Speaking at the June 30 London installment of the ongoing Death Stranding World Strand Tour 2 – yes that's what it's called – director Hideo Kojima came to terms with the fact that his latest release is both extremely weird and also widely liked, with Death Stranding 2 sitting comfortably at 90 on Metacritic.
Summer Game Fest and The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley took the stage to help lead the event, introducing Kojima for the umpteenth time in his emcee career and asking him how it feels to finally have the game out in the wild.
"Well, it was [well] evaluated. I'm happy with the scores, thank you," Kojima replied via interpreter. He then asked the already cheering crowd if they were playing the game – a pretty safe bet at the Death Stranding World Strand Tour 2 – and noticed someone in the crowd was playing right now via what seemed to be a PlayStation Portal, according to our own Issy van der Velde, who attended the event.
"I made it so that you can play in various ways," Kojima said. "You're playing right now? That's cool."
This follows a spell of pre-release anxiety from Kojima which manifested as extremely on-brand concerns that Death Stranding 2 might be too likable. The worry, it seems, was that the sequel may have lost some of its edge – that ineffable, polarizing oddness that can inspire fiercely loyal zealots as well as equally motivated haters.
Our own Death Stranding 2: On the Beach review gives it high marks for greatly improved navigation and palpable theming but, in fairness, does note that some things were perhaps sanded down too much.
Last month, Kojima fretted that, horror of horrors, Death Stranding 2 previews from folks who played a few hours of the game were too positive. Kojima reasoned that the true greats which are remembered for decades are often "not received well at the start," but years later, they're "looked back on, with people saying, 'This is great.'"
"For Death Stranding 2, when I tested it, it wasn’t like that," Kojima added. "Everyone liked it. That’s why I said, 'Maybe this is a problem.' It was more than my prediction, in the first Death Stranding, everyone had pros and cons."
Even during playtest sessions for Death Stranding 2, co-composer Woodkid said Kojima worried "we have a problem" because testers "like it too much. That means something is wrong; we have to change something." Consequently, the script and story were apparently amended in hopes of triggering a stronger emotional response.
