Death Stranding Preppers: Find all 36
Death Stranding DOOMS: How does your birthday feature?
Death Stranding backpack: Customise your bag
Death Stranding tar belt: How to cross safely
Death Stranding cameos: Spot every familiar face
Death Stranding BTs: Avoid or fight them
What is aphenphosmphobia in Death Stranding? In the opening hours of Death Stranding, Guillermo del Toro’s character, Deadman, mentions a condition that affects the game's protagonist. We're informed that Norman Reedus’ character, Sam, is affected by something called aphenphosmphobia. Deadman then moves right along with his exposition without the crucial bit of info.
If you're anything like me, you won't have encountered this absurdly long and complicated word before. So, well, what does it mean? You want to embrace the meditative qualities of delivering packages across a jaw dropping and beautiful world without such annoying questions burdening your brain, so I'm going to answer this question for you here with this quick primer.
Aphenphosmphobia meaning in Death Stranding
Aphenphosmphobia is the fear of being touched in both the physical and the emotional sense. It's also known as a bunch of other terms like Haphephobia and aphephobia. The reason why Sam has this fear is revealed over the course of the story—which we naturally don't want to spoil for you here—but in a world where getting attacked by enemies means pulling you under a thick layer of black tar, it's not surprising that Sam’s fear has stuck around.
Aphenphosmphobia is also associated with victims of sexual assault and symptoms include, but are not limited to, trembling, sweating, chest pains, hot flashes, heart palpitations, and hyperventilating.
