Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is the sequel I didn’t know I needed until I played it. It’s got everything I value in a sequel – upping the ante and the quality in pretty much every aspect that I could have imagined.
But it’s clear that creator and director Hideo Kojima has a greater plan for the series. For one, he admits that the opening scene for Death Stranding 2 was already in his head and visualised when making Death Stranding initially.
Chatting in an interview with a few of us at Kojima Productions in Tokyo, one of gaming’s most famous auteurs said:
“In the opening of the game, you saw Fragile come to visit Sam and Lou in their hideous – I already had that scene written when I was making DEATH STRANDING.”
He even planned to shoot new scenes with Fragile (played by Lea Seydoux) for the Director’s Cut that would release on PlayStation 5 a few years later.
“In January 2020, I asked Léa to be in the sequel. It was right around the start of COVID. She said yes to the sequel, so I was originally planning on shooting Pcap (performance capture) that year and putting that scene at the end of Director’s Cut. But because the pandemic started in February, we couldn’t do anything and ultimately, we were delayed. However, we were able to sit down and concentrate on the Director’s Cut, so it worked out.“
Kojima would then talk about the concept of setting the game in Australia and how he would connect the newly connected UCA to the disconnected version of Australia we’ll be exploring in the game. With such narrative foundations in place, he even admitted to having the idea of a concept for a Death Stranding 3.
“I, of course, don’t have any plans [to make sequels], but I already have a concept for another sequel. I am not going to make it myself, but if I passed it on to someone else, they could probably make it.“
It’s interesting to hear Kojima start talking about potentially passing the reins to somebody else for a project. Though we wouldn’t blame him either – the studio has the Hunter Schafer-lead OD in the works as well as PHYSINT, a spiritual successor to the Metal Gear games in the pipeline too.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach launches on June 26th 2025 for PlayStation 5. The cheapest copy is available for $99 with free shipping from Amazon.
The author travelled to Tokyo, Japan, as a guest of Kojima Productions.
