Death Stranding 2 is Hideo Kojima's answer to James Cameron's Alien sequel: "We've introduced battles to give it this new dimension"

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach has more of a focus on combat than its predecessor - which was primarily interested in being an open-world delivery sim - and director Hideo Kojima says he used the jump from claustrophobic horror nightmare Alien to action-heavy sequel Aliens as a reference.

Speaking in the newest issue of Edge Magazine - on sale now - the famed game director said he pointed his team toward Ridley Scott's classic horror film and James Cameron's very different sequel after writing the first draft script for Death Stranding 2.

"The first Ridley Scott film was so frightening," he said. "There were facehuggers and monsters bursting from people’s chests, and at first nobody knew what it was all about.”

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He continued to explain that by the time credits rolled, the mysterious alien threat had properly showed its face, the universe's rules had been understood by the audience, and the terror was slightly less scary. "When James Cameron came to make the sequel, Aliens, he made a very smart decision to make the film not about horror, but about action. It gave the story a new dimension, which was unfamiliar."

That's a feeling that inspired Kojima for his second go around in Death Stranding. We have some kind of understanding of how BTs work, so now it's time to up, or at least shift, the stakes. "That is what I wanted to do with this sequel. Everyone understands Death Stranding’s world, so now we’ve introduced battles to give it this new dimension.”