Death Stranding 2 inches ever closer to completion as Hideo Kojima says sound mixing is finally finished just 3 months before release

Hideo Kojima has just shared another milestone update for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. Kojima Productions has finally finished sound mixing, and of course the team celebrated with some champagne and Kojima himself.

Kojima tweets: "Finished sound mixing with Molinare in London. A total of about three years, including ADR. Thank you very much. A light toast with our sound team and the folks at Molinare." Kojima Productions' champagne budget must be pretty high.

ADR stands for automated dialogue replacement. It's a process that involves swapping out voice lines recorded on set for lines recorded in a studio, where there will be less background noise.

I love that Kojima shares updates like this during the development process. He mostly focuses on the editing and acting aspects of the game, but it's still fascinating nonetheless. I had no idea just recording and sound mixing could take as long as three years on a game.

He wasted absolutely no time on getting this part of the process wrapped up, as the lines for the Japanese dub were finished just a few days ago, March 25. It's all a bit nerve-wracking though when you consider the game is barely three months from its launch date of June 26. It really is wild how close to the edge game developers get when it comes to finalizing and polishing everything.

Fortunately, that means we don't have to wait too long before we can see the moments with Troy Baker's Higgs that Kojima says are "so ridiculous" we'll "probably throw the controller." Death Stranding was already absurd, so I'm interested to see what new heights this sequel is taken to.

While we wait, check out all the new games of 2025 that we have to look forward to in the coming months. What one will you play before Death Stranding 2?