DEATH STRANDING 2 Dev Says Kojima Wants Players to Actually Finish the Game This Time By Making it More Enjoyable

When Death Stranding 2: On the Beach was first being talked about, there was this idea floating around that Hideo Kojima leaned into making it even stranger after early feedback came in “too positive.”

That sounded like a very Kojima thing to do. But as it turns out, the real story is a bit more grounded and honestly, it makes a lot of sense if you played the original.

According to the game’s lead level designer Hiroaki Yoshiike, the goal this time wasn’t to crank up the weirdness just for the sake of it. It was to make a game that more players would actually stick with all the way through.

"Kojima wanted more people to enjoy the game all the way to the end. This was an order he provided."

That direction seems to come straight from how people responded to the first Death Stranding. While it built a fascinating world, it also asked players to sit through a lot of setup before things really opened up.

Yoshiike addressed that, explaining how the team approached the sequel differently.

"In the second game, we didn't need to provide too many worldbuilding elements; we could make it less elaborate.

“For completionists, they can enjoy it, but at the same time, people who don't necessarily care about it that much, we made sure they can follow the story through other supplemental elements within the game. That was one of the design choices that we made."

He also acknowledged what many players were already thinking about the first game:

"Because the first game was forced to be very elaborate as they introduced all the new concepts and what the world is like, player feedback was that the game might've been a little bit slow."

Death Stranding was a slow burn, and for some players, maybe a little too slow.

Interestingly, Kojima already pushed back on the idea that he was just trying to make something stranger for the sequel. His focus wasn’t about making the game easier to consume in a traditional sense either.

"Something that is not digestible stays in that person for a long time. So that's what I meant by, 'I want to do things differently.'"

So while Death Stranding 2 may be more approachable in terms of pacing and structure, it sounds like Kojima hasn’t abandoned his signature style. The weird, thought-provoking elements are still part of the DNA. They’re just wrapped in a design that doesn’t lose as many players along the way.

And based on early internal data, that shift is already paying off.

"We've gotten a lot of feedback that it's much easier to recommend DS2 to people. We're able to see the metrics, and we saw that people progress much further than they previously had. So that was just as we designed, I think."

That’s probably the most telling part. More people are not just starting the game, they’re actually sticking with it.

If you bounced off the first Death Stranding, this sequel might be the one that finally clicks. If you loved the original, it sounds like you’re getting a more refined version of that experience without losing what made it so unique in the first place.