Hideo Kojima has remained mum on what his studio is working on next. However, numerous rumors and leaks have revealed that it will be a sequel to its 2019 sci-fi horror video game, Death Stranding. But given players' frustrations with the first game, could Death Stranding 2 meet fans' demands and expectations?
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Death Stranding is an open-world action game developed by Kojima Productions (who helped develop Silent Hill and the Metal Gear Solid series) and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Released in 2019, it is the first game directed by Hideo Kojima after parting ways with Konami. In 2021, a director's cut version was then released for the PlayStation 5.
The game follows main character Sam Porter Bridges (played by actor Norman Reedus who plays Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead), a courier who suffers from DOOMS and is a returnee. He is responsible for delivering supplies to the many isolated colonies of what was once the United States and reconnecting them through a wireless communications network.
Although fans have complained about certain gameplay elements and the plot, Death Stranding has received a lot of praise for its brilliant soundtrack, incredible visuals, and voice acting. The game has done so well that significant plans for the development of a second game appear to already be in the works.
But before we look at Death Stranding 2, let's take a look back at the first game.
The story so far
In Death Stranding, we begin with Sam, delivering a shipment, who must briefly take refuge from the Timefall and the BTs before continuing his journey to Central Knot City. When he arrives after receiving help, he is assigned to join a team en route to cremate the body of a suicide victim, since he is a returnee and has DOOMS. Unfortunately, an encounter with a BT leads to a voidout (explosion) that destroys Central Knot City.
Sam comes back to life and finds himself in Capital Knot City, where he meets Deadman (voiced by Guillermo del Toro), a doctor who has him administer morphine to a dying Bridget Strand, his adoptive mother and the president of BRIDGES who begs him to return to BRIDGES and help them in their mission to reform America. Unfortunately, she dies and he takes her body to be cremated but refuses to do the same with the Bridge Baby, BB-28. Instead, he takes her as his own daughter and nicknames her Lou, the two quickly forming a bond.
He returns to Capital Knot City and finds a message waiting for him from his sister Amelia, who tells him that she has been captured by a group of terrorists known as Homo Demens after trying for nearly three years of connecting the various isolated towns and that it was used to ensure the independence of Edge Knot City. She asks him to accomplish his mission and save her so that she can take her place as president of the UCA (United Cities of America).
After reluctantly accepting the mission, Sam begins his journey across America following the instructions of Die-Hardman (played by Tommie Earl Jenkins), the director of BRIDGES and his late mother's personal assistant. During his mission to deliver goods connecting the different cities and colonies, he participates in the research carried out on the Death Standing (the catastrophic event which led to the final destruction of America) by the characters of Mama (the only “living” person who has a baby BT connected to her), her twin sister Lockne (played by Sarah Margaret Qualley) and Heartman (played by Nicolas Winding Refn).
When connected to Lou, Sam has memories in which he sees Clifford Unger (played by Mads Mikkelsen) and is often lured to his beach, where he is forced to fight a BT version of Clifford, who is desperately searching for his baby at to be born.
As he continues his journey, he meets Higgs Monaghan (played by Troy Baker), the leader of the Homo Demen, who reveals to him that Amelia is an Extinction Entity (a being whose very existence will trigger a level event extinction), and spends a lot of time thwarting their plans.
He eventually learned that Amelia was Bridget's soul that had been separated from her body and allowed to work separately during Beaches' early experiments and explorations. Amelia turns out to be the true leader of Homo Demens and created the Chiral Network (the system used to connect all cities and colonies together to establish communication and data transfer between them) in order to be able to trigger the Last Standing.
Sam manages to reach Amelia and convinces her to delay the Last Standing before he returns to the living with the help of his allies.
Unfortunately, before Sam can appreciate his victory, he learns that Lou is dying. In an effort to save her, he removes Lou from the pod and connects with her again, discovering that the memories he visualized are actually his and that Clifford was his father and they were both killed . Amelia revived Sam (giving him her repatriation abilities) and triggered the Death Stranding.
Lou's life is saved by the spirits of the deceased BBs, and Sam decides to go off the grid to live a relatively peaceful life and raise Lou undisturbed.
What fans didn't like
The mechanics of balance
Throughout the game, Sam travels delivering supplies to every corner of the former United States. Unlike many games where the inventory doesn't really affect the main character, Death Stranding's inventory directly affects Sam's balance and movement. Players are not only forced to find a way to balance all the Sam's deliveries to keep them safe, but they also have to make sure he stays upright as he crosses the vast worlds.
This is particularly frustrating for players. Many were relieved when Sam finally received a vehicle, as it made his deliveries much easier (although there were several times when the terrain made it impossible to use these vehicles, so back to square one) .
Mules
Sam encounters a few enemies on his journey, and the Mules, in particular, are a bit confusing. When Sam becomes more popular as a courier, he begins to be ambushed by enemies who intend to steal his packages so they can deliver them themselves.
They are described as having “carrier syndrome” after being replaced by automation. Unfortunately, several players did not understand their point and made Sam's journey a little more complicated than it needed to be.
Sneaking past stranded things
Although players found BTs to be a cool concept and had the added effect of bringing a scary element to the game, they started to become incredibly frustrating the further into the game you got.
When you first meet the BTs, they are established as sinister and terrifying presences who could very easily destroy the world if you're not careful; This has led many people to live in isolation to be safe, so sneaking around them is stressful. At first. They quickly become tedious to go through and do nothing other than significantly slow down an already slow game.
They start to be a little more fun when Sam finally gets his hands on some weapons, but for much of the game they'll just be a nuisance.
The overwhelming amount of quests to collect
Many players are familiar with fetch quests: they meet a character, are sent on a mission to find something for them, return with it, and receive a reward. Unfortunately, these are usually side missions that occasionally serve to drain the game's content and are not very popular with the gaming community, since many of them are not particularly interesting.
Kojima took this concept and applied it to the letter, making the entire game a long quest series where players run around and complete endless tasks for most of the game, just to win rating points that will allow them to carry more supplies (and then have to manage the balance mechanisms).
Everything we know about Death Stranding 2
Leaks
Discoveries by players
In September, a private document was leaked. This was a list of upcoming PlayStation titles. Included in this list was a game that Kojima Productions would be working on, Ocean. ResetEra user Dusk Golem (a well-known and reliable troublemaker who has previously leaked horror games) quickly deduced that Ocean was the codename for Death Stranding 2.
When it was later reported that Kojima would be working on an Xbox-exclusive game, a few gamers began to wonder if the creator would develop the Death Stranding sequel with the Xbox rather than Sony (and a few thought it would be developed for Google Stadia), but Dusk Golem quickly put those rumors to rest:
“The deal with Xbox was never intended to be Death Stranding 2, this rumor is simply false, Sony and Kojima Productions have a multi-game deal that expires after Death Stranding 2 and as of right now it is decided by both parties to continue their relationship or end it after Death Stranding 2.”
Players were also reminded that Death Stranding is a Sony-only project, and Kojima is very unlikely to develop a sequel on Xbox.
Revealed by project participants
In addition to the unintentional leaks, some clues about Death Stranding 2 have been dropped by Reedus and Kojima himself (although fans suspect Kojima of orchestrating the leaks revealed by Reedus).
In an interview with Leo Edit, unrelated to the game, Reedus talked about how they jumped into working on a second game after seeing how successful the first game was. Kojima later responded on Twitter, jokingly telling Reedus to go to his Private Room, referring to the safe room from the first game.
Hints of a future game became more frequent, and fans became increasingly excited by these reveals.
In September, an image accompanied by the Kojima Productions logo began circulating on the Internet around the time of the Tokyo Game Show. The image was the silhouette of a woman's face accompanied by the words “Who Am I?”. The face was later confirmed to be that of actress Elle Fanning.
Subsequently, in October, a QR code was spotted at the PAX Australia gaming event and led to a poster that Kojima Productions hosted. This poster once again features Fanning's face, accompanied by the phrases “Where Am I?” and “A Hideo Kojima Game X Elle Fanning”.
These two “leaks” were followed by a tweet from Kojima in which he posted the two images alongside a cryptic riddle that suggested there would soon be another image that followed the same patterns and asked another cryptic question . Many fans believe that the third image will be revealed during the next major video game event: The Game Awards, which will be presented by Geoff Keighly this year. It is believed that this is where the most information about the new game will be revealed.
The fire intensified when Kojima posted photos of himself with several people connected to his project, including executives from PlayStation's marketing department (Eric Lempel and Craig Malanka) and the head of PlayStation (Herman Hulst). He also posted a photo of himself on a video call with Elle Fanning (some fans noticed that Geoff Keighley was also present on the call). In the last two images, he is wearing a shirt representing the baby doll that appears in Death Standing. They are followed by a final image of him with Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan.
Most recently, as part of his quest for vague messages about his upcoming projects, Kojima tweeted an image of a logo vaguely depicting an umbrella (which fans believe to be a reference to Fragile and the delivery company Fragile Express of the game) with the words “From ‘WHERE' to ‘HOW'”. This image was followed by another on the Kojima Productions website with the phrase “How Come?” which fades to reveal the face of Shiori Kutsuna, the actress many will recognize as Yukio in Deadpool 2. The phrase “Where Am I?” is written on his face.
Fans are more convinced than ever that this is an advertisement for the upcoming game, Death Stranding 2.
Rumors
The role of Elle Fanning
Fanning's inclusion and Kojima's emphasis on her has fans speculating about what role she might take on. Many believe that she could play an adult version of Lou in Death Stranding 2. However, given the place she occupies in the vague promotional posters for the project, it is more than likely that the character she will play will be central to the story.
What players can assume from the Director’s Cut
Based on the Director's Cut of the first game, Death Stranding 2 will be a bit faster-paced and action-packed than the original game (which many players will appreciate). Therefore, players will be able to do more than spend many hours completing monotonous tasks in an endless open world.
Death Stranding 2 can also use the Dual Sense controller features, including adaptive triggers and haptic feedback.
The implication of the code name
Some players suspect that the codename Ocean is more relevant to the game than previously thought. For example, it could refer to new terrain that players will have to tackle on their journey (you may need to prepare to swim a lot more).
What fans want to see in Death Stranding 2
1. More multiplayer data
In Death Stranding, there is no set multiplayer mode. Instead, players can build structures or leave behind items that will spawn in other players' worlds, either to help them progress or to cause confusion (like ladders that lead nowhere). These elements give an extra level of interest to the game and allow players to interact with each other differently, furthering the game's theme of reconnection.
It would be cool to see this mechanic expanded in a way that allows players to interact with each other even more in Death Stranding 2.
2. Space exploration
Given that Earth is on the brink of further extinction (although it has been delayed for now), it may be time for the remaining humans to find a new home, and space appears to be next natural step.
Players have already seen Death Stranding play with the idea of space travel. Not only was Kojima Production's mascot Ludens treated like an astronaut by several characters in the game, but a number of them mentioned something about their dreams of one day exploring different planets.
This would be the perfect excuse for the team at Kojima Productions to take creative liberties and create an even more interesting world than the one they designed in the first game. It would be cool to see what the company can do in outside the limits of the Earth.
The supernatural elements and ideas of death they created for Death Stranding already have an otherworldly feel, so creating a whole new world wouldn't be too difficult for them.
3. Best Threats
While the enemies that protagonist Sam Porter Bridge faced throughout the game were interesting, as the story progressed they became less and less of a challenge and, at times, more of a nuisance than a nuisance. threat.
Looking forward, Kojima Productions has the opportunity to create an enemy that will give players a greater challenge in Death Stranding 2. Introducing more action and combat will make the game much more enjoyable and allow for the inclusion of some new elements in the story.
4. More things to do in different places
The world of Death Stranding is very open, and there's not much to do as you travel to the various delivery locations. Adding activities to the world will greatly improve gameplay.
Expected release date
As it stands, no official date has yet been announced for Death Stranding 2, despite the original being released three years ago. While Kojima has been mostly open about the potential sequel, any news regarding a release date has been kept very tight-lipped.
Fans expect to learn more about the second installment of the game in mid-to-late 2024.
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