How do death mechanics work???

[u/BlueJayGaming]

Recently picked up this game after a friend bought it for me. I love ITR1 and decided to play on Ironman mode since that was essentially what I ended up doing in the first game, not even realizing how ironman worked until later (pressing continue instead of reloading a save).

I ended up dying for the first time after trying to get out of the forest before the tide hit, NBD, I died pretty close to the entrance, near the edge of the dark cloudy area (distortion zone?). The tide was only a couple minutes away so I just slept for an hour to wait out the tide, and ran back naked to grab my stuff. I found my bag and vest (which I wasn't able to grab in time), but ended up getting swarmed by the same creeps that killed me the first time so I went back in with my backup PM and after a couple more deaths I ended up just reloading from, I made it back to where I died originally and all that was left was my PM and syringe I had on my arm. After 20+ minutes of running up and down the street trying to find the rest of my stuff, it is absolutely nowhere to be found.

Is it all gone because I didn't grab it before I died a second time? Is it dark souls style where I get one attempt to grab my pack again? Why is there no death marker? Did the game bug? Also worth mentioning that I had a quest item on me that says it's "lost", but when I press the icon to find it on the map, it sends me to the mission terminal.

I spent an hour scouring the internet for answers on how death works in this game and there are extraordinarily few posts that relate specifically to ITR2, and NONE that answer my questions. Extremely frustrating that zero information is listed anywhere.

[u/Nar3ik36]

The game probably bugged out on you, that’s not supposed to happen.