Nintendo makes a surprise appearance in Death Stranding 2 credits – its motion capture company worked on the PS5 exclusive

Death Stranding 2 is here (for anyone who paid extra for early access, anyway), and anyone who reaches its credits might be in for a surprise, as the PS5-exclusive makes sure to thank, wait a minute, Nintendo?

As reported by VGC, 14 people from the Nintendo-owned motion capture and animation company Nintendo Pictures feature in Death Stranding 2's credits – truly a sight to behold in a game published by PlayStation's Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Although Nintendo Pictures' website states (in a machine-translated message) that its goal is to help customers "know about Nintendo characters," it's clearly not limited to just contributing to Nintendo franchises – Sam Porter Bridges has never been seen hanging out with Mario, after all. Nintendo actually acquired the company back in 2022 – it was previously known as Dynamo Pictures, and contributed to Persona 5, Monster Hunter World, and many more before then.

Since the acquisition and name change, this is the first game not published by Nintendo that the company has worked on, which makes for a unique situation. As VGC points out, there's a chance that the company could have been working on Death Stranding 2 as Dynamo Pictures before the acquisition – it worked on the original game under its old name, after all. We'll just have to wait and see if the company appears in any more non-Nintendo game credits going forward.

One thing is for sure, though – this certainly doesn't mean that we have a Switch 2 version of Death Stranding 2 inbound, although it'd definitely be impressive to see the game run on Nintendo's new console.

Regardless, Nintendo Pictures has contributed to something great. Death Stranding 2 is one of the best-rated games of the year so far, although fans have been joking about how director Hideo Kojima must be feeling about that given his previous worries about the game being too likeable.

While you're here, be sure to check out our Death Stranding 2 review as well as our roundup of upcoming Hideo Kojima games.