In case you wondered, yes, all the Kojima-related Easter eggs sprinkled through Death Stranding 2: On The Beach were indeed created by game creator and director Hideo Kojima himself.
In a Japanese-language interview with GameSpark, Kojima revealed that even when he begged his staff to include little jokes and secrets for players to find, his team would "pretend not to know" what he wanted.
"All of that stuff was added by me," Kojima said, as translated by Automaton.
"Even if I said to the staff, 'Please put them in!' they would just say, Huh? and pretend not to know," he added.
Kojima even suggested a location in the game where fans could go to see an example of something he added. "If you look up at the sky at night in a hot spring, you can see a very beautiful sky," Kojima said. "If you zoom in there, various things will appear, so please play around with it."
What you find may not be to everyone's taste, however — "it might cause certain people to cringe hard," Kojima admitted.
We recently learned that Kojima changed the game halfway through because playtesting results were "too good," and he doesn't want his work to be "mainstream."
IGN's Death Stranding 2 review returned a 9/10. We said: "Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a triumphant sequel that emphatically delivers on the promise of its original."
Don't forget, Hideo Kojima is also working on a live-action Death Stranding film with A24, and we recently learned that a Death Stranding anime is in the works, too. He's also working on a PlayStation exclusive action espionage project called Physint, and called the upcoming Xbox-published OD "a game I have always wanted to make."
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
