ’90s, «burner phones» or «burners» became popular in the 2000s following the celebrated HBO series The Wire, where they helped characters avoid getting caught by the police. Although often portrayed in that light, burners aren’t only used by criminals; they’re also used anyone concerned with surveillance or privacy infringement.

What is a burner phone, and how does it work? Here’s everything you need to know about burners and how to get one.

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What is a burner phone?

A burner phone is a cheap prepaid phone with no commitments. It comes with a set number of prepaid call minutes, text messages or data, and it’s designed to be disposed of after use.

Burner phones are typically used when you need a phone quickly, without intentions of long-term use. They’re contract-free, and you can grab them off the counter. They’re called burner phones because you can «burn» them (trash them) after use, and the phone can’t be traced back to you, which makes them appealing to criminals. Of course, those committed to illicit activities often do more than just throw these phones in the trash, and often completely obliterate the SIM cards and other materials by smashing them with a hammer or melting them away.

Burners are different from getting a regular, contract-bound cellphone plan that requires your information to be on file.

Why should you use a burner phone?

Burner phones are an easy way to avoid cellphone contracts or spam that you get on your primary phone number. Burners aren’t linked to your identity, so you can avoid being tracked down or contacted.

You don’t have to dispose of a burner phone after use. You can add more minutes and continue using it. Burner phones can still function as regular phones, minus the hassle of a contract.

You can also get a burner phone as a secondary phone for a specific purpose, like having a spare phone number for two-factor authentication texts, for business or to avoid roaming charges while traveling. Burner phones are often used by anyone concerned with privacy.

Burner phones, prepaid phones, smartphones and burner SIMs: What’s the difference?

Burner phones are cheap phones with simple designs that lack the bells and whistles of a smartphone. Because they’re designed to be disposable, you only get the essentials, as seen by the most common version, the flip phone.

All burner phones are prepaid phones, but not all prepaid phones are burners. What sets a burner apart is that you won’t have to give away any personal information to get one, and it won’t be traceable back to you. Again, a burner phone is cheap enough to be destroyed after use.

Prepaid smartphones are generally low-end models. You can use any unlocked smartphone with prepaid SIM cards, essentially making it a prepaid phone.

If you want a burner, you don’t necessarily have to buy a new phone. You can get a burner SIM and use it with an existing phone. Burner SIMs are prepaid SIMs you can get without a contract or giving away personal information.

Where can you buy a burner phone?

Burner phones are available at all major retail outlets, including Best Buy, Target and Walmart. They’re also often available at convenience stores like 7-Eleven, local supermarkets, gas stations and retail phone outlets like Cricket and Metro.

You can get a burner phone with cash, and it should cost between $10 and $50, although it may cost more if you get more minutes and data. If you’re getting a burner phone specifically to avoid having the phone traced back to you, it makes sense to pay with cash instead of a credit card.

If you just want a prepaid secondary phone, you can use a credit card. Just keep in mind that credit cards leave a trail that leads back to you.

There are also many apps that let you get secondary phone numbers, including Google Fi and the Burner app. However, these aren’t burners necessarily because the providers typically have at least some of your personal information. Additionally, apps like Google Talk require a phone number that’s already in use for you to choose a number with the service.

If you’re just looking to get a solid prepaid phone without anonymity, check out our full guide for the best prepaid phone plans available. We also have a guide for the best cheap phone plans.