Hideo Kojima had to start rejecting Death Stranding 2 cameos after featuring everyone from Conan O'Brien to Junji Ito in the first game

(Image credit: Sony)

I never thought I'd see the day, but Hideo Kojima apparently refused to scan more people into open-world delivery sequel Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.

In case you don't remember, the first Death Stranding featured near-perfect replicas of many, many famous faces. Everyone from comedian Conan O'Brien, horror manga icon Junji Ito, former PlayStation boss Herman Hulst, Alan Wake mastermind Sam Lake, and film director Edgar Wright showed up as Preppers - holographic NPCs who give main man Sam Porter Bridges missions.

Preppers will show up again in Death Stranding 2, but roughly half of the people who asked to be included apparently had to be turned down.

On Kojima's radio show, the director reportedly shared that carrying out a full scan takes around 15 minutes to complete, and the team apparently scanned so many people that they eventually ran out of space to do any more, hence why Kojima had to refuse to add so many others. (Thanks, Genki!) Some of the included celebs also voiced their characters, which is another nice touch.

It's pretty major news since the internet loves to make jokes about Kojima scanning every single person he comes into contact with. Considering how seemingly random the cameos in the first game were, you can expect the unexpected in Death Stranding 2. S.S. Rajamouli? Phil Spencer? Timothee Chalamet? Lorde? No one's out of the question.

But we'll find out what celebrities made the cut when Death Stranding 2 properly comes out on June 26.

Hideo Kojima admits Death Stranding is "weird," which feels like it might be a pretty substantial understatement for his entire body of work

Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

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