You must set a Death Stranding birthday when you start the game, with the message "DOOMs abilities vary according to date of birth". That definitely makes it sounds like there could be a best possible birthday, but what is the best date? And what does DOOMs actually do?
It's an utterly vague system in Death Stranding, so I've explained everything I know about it below to help you decide on when to set your birthday so you stop worrying about it all. The important thing is that it's not really that big a deal, just a fairly inconsequential beat in a weird game that happens to pop up right at the start to make you start questioning things about the game's world.
If you're looking for help with the similar birthday choice found at the start of the sequel, we've explained what your Death Stranding 2 birthday does in a separate guide!
Death Stranding 1 DOOMs constellations
It doesn't tell you this until after you've filled in your birthday, but DOOMs is allegedly stronger in people with certain birth signs. Specifically, "higher levels of DOOMs abilities have been observed in those born under constellations such as Cancer, Pisces, Cestus, Delphinus and Gigas". Cancer and Pisces are easy but what the hell are the rest?
The short answer is that they are also constellations, like Pisces and Cancer, just not one's used in modern astrology. The implication being that if you have a birthday in one of these constellations you'll have a stronger DOOMs ability.
What does DOOMs do in Death Stranding 1?
What all this all actually means isn't clear. The general consensus is that it doesn't really do anything meaningful, so you won't have a better or worse experience whatever date you pick. However, you will get a special birthday cutscene on the date you choose.
There is some thinking that it might affect which players you form Bridge Links with online, although that seems more a theory than anything else. As far as I can tell from discussing experiences with other players there's no obvious differences in gameplay. Which, realistically, you'd hope was the case - no one wants to find the game harder because they've got a bad birthday.
What those constellations break down into as far as dates go is this:
- Cancer - June 21 – July 22
- Pisces - February 18 – March 20
- Cestus - November
- Delphinus - September
- Gigas - January
Obviously Cancer and Pisces are known birth signs but the other three aren't. They are constellations, however, and are best seen at the times we've listed.
It's worth noting, however that Cestus is also known as 'the whale' and Delphinus is 'the dolphin, while Gigas is an old name for Orion - a giant hunter who in greek mythology threatened to kill every every animal on earth. It's basically just a bunch of things that loosely tie into the game, so there's no point in taking any great stock in it. Just pick Cancer or Pisces as the ones with definite, unquestionably durations. The other three have more of a window with peak dates depending on what aspect of their journey through the sky you're actually defining.
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