2025 Preview: Death Stranding 2 looks set to be Kojima at his most uninhibited

At this point, there can’t be more than a handful of people left on planet Earth who haven’t been scanned by Hideo Kojima.

The auteur-cum-movie reviewer appears to be an incredibly busy man currently. He’s coming to the end of Death Stranding 2, working on the mysterious OD for Xbox, and this year, it was announced he’s in the very early stages of working on Physint, which Kojima claims is happening because fans wouldn’t stop asking about a new Metal Gear. Before he can get to that, however, he has to ship the sequel to his first indie title free of the Konami shackles.

Death Stranding was a strange game, to say the least. There are parts of it that no one will argue about, such as the tremendous soundtrack, the excellent visuals, and the sheer inventiveness of Kojima’s vision. On the other hand, there are people who will tell you Death Stranding is barely a game. If you’ve forgotten, Death Stranding is about a United States that’s been totally disconnected and a courier who has to deliver packages and reconnect the country.

While there’s currently no evidence that Hideo Kojima knew about Covid-19, his tale of isolation and being stuck inside was one that captured the imagination of millions of players, esoteric gameplay and all. The story for the second game was originally completed in 2019, but Kojima has said that following the pandemic, he reworked the narrative from scratch in order to comment on the impact of Covid-19 on the human race.

We’re looking forward to seeing what planet-affecting disaster he has in store for us on Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. Best stock up on toilet paper in advance this time, just in case.

“The footage of the second game that has been released thus far seems to show a game that is Hideo Kojima unleashed.”

The footage of the second game that has been released thus far seems to show a game that is Hideo Kojima unleashed. The first game was all the ideas he had while working on Metal Gear under Konami, now Death Stranding 2 is all the concepts and ideas he came up with while working on the first game, plus everything he had to cut from it due to it being too ambitious for a first outing.

One element of the first game that we really hope returns is the interesting online element that saw creations made by other players pop up around the world. A particularly aggressive ravine could be crossed by a bridge made by a player that’s far further in the game. Giving that item a like gave the player benefits in their game. You’d never interact with them outside of that, but there was some really clever implied storytelling just by looking at what other players had left behind.

You could practically see the failed attempts to juuuust scooch around the side of a rock, only to fall into a river and opt to build a real bridge. It was nice to see that you weren’t alone in your struggles, even if there was no one for hundreds of miles in-game.

It’s largely pointless guessing what Hideo Kojima is going to do next. There’s no way to tell what ridiculous character performance, or obscene third-act twist is going to come down the pipe. One thing that is for sure is that Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is a game that absolutely everyone is going to be talking about, and considering the other heavy hitters set to drop in 2025, that’s no easy feat.