Photo Mode, Sam tab: posing the character mid-jump - Show Sam, Pose and Expression steppers

About this game

Developer: KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS · Publisher: 505 Games · Platform: PC (Steam) · Art style: Realistic 3D · Screen type: HUD & Gameplay UI

More Death Stranding Director's Cut screens in the Gallery

What to study

The Sam tab is Photo Mode's puppet stage: instead of only moving the camera, the player restages the character - Show Sam On, a Pose stepper set to 'Do the BB Boogie!', Expression left at No Change - while Sam hangs frozen mid-jump over a snowfield, carrier frame below him. The design point is the split of labour across tabs: camera geometry lives on sliders in the Camera tab, performance lives on chevron steppers here, and both tabs share one floating panel and one prompt bar, so the mode reads as a single instrument. Frame at about 0:10.3 in the Photo Mode Trailer (Steam), a scene-change candidate (v1_0004) inspected at full resolution in this prep; the trailer's burned-in 'Photo Mode' caption and 'Game Footage Not Final' notice are not game UI and are disclosed in the elements.

Patterns

How the screen is arranged.

icon-tabs stepper-rows prompt-bar character-posing

Components

Parts on screen.

Tabs Menu Grid Portrait Button prompts Slider Stepper

Screen inventory

• the same tab strip as the Camera screen, here with the Sam tab selected and labelled: face-icon tabs flank the selected tab, then aperture, brightness, frame-shape and Frame icons continue the row
• Sam tab rows: Show Sam On; Sam's Pose highlighted on the blue selection bar, set to 'Do the BB Boogie!'; Sam's Expression No Change; a further pose row No Change; Ignore Selected Tilt Off - every row is a left/right chevron stepper, no sliders on this tab
• the subject being posed: Sam frozen mid-jump above a floating carrier frame in a snowfield, BB pod in one hand - the pose menu is being used on an action moment, not a portrait sitting
• the bottom controller prompt bar is identical to the Camera tab's: Move/Rotate/Lower/Raise Camera, Show Grid, Hide Menu, Reset, Resume Game

Top 3 colors

#b3c3d1 20%#8696a9 19%#4f5d6e 16%

Top three palette colors by share. The remaining colors make up the rest.

Source and credit

© KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS / 505 Games, Death Stranding Director's Cut screenshot: Death Stranding Director's Cut - Photo Mode Trailer video (Steam), shown for design study and commentary. PlayCraft is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by 505 Games.

Source tier 2 (publisher-released) · screenshot: Steam store page · Steam page

Source details

Fetched 2026-10-21. verified 2026-10-21: scene-change candidate v1_0004 at 10.3s from the Photo Mode Trailer (Steam) inspected visually at full resolution (1920x1080) in this prep; keeper file photo-mode-sam-tab.png is a byte copy of candidates/v1_0004.png (sha256 45e31357a88ebce36cceae4c178706e13f516877879305e3fab007990e00893b)

no published policy found (checked 2026-10-21); fair-use study use, takedown honored within 48h

Rights holders: see Copyright & takedown.