Nobody does trailers quite like Hideo Kojima, do they? We’ve been waiting for a new Death Stranding 2: On the Beach trailer for a while now, and at SXSW 25, boy did we get one. Coming in at ten minutes in length, the upcoming open world sequel’s trailer is classic Kojima- full of tantalizing hints and questions, densely packed with gorgeous shots of gameplay, intriguing bits and pieces of the story, and of course, incredible music, this time courtesy of Woodkid. And that’s on top of a June 26 release date announcement.
All of that is to say that there’s a bevy of things to unpack in that newest Death Stranding 2 trailer- and here, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Join us as we go over the give highlights that stood out to us in the trailer.
LEGALLY DISTINCT SOLID SNAKE
You know we had to kick things off with this. Newcomer Neil, played by Luca Marinelli, was one of the trailer’s most significant new elements, bookending it as the first scene of note as well as (more or less) the last (or close enough to last). The latter in particular has captured the attention of the masses, and for good reason. One of the trailer’s final sequences shows Neil, who is leading a squad of soldiers, standing armed and equipped with tactical gear, and putting on a bandana to strongly evoke the classic look of Metal Gear protagonist Solid Snake. It’s as blatant as Kojima could have been without actually infringing on intellectual property that he doesn’t own.
And what exactly is the deal with Stranded Snake, as fans have started calling him? Well, we don’t know much, but what we do know is interesting. He’s some sort of an off-the-books agent working for the United Cities of America who, in his own words, does their “dirty work.” Specifically, Neil routinely smuggles highly unusual cargo from Mexico into the UCA in the form of braindead pregnant women, who are presumably needed by the UCA for shady experiments related to the BTs and the Beach. Beyond that, Neil also seems to be Death Stranding 2’s analog for Mads Mikkelsen’s character in the first game, Cliff, based purely on the formation and mannerisms of him and his squad of skull-faced soldiers towards the end of the trailer.
STORY DETAILS
Now that we’ve addressed the Solid Snake-shaped elephant in the room, let’s slow down and get back to the basics. Kojima doesn’t usually like to give too much away from a narrative perspective in his trailers, which is the case with this newest Death Stranding 2 trailer as well. That said, we do have some new details to speak of. To start off, the game is set eleven months after the first game, though it seems the official unification of the United Cities of America hasn’t exactly gone well. For starters, the UCA has a new President, with Die-Hardman already having been replaced by a new man in charge, played by Alastair Duncan. Why that change has taken place is something that we’ll presumably learn more about in the game.
Several other things have changed as well- such as the world now being significantly more connected than it was in the first game. The Beach is now crowded with monolithic servers, which in turn has enabled the delivery systems that society now relies on to become fully automated and, as such, more efficient. The continents themselves also seem to be connected by what the trailer calls a “plate gate”, which, at a guess, will have made global travel easier. Things, however, are turning sour on the whole. Natural disasters are increasing in frequency, environments are being warped and twisted beyond recognition, Higgs’ violent faction is growing in strength, and the Sixth Extinction that was previously thought dealt with is rearing its ugly head again, and in more drastic ways than ever before.
Meanwhile, the trailer has also revealed and named a couple more characters. In addition to the aforementioned new President and Neil, there’s Neil’s partner Lucy (played by Alissa Jung), the mysterious mannequin-like Charlie, the mechanical Red Samurai, and a woman known simply as Doctor, who is played by Debra Wilson and, interestingly enough, has two right hands.
A MORE DYNAMIC OPEN WORLD
We touched on natural disasters, which, though a total bummer for the denizens of Death Stranding 2’s twisted version of planet Earth, are likely going to be one of the game’s most significant and exciting additions on the gameplay front. As unique and addictive as Death Stranding 1’s gameplay was for many, one of its most common criticisms was how static its world could feel outside of the undeniable dynamism of the social strand system.
That is something that’s seemingly going to be addressed by the addition of extreme weather events, which were previously mentioned by Hideo Kojima, and have now finally been shown off as well. In the newest trailer for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, we saw returning protagonist Sam Porter Bridges having to contend with everything from avalanches in snow-capped mountains and massive sandstorms in the middle of a dusty storm to raging forest fires and explosions of tar geysers.
COMBAT IMPROVEMENTS
Combat was not one of Death Stranding’s strong suits, but from what we’ve seen of its sequel so far, improvements are incoming- many of which we saw in the new trailer. For starters, it looks like there’s going to be a greater emphasis placed on combat in general, with several shots in the trailer showing Sam making full use of his arsenal of guns and what looks like a nimbler moveset. Glimpses of vehicular bike vs bike combat and Sam throwing a harpoon that seems to release ice vapors on impact can also be seen in the trailer, potentially suggesting more variety on the combat front.
Death Stranding 2’s official PlayStation webpage, meanwhile, also explicitly confirms that players will have the option to sneak past enemies or entirely avoid them as well, which means those who want to stay away from combat will have that option. It’s not surprising that a Hideo Kojima game is offering stealth as an option, but it should be interesting to see if we’ll get mechanical improvements here as well, as it seems like we are with the combat.
EXPANDED ENEMY ROSTER
Something else that definitely catches the eye in that new Death Stranding 2 trailer is the sheer variety of enemies it showcases. The first game was roundly criticized for its dismal deficiencies in this department, but it seems like Sam Porter Bridges will be forced to face down a much more expanded of eldritch monstrosities in the sequel- and that’s on top of the humans (and human-like) enemies he’ll be facing.
In the trailer, we see giant kaiju-sized humanoid tar beasts duking it out against each other, we see giant hand-shaped nightmares, we see a towering mechanical tentacled creature, we see a horrifying skull that splits open and sucks in a river of tar, and of course, we see Higgs, who only seems to be growing weirder and more deranged with every new trailer of the game. This time, he had a tentacle coming out of his mouth. Right at the very end of the trailer, we also see winged colossal tar kaiju with mammoth hands grasping the bases of their skulls rising out of the ocean, against whom Heartman seems to be controlling an amalgamation of one of those monsters themselves and the ship Magellan, which we’ve seen in previous Death Stranding trailers as well.
