Hideo Kojima has revealed his thoughts about the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns that were issued all over the world happening just a few months after the release of Death Stranding. In an interview with Edge magazine (via GamesRadar), Kojima spoke about how the world came to more closely resemble the isolation between people that was depicted in the original Death Stranding.
“I felt that perhaps I would never meet anyone again,” said Kojima about his experience of coming back to the offices of Kojima Productions after recovering from a severe illness only to find it empty, owing to the lockdowns of the time. “Something had been lost,” he continued, “Physically, we weren’t connected anymore.” Talking further about his time during the pandemic, Kojima said, “We were having drinking parties and school events, but now entirely online, an almost entirely digital existence.”
In general, Kojima said that living such an isolated life during the lockdowns, where social gatherings only really happened over the Internet through screens have reinvigorated him. He said that he wants to make games “that don’t already exist in the world.”
These thoughts provide more context to what Kojima had said about Death Stranding 2 back in 2022. In an interview at the time, Kojima had spoken about how the events of the COVID-19 pandemic had prompted him to rewrite the story for the upcoming sequel. In this interview, Kojima compared the pandemic happening shortly after the release of Death Stranding to the release of Metal Gear Solid 2 happening around 9/11.
According to a report from earlier this week Kojima had also spoken about some of the themes of the upcoming Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, saying that while the Metal Gear series had heavy themes about fatherhood, the themes of Death Stranding 2 will approach similar themes, but from a different direction.
“The loss of my father was a major theme in the Metal Gear series,” Kojima explained. “Those games explore the theme of how you surpass your parents. Death Stranding looks in the other direction: you assume the parent’s perspective, looking toward the child.”
Kojima also spoke about the unique narrative challenges that players will face as they take on the role of a father figure to Lou in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. He points out that, while players had spent plenty of time with Lou throughout the first game, they don’t exactly know the character very well. The sequel, according to Kojima, will “interrogate who Lou is.”
“You think you know everything about your son, but there are some things that you don’t,” Kojima continued. “In the first Death Stranding, Sam travels together with Lou, but he doesn’t interrogate who Lou is very much. In the sequel, that has changed. It’s like how an adoptive parent might not know everything about their child. They might have questions. That’s the emotion I wanted to elicit.”
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is slated for release on June 26 and will be coming exclusively to the PS5, at least for now. Kojima Productions had confirmed earlier this month that the game had gone gold. Earlier this week, Kojima had also revealed that there will be at least one more trailer for the game before its launch, which the director has said will have “a lot (of new information)”.
