Legendary game developer Hideo Kojima has officially announced his next game, giving the world its first look at Death Stranding 2 in an extensive cinematic trailer during The Game Awards 2022. Kojima won best game direction at the awards show three years ago.
To say the announcement was well received would be an understatement. The Game Awards founder and host Geoff Keighly called the title “the next game from one of our industry’s most visionary studios,” before playing the clip without actually announcing the title or from what studio it comes. However, after opening shots of a variety of children’s toys and a growth chart, fans in attendance erupted in applause as a mostly black screen bearing the words “DEVELOPED BY KOJIMA PROPDUCTIONS” popped up early in the trailer.
Speaking through a Japense-to-English translator, Kojima arrived on stage after the trailer was first aired. Keighly posed a question of what changes we would see from the first entry in the series. Kojima responded that he could not give specifics about the game yet, but he encouraged discussion regarding “I put a lot of things inside, so I want you guys to talk about it and find details in it.”
Also asked about the pandemic’s effect on development, Kojima replied that he had already written the entire story before the global shutdown began. However, “after experiencing the pandemic, I just rewrote the whole thing, the story, from scratch. I also didn’t want to predict any more future, so I rewrote it.”
Kojima has been teasing the release of the game for several months, posting cryptic messages on social media with vague questions like “Who Am I?” and “Where Am I?” In addition to DS2, Kojima is working on several other “visual projects” that he said he hopes he can reveal soon.