How Hideo Kojima is evolving Death Stranding 2’s formula with a bold Australian frontier

On the second of four days I recently spent at Kojima Productions playing Death Stranding 2, as I sniped a guard from a watch tower, equipped a silenced rifle, and planned a sneaky infiltration into an enemy base to extract a prisoner, it was impossible to escape the thought that “oh wow, this really does feel like Metal Gear”.

The original Death Stranding, with its delivery missions across hauntingly beautiful Icelandic landscapes, seemed to actively discourage players from engaging in action or combat, even locking into its lore that downed foes would result in a small nuclear explosion. Enemies existed in the form of cargo thieves or ghostly BTs, but the player was mostly worried about how to avoid or escape them, rather than engage in any meaningful way.

Now, in PS5 sequel On the Beach, the safety lock is well and truly off.

Instead of running from Mules with their electric sticks, you’re frequently blasting through them with a shotgun or grenade launcher. And rather than awkwardly stumbling across a rocky ravine, dropping packages as you go, more often I was cruising in my tricked-out vehicle with two automatic turrets blasting anyone who dared impede my delivery.

Watch our Death Stranding 2 video preview…

The original Death Stranding was praised by those who enjoyed it as an often-serene experience through jaw-dropping scenery, and that hasn’t been sacrificed for all-out action. What Kojima Productions has done is offer more options to players in how they can tackle their delivery objectives – stealthily, directly, or avoided altogether – and presented them at a scale and level of variety unseen from these developers since The Phantom Pain.

“In Death Stranding 1, the main aim for players was to deliver something from point A to point B, and the enemies existed purely to obstruct that. It was as if you were playing tag, and everything was about how to escape the enemy,” lead level designer Hiroaki Yoshiike told VGC.

“This time, in Death Stranding 2, Kojima-san wanted more combat in the game. So, we came up with three different ways for the player to choose. One way would be stealth, which would be getting past them. The second would be combat, directly fighting them. And the third one would be avoiding them altogether.”

According to director Hideo Kojima, this greater emphasis on combat is the natural evolution of Death Stranding’s formula, rather than a response to the somewhat divisive reaction to the original game (though he says he has access to player data from both Death Stranding and its Director’s Cut).

“I would like you to remember back to the first Metal Gear Solid when you had to really focus on stealth, otherwise it was game over,” he explained. “Before you get to the elevator, you had no weapons at all, but once you got on it and went up, you had access to some weapons.

“The reason I did that was because if I put a weapon there, people would use that to take down the enemy. It would not have been like a hide and seek game. That’s why I deliberately took that out, but a lot of people hated that, and many didn’t even make it to the elevator.”

Kojima continued: “[In MGS1], we put in a lot of mechanics to teach people stealth. So, in MGS2, I knew that people now understood stealth more, so I made weapons more accessible. You could even aim at specific areas of the body in first person perspective. It was the same for Death Stranding 2.”

Just like the transition from Metal Gear Solid to its sequel, Kojima believes he can safely add more complexity to Death Stranding 2, now that players understand the core concept of the first game.

“Originally, it was a delivery game that no one had seen before, so people may have felt frustrated with that,” he said. “But this time, people are now familiar with [the idea of] a delivery-focused game, so I wanted to create more freedom in Death Stranding 2, for those that want to battle and the like.

“You could use weapons – you can, but you don’t have to. You can use vehicles and bikes – it’s more accessible now in Death Stranding 2.  It’s a game of delivery, and I wanted to give more freedom when it comes to game mechanics – so that was the intention.”

Rebuilding Bridges

Like many players, I liked the original Death Stranding, but I didn’t love it. The game’s core delivery mechanic and 80s sci-fi world offered an admirably unique adventure in the blockbuster game space. However, perhaps understandably, considering Kojima Productions was reforming during production, its gameplay could frequently feel one-note, with little variety, and mechanics that eventually became repetitive.

After around 30 hours with Death Stranding 2 – estimated to be around 40% of the game – I’m convinced this will be my favorite Hideo Kojima game certainly since Phantom Pain, and possibly even the PS2. While Kojima claims On the Beach to be the logical evolution of the first game’s design, it’s impossible not to see welcome corrections to player feedback everywhere, and those who didn’t click with the original will almost certainly appreciate the changes.

Not only is combat improved, but so is your ability to use stealth, with guards and BT AI reacting as you’d expect in a traditional sneaking game. A new type of BT called Watchers has even been introduced, which, at least initially, you have to sneak past, and they’ll patrol and spot you like MGS guards.

Menus are more streamlined, with clear information on your objective, equipment, and potential routes. Traversing the game world, in general, feels less frustrating, with more routes that don’t demand scaling vertical cliffs, and which can be more easily traveled by vehicle. Exploration is also more entertaining, with a plethora of dynamic elements introduced that force players to think on their feet.

Earthquakes can occur, knocking you off balance and causing rock slides; timefall can now flood rivers, making them more dangerous to cross; sandstorms drastically reduce visibility and make you slower, or faster, depending on wind direction; and bushfires scorch through vegetation, creating a dangerous roadblock.

The social strand element has been bolstered with a plethora of new and improved structures players can build for themselves and other players, including larger bridges, better zip lines, shelters that now ward off BTs, and even all-out teleporters. Most significant are the monorails, which can be connected like roads, and zoom Sam and cargo from resource mines and bases around Australia.

Most importantly of all, for those who didn’t click with DS1, there are a greater variety of objectives here, and more optional paths for the player. The main story may task you with clearing armed militia soldiers from a town (stealthily, or guns blazing), tracking the footsteps of a lost ally, or even escorting an injured kangaroo to an animal shelter.

There are also a significant number of side objectives which appear to have meaningful rewards, like special weapon schematics, and narrative payoffs. This time, you can even use points gained from these missions to customize Sam’s skills via an extensive skill tree, unlocking abilities such as a better scanner, footstep dampener, aim assistance, or vehicle recharger.

Additionally, some of Sam’s abilities will improve automatically based on your play style, such as terrain traversal, carrying capacity, endurance, and proficiency with various weapons.

Beach Bum

Death Stranding 2’s story begins a year after the first game, with Sam Bridges (Norman Reedus) living a happier life, holed up in a secret shelter in the Mexican wilderness with his infant companion ‘Lou’ – now a playful toddler – as they attempt to live out their new lives together as parent and child, on the run from his former employer Bridges for stealing their ‘property’.

Unsurprisingly, Sam’s quiet life doesn’t last long, as he soon finds his home crashed by Fragile (Léa Seydoux), now sporting a new haircut and extra mechanical hands, and unable to teleport due to ‘jumpshock’ suffered from events in the first game.

After Sam connected America, Fragile established a new company, Drawbridge, which aims to extend the Chiral Network to other countries, starting with Mexico. Drawbridge operates from a colossal floating base, the DHV Magellan, which is helmed by Tarman (George Miller) and can teleport around the world map by riding the paranormal ‘tar currents’ manifested by the Death Stranding event.

Sam agrees to help Fragile connect Mexico, in exchange for her help clearing up his life on the run. In reality, Mexico is just the beginning: Connecting America seems to have caused unforeseen consequences. Notably, a mysterious cult dressed in red has appeared, alongside a supernatural gate to another continent: Australia. Once Sam has connected Mexico, which takes just a few hours of playtime, the vast majority of Death Stranding 2 will take place Down Under.

“In Death Stranding, you connect the North American continent from East to West, mirroring the exploration of the American frontier,” Kojima explains. “America already has the UCA, so for the sequel, I debated whether to use the same sort of setting or not.

“The first idea I had was that you would have to go around disconnecting everything you connected, because you learn that connecting was a big mistake. But that didn’t feel right, as it would just be reusing the same environment.

“I wanted an area that was sprawled from East to West like America, and also somewhere that faced the Ocean to the North and South. In that case, Eurasia or Africa felt like too big of a continent, but in terms of size and scale, I felt that Australia was a good fit.

“So with that in mind, I had to figure out how to connect North America and Australia, and as a last resort, we created the ‘Plate Gate.’ If I use this Plate Gate concept, I could make endless sequels! I, of course, don’t have any plans to do that, 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.”

“I wanted an area that was sprawled from East to West like America, and also somewhere that faced the Ocean to the North and South. In that case, Eurasia or Africa felt like too big of a continent, but in terms of size and scale, I felt that Australia was a good fit.”

This time around, thanks to restrictions caused by the pandemic, Kojima Productions’ team relied on Google Maps and local photographers to research the Australian environment used in On the Beach. Despite these unconventional methods, however, the results are simply stunning.

The game’s introduction sees Sam awake atop a vast Mexican rockface with baby Lou, with the camera swinging around behind him and handing control to the player, as seen in the most recent trailer. It’s an impressive flex, not least because we were playing on a base PlayStation 5. The level of detail in the environment is hugely increased compared to the first DS, and not far off the Unreal Engine 5 demo that seemed impossible 4 years ago. Notably, sightlines are vastly extended, to the point where we almost felt a tinge of vertigo peering down the mountain range.

Addressing a major qualm I had with the original, this world also feels far more alive, with a large variety of characters (again frequently represented by scanned-in celebrities), wild animals roaming the wilderness and fish in the rivers, and the presence of large bases and forts in the environment, that behave like actual lived-in places, with smoking chimneys and lights that turn on at night.

As if more proof was needed, Death Stranding 2 demonstrates that Guerilla’s Decima Engine remains an incredible piece of technology, and the Horizon studio deserves some credit for the technical showcase here, as does PlayStation’s Xdev studio, which extends to an impressive variety of environments such as red sand dunes, lush green jungles, and rusting, abandoned towns.

“For me, the major part [of adding variety] has always been color,” legendary art director Yoji Shinkawa told VGC. “For example, in Mexico, we wanted to depict the white desert. So we wanted to show that particularly dry climate through color as well as lighting. And in the case of Australia, there’s obviously the orange desert. And we wanted to show that particular kind of hot climate, and I hope that was transferred well. When creating art concepts, I always think that color is particularly important.”

Lead level designer Hiroaki Yoshiike said that adding more variety to the environment was a key priority for Death Stranding 2, as well as the dynamic elements such as storms and floods, which make route selection more nuanced than just avoiding a river or steep mountain.

“In DS2, we wanted to be able to provide more options for the player to enjoy. We wanted more variety in the environment, and so we introduced a day/night cycle, rising waters, sandstorms, and things like that,” he said. “In DS2, we wanted to bring out the fun of route selection, and a big part of our design this time is being able to make your own routes and decide your approach, which is meant to be a lot of fun.”

Home and Away

Kojima says Death Stranding 2 is a much “weirder” game than the original, and the opening third-or-so certainly hits a tone closer to an otherworldly Guillermo del Toro or Alex Garland movie, rather than the obtuse, sombre dread of the first game.

Though an early story event sets high emotional stakes for Sam and the player, Death Stranding 2 is a broadly less po-faced story, with Kojima freeing himself to explore more fun and interesting ideas, having established the stakes of the universe in DS1.

For a start, Sam now has a new companion, Dollman, a man trapped inside a puppet who travels on Bridge’s belt and drops occasional wisecracks and commentary. Seydoux, too, is clearly enjoying her role more here, putting in a warm performance and providing a comforting guide to players through the sequel’s new areas and mechanics.

During gameplay, characters will even send you text and picture messages, adding another welcome injection of personality, and a further layer of optional narrative.

Important plot moments appear far better paced than in the original, with new ideas and twists coming thick-and-fast, and frequent introductions to new characters. In further streamlining of the first game, dialogue trees have been introduced, making deeper story exposition optional, and there’s even an in-game wiki which players can consult at any time (even during cut-scenes) to double-check lore references, characters’ backstories, and more.

Echoing the less serious tone of the story, Death Stranding 2’s cast includes an ensemble of supernatural misfits, who are certainly more compelling than the stiff-nosed corpos of DS1, and make for an enjoyable soap opera aboard the DHV Magellan.

There’s Tarman (George Miller), the captain of the Magellan who lost his hand and gained a bat-cat companion following an incident involving (you guessed it) tar. Meanwhile, Tomorrow (Elle Fanning), is a supernatural stowaway, hatched from a chrysalis cocoon, who can kick ass using her DOOMs powers, and Drawbridge’s mysterious patron, Charlie, speaks through a combat dummy using the synthesised voice of Die-Hardman (Tommie Earl Jenkins).

Another highlight is Rainy (Shioli Kutsuna), a further phenomenal individual who, as her name suggests, has a power related to timefall (which we’ve been asked not to spoil). A dramatic flashback shows how Rainy was ostracised and hunted as a witch. Unknowingly to her adversaries, Rainy’s ‘curse’ also has a positive side, however.

My favourite characters from the first game, Heartman (Nicolas Winding Refn’s likeness, played by Darren Jacobs), and Troy Baker’s Higgs, also return for On the Beach, appearing in memorable moments. However, the performances Hideo Kojima says he’s most proud of in Death Stranding 2 involve none of the aforementioned actors.

“So Luca Marinelli – I’ve been saying this on various occasions, but I saw an Italian movie called, Martin Eden, that he starred in,” Kojima replied, when asked about the performance he’s most proud of in DS2. “I thought it was a great movie. It might have been before the pandemic, but I wrote a comment for its promotion in Japan.

“That’s when Luca sent me an email, and he told me that he’s been a big fan since his childhood and that he had read the movie comment I wrote for his movie in Japan. He asked the distributor for my contact information, and that’s how we met.”

Marinelli, the Italian actor who dons a Solid Snake-style bandana in On the Beach’s latest trailer, appears as this game’s pseudo-villain, Neil, in place of Mads Mikkelsen, and alongside his real-life wife Alissa Jung, who plays his therapist Lucy.

Players first encounter Neil in a ‘nightmare’ sequence, similar to Cliff’s own shootouts from the first game. It’s one of the most visually impressive scenes I can remember seeing in a video game, with dark streets lit entirely by candles, fireworks, and giant Catherine wheels, with particles reflected in the puddles on the floor.

Like Cliff, Neil seems to be central to the core plot of On the Beach, which revolves around Lou, the BBs, and how they came to be. Death Stranding 2’s most recent trailer showed a scene in which Neil confessed to Lucy that he smuggled brain-dead pregnant women into America, presumably for the creation of the bridge babies.

“When I thought about casting Luca, I also thought about how this new character would have to top Mads Mikkelsen,” Kojima added. “I wondered, ‘Is that even possible?’ Mads’ character couldn’t reappear in Death Stranding 2, so I know there are fans that are a bit bummed about that, but I needed to cast someone that could exceed Mads. It was then that I remembered Luca, and I sent him a DM, offered the role to him, and he said ‘Yes.’

“Mads’ character couldn’t reappear in Death Stranding 2, so I know there are fans that are a bit bummed about that, but I needed to cast someone that could exceed Mads. It was then that I remembered Luca, and I sent him a DM”

He added: “Most of the scenes between Alissa and Luca are just the two of them. The funny thing is, because they are husband and wife in real life, they have great chemistry. Luca also performs on stage, and Alissa is an actor and a director, so she tried to become the director from time to time!

“We shot the performance capture at the SIE Studio in LA – it’s a big studio. A couple of my staff and I would go there for the shoot, and there were so many other crew members: makeup people, equipment technicians – it’s almost like a Hollywood set! But when Luca started to perform, everyone gathered closely to watch, and I had never seen that happen before.”

Neighbours

The most widely appreciated feature of Death Standing 1 was its social strand system. By connecting different cities across the map, players unlocked the ability to see nearby structures and equipment created by other players.

This could be in the form of a ladder to climb a steep slope, a bridge across a river, or at the high end, an entire road network that players would need to collaborate to build and maintain, enabling them to effortlessly reach their destination. Players can also share items in post boxes, and deliver their dropped cargo.

There’s no obvious in-game incentive for players to help each other in this way, beyond a social media-style ‘like’ system. Kojima’s idea was that players would connect through their contributions, echoing Sam’s mission to connect America.

This concept looked prophetic when, just months after Death Stranding’s November 2019 release, COVID-19 locked down the world’s populations. Kojima says his experiences during the pandemic caused him to rethink the central theme of Death Stranding: that connecting the world would make for a better society.

The social strand feature is back and expanded in Death Stranding 2, but Kojima hints there are now consequences to connecting the game world, such as the mysterious Ghost Mechs that begin populating Australia at around Chapter 7 of the story.

“We released Death Stranding before the COVID-19 pandemic,” Kojima explained. “The world was heading towards isolation and division, such as the UK leaving the EU. So I was saying, ‘Let’s connect. We’re headed for disaster if we don’t connect.’ That was the theme, story, and gameplay for Death Stranding.

“After the release, just three months later, we entered the pandemic, and I was really surprised – it looked like Death Stranding, in a way. In the real world – the 21^st century – we have something similar to the Chiral Network, which is the Internet. This was a little different compared to the 19^th century, such as the Spanish Flu or the like. We survived the pandemic because of the Internet and people were connected online.”

Kojima said he believes the same connectivity that helped people get through their lockdown experiences is now, in fact, dividing humanity.

“What happened was, there are now people in our studio who work from home, and I still don’t know their faces. Even music concerts were cancelled, and it all became online streaming. I understand this was unavoidable at the time of the pandemic. The same thing applies to schools; instead of getting to play with your friends or learning from teachers, you just look at a screen online which isn’t any different from watching YouTube videos.

“Everything was leaning into the metaverse. When you turned on the TV, everyone was talking about how it was the age of the metaverse now and there was no need to interact with people. I felt that we were going down a terrible path. Communication between human beings is not meant to be this way.  You meet people by chance or see sights you didn’t expect to see. With the way we were headed, you would lose all of that.”

The Metal Gear creator said that even though he already had a concept in place for Death Stranding 2, after experiencing the pandemic, he felt that it wasn’t right and rewrote it.

“It’s the strangest thing. After I created a game with the theme of ‘let’s connect instead of division and isolation,’ we had the pandemic, and I began to think, ‘Maybe it’s not such a good thing to connect so much’,” he said.

“It goes back to the stick and rope theory. There’s a lot of foreshadowing in the game, so I’m sure many of you will understand when you play the game, and you’ll know by the end. The things that I felt during the pandemic – there’s a character in the game who expresses those feelings.

“The logo is a hint: you can see in the logo of Death Stranding that the strands are coming from below the logo – with the theme of ‘Let’s connect.’ This time in Death Stranding 2, you see that the strands are coming from above the logo. It’s like the Godfather logo.

“Even throughout the game, you see strands from many people, like Dollman and the mech soldiers. Those are all hints. When you really start thinking about what it means to connect, you start to wonder… That’s all I’ll say for now.”

This, Kojima concluded, was also the reason he had insisted on hosting media from around the world, in-person, at his Tokyo studio last month, as opposed to the kind of online event many other studios might have considered instead.

“You came all the way here and played for four days,” he said. “This may typically be done online nowadays. But this game is about connection. You will know when you play further into Death Stranding 2; I think you will start to feel it after a while.

“That is why we invited you to physically come during your busy schedules, and people from all over the world have gathered here, and I’m sure you all met with many people and had many conversations. You saw the view from Tokyo Station, or you may have walked into a random restaurant – these things are the human experience.

“These coincidences and unintentional happenings connect seamlessly, but that doesn’t happen with the metaverse. You might think, ‘What is this guy saying?’ But I’m happy that everyone could make it here, and I really wish you would’ve been able to play to the end!”

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach releases for PlayStation 5 on June 24.