Death Stranding 2: How Kojima Made His Strangest Game Even Stranger
He rewrote the script because testers liked it too much, cast four film directors as characters and sent Sam Porter Bridges to Australia. Now on PS5 and PC, here is the story of Death Stranding 2 and why it still divides people.
Most game directors would be thrilled if test players loved their story. Hideo Kojima was worried. Halfway through making Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, he rewrote the script to make it more polarising, because early audiences liked it too much.
That one detail explains a lot about the game. Death Stranding 2 is a big-budget PlayStation sequel with Hollywood actors and a famous composer, and it still feels like nothing else on the shelf.
It launched on PlayStation 5 on June 26, 2025, and reached PC on March 19, 2026. Here is everything worth knowing about it, from the cast list to the music to the awards it did and did not win.
A sequel to a game about delivering parcels
The first Death Stranding (2019) was Kojima's first game after leaving Konami. It cast Norman Reedus as Sam Porter Bridges, a courier walking across a ruined America to reconnect isolated cities to a network. Players spent hours balancing cargo on their back and building roads, bridges and ladders that other players' worlds could share. Some called it a masterpiece; others called it a walking simulator.
The sequel is set eleven months later, mostly in Australia, with Mexico as a second large open world. Sam is again the reluctant hero, now linking colonies across a continent that has been cut off from the rest of the world.
What changed in how it plays
Kojima Productions kept the delivery loop and loosened almost everything around it:
- More combat options. You can fight directly, sneak, or avoid enemies altogether. Weapons are non-lethal by default, so there are no "voidouts", the catastrophic explosions that ended runs in the first game.
- Vehicles early. Trucks arrive quickly and can be customised with extra batteries or gun turrets.
- Monorails. Players can build monorail lines linking isolated settlements, a new way to carry big loads.
- A living map. A day-night cycle changes enemy behaviour, while earthquakes and sandstorms reshape terrain and routes.
- A five-branch skill tree called APAS, covering porter, combat, stealth, servicemanship and "bridge link" skills.
Combat in particular is a real change. The first game treated fighting as something to avoid; the sequel gives Sam enough tools that a firefight can be a valid way to solve a delivery. The result is a game that is easier to enjoy for players who bounced off the original, without losing the strange, lonely rhythm that made the first one memorable.
The cast and the music
Kojima casts his games like films. Norman Reedus returns as Sam and Léa Seydoux as Fragile. Troy Baker returns as the villain Higgs. Elle Fanning joins as Tomorrow, Shioli Kutsuna as Rainy and Luca Marinelli as Neil Vana.
The supporting cast is where Kojima's habits show. Four characters wear the faces of real film directors who are friends of his: George Miller (Tarman), Fatih Akin (Dollman), Guillermo del Toro (Deadman) and Nicolas Winding Refn (Heartman). Their voices come from other actors.
The soundtrack is a big part of the game's identity. French singer-producer Woodkid worked in person at Kojima Productions in Tokyo over three years, while Ludvig Forssell, who scored the first game, returned. Many tracks are procedural, changing with what the player is doing.
Licensed songs again play during long walks, including tracks by Low Roar, Caroline Polachek and Chvrches, and the 1969 B. J. Thomas hit "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", which appears again and again. Woodkid's album was released on June 13, 2025, two weeks before the game.
Reviews and awards
Critics were warm. Death Stranding 2 holds 89 on Metacritic from 152 reviews and 90 on OpenCritic, where 95% of critics recommend it. Famitsu gave it 39 out of 40.
Award season was more complicated. At The Game Awards 2025 it had seven nominations, including Game of the Year, Best Game Direction and Best Narrative, and won none of them. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept most of its categories. The game did better with industry juries: at the D.I.C.E. Awards it won Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design and Outstanding Technical Achievement, and at the Game Developers Choice Awards 2026 it won Best Technology. Sound designers loved it too, with wins at the Golden Reel Awards and Audio of the Year from the Game Audio Network Guild. Players were a little cooler: it finished fifth in the Golden Joystick Awards' public vote for Ultimate Game of the Year, and at the 2026 BAFTA Games Awards it picked up several nominations but missed out on a Best Game nod.
The split says something about the game. Craftspeople admire how it is made, the sound, the animation, the technology, more than everyone enjoys how it plays. That is exactly the reaction Kojima seemed to want when he rewrote the script.
The PC version
Sony announced the PC version at a State of Play on February 12, 2026, and it launched just five weeks later, on March 19. The port was handled by Nixxes Software, Sony's PC specialist, and supports ultrawide monitors, upscaling and frame generation. It also launched officially in China the same day, building on a free Chinese voice-acting update the studio had announced in July 2025.
The PC release helped the game pass 2 million copies worldwide. That is respectable for an unusual game, though well short of the biggest PlayStation hits.
Why it matters
Big publishers rarely fund games this personal. Death Stranding 2 exists because Sony backs Kojima as an auteur, and the result is a sequel that takes the risks most AAA games avoid: long quiet stretches, an odd sense of humour and a story designed not to please everyone.
WGC's take: it is a better game than the original and a less surprising one. The new combat and vehicles make it more welcoming. But the most memorable moments are still the strange ones, such as an empty Australian highway at dusk, a parcel balanced on your back, and a pop song that starts at exactly the right moment.
What comes next is unclear. In August 2025 Kojima said he had written a concept for a Death Stranding 3 but would prefer someone else to direct and produce it.
By the numbers
- 89: Metacritic score, from 152 critic reviews
- 39/40: Famitsu review score
- 7: Game Awards 2025 nominations, with no wins
- 2 million+: copies sold after the PC launch
- 5: branches of the APAS skill tree
- 3 years: Woodkid's time working with the studio in Tokyo
What to play next
New to the series? You can start with the sequel, but Death Stranding Director's Cut on PC or PS5 gives you the full context for Sam's story. Already finished both? Try our 2025 AAA year in review for the other games that shaped that year, or Ghost of Yotei, Sony's other great single-player game of 2025, covered in our Ghost of Yotei story.