Hideo Kojima rejected several celebrity appearances, but apparently made darn sure his favorite vtuber is in Death Stranding 2

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will feature a cameo from enormously popular vtuber Usada Pekora, Kojima Productions has revealed.

If that sentence made your brain hurt, like it did mine while writing it, allow me to unpack just what's happening here. Anyone who played the first Death Stranding will no doubt fondly remember running into uncanny replicas of various famous faces, including king of late night talk shows Conan O'Brien, horror manga legend Junji Ito, ex-PlayStation boss Hermen Hulst, Remedy's Sam Lake, and filmmaker Edgar Wright, all appearing as the holographic NPCs called Preppers that give the player character Sam Porter his missions.

On a recent episode of Kojima's radio show, the famed director revealed that he had to start turning down requests to appear in Death Stranding 2 because the process of scanning people into the game was taking up too much time at the studio. Make no mistake, there will still be plenty of Preppers in Death Stranding 2, but apparently about half of the folks who wanted to be one had to be turned down.

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Well, apparently, one person who made the cut kind of isn't a person at all. Obviously there's a real human behind Hololive vtuber Pekora, one of the most popular to do ever do it, but it's the anime persona that's going to appear in Death Stranding 2, according to a tweet from the official Kojima Productions Twitter account that includes a video of Sam Porter greeting the vtuber.

We have two very funny things to discuss here. One, it's hilarious to imagine celebrities – let's say Pedro Pascal – pleading for Kojima to add them into Death Stranding 2 and being rejected, only for a vtuber to make the cut.

Secondly, this isn't just any vtuber; it's seemingly Kojima's very favorite, as he's not only interacted with Pekora on livestreams, but they've even met in real life after she was invited to the studio. Apparently, you can have all the accolades in the world, but what really matters to Kojima is the hours of anime-disguised entertainment you've provided him while playing his games.

Why is Death Stranding 2 more combat-heavy? Kojima has the most Kojima explanation possible: an obscure gameplay theory he cooked up 8 years ago.