How Covid-19 Changed Hideo Kojima’s Vision For Death Stranding 2

The video game legend tells WIRED that connection and isolation are major themes of his highly anticipated sequel. The game will be available on PlayStation on June 26.

When legendary game designer Hideo Kojima announced to the world that Death Stranding 2 would soon be released, he made it known that Covid-19 had completely changed his idea for this sequel.

“We released Death Stranding before the Covid-19 pandemic, when the world was moving toward isolation and division—as with Brexit. The idea behind it was ‘Let's connect. We’ll face disaster if we don’t connect.’ The theme, the story, and the gameplay of the first chapter all revolved around that idea,” Kojima tells WIRED. “After the release, just three months later, a pandemic broke out, and I was very surprised. It really felt like Death Stranding, in a way.”

WIRED headed to Tokyo in April for a long ...