HIdeo Kojima announced at his SXSW keynote talk that Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding 2 will debut on June 26, 2025 on Playstation.
Sony also announced there will be a collector’s edition (at PlayStation.com, and preorders begin on March 17). Norman Reedus (who plays the lead character Sam in Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2) joined Kojima on stage.
Kojima also showed a nearly 10-minute trailer of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, with tons of cinematic scenes. In the early part of the panel session, Kojima said he released Death Stranding and then a few weeks later the pandemic started.
Higgs, played by Troy Baker, is returning as a villain in the game. He was so popular that Kojima said he couldn’t kill him off and had to bring him back. Baker’s own face will appear in the game and he will be singing as well!
“I felt really bad,” Kojima said, as humanity is virtually wiped out by a pandemic in the game, which debuted November 8, 2019. He noted that the first game was all about the need for humans to be connected, as the pandemic had separated them. Sam was one of the important delivery people who took packages to people who were spread far apart.
But after the pandemic, Kojima had to rethink this as the pandemic spread germs from person to person and he had to think more about connection. The result is Death Stranding 2.
Kojima said Higgs will behave so strangely that you’ll reach the ending and probably throw the controller. Woodkid also came out on stage. His song was in the trailer. He said Kojima called him 2.5 years ago and asked him to come to Japan and write a song. He stayed for a couple of weeks, inspired by the lore of the game and the beautiful performances. Kojima loved it.
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