The co-composer of Death Standing 2: On the Beach’s music has revealed that Hideo Kojima changed the game’s script around the halfway point of the development period.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach releases for PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro on June 26, 2025. As a sequel to Kojima Productions’ critically acclaimed debut project, Hideo Kojima wants the upcoming title to invoke all types of emotions within players, so he resorted to rewriting the game’s script midway through development.
Death Stranding 2 Script was Changed as Players ‘Liked it Too Much’
In an interview with Rolling Stone (via VGC), Yoann Lemoine or Woodkid, the composer for Death Stranding 2, revealed one key moment during the game’s development. Woodkid narrated a situation in which Kojima expressed a very different problem to him. The game director stated that the game’s testing results are “too good” and players “like it too much,” which means that something is wrong and they need to change something.
Kojima then returned to the drawing board, changed the Death Stranding 2 script, and reworked some of the crucial stuff in the game. Woodkid explains that Kojima felt his work wasn’t polarising enough or triggering enough emotions. He thinks that if everyone likes the stuff he is doing, then it means it’s ‘mainstream’, ‘conventional’ and ‘pre-digested’. The director doesn’t want that, he wants players to like things they disliked when they first encountered them, as “that’s where you end up loving something”.
In other news, check out the new Death Stranding 2 footage shown during the Summer Game Fest. Also, the game’s ESRB rating confirmed a ‘battle guitar’ melee weapon. What are your thoughts on Hideo Kojima changing the Death Stranding 2 script midway through development? Let us know below and join the official Insider Gaming forums discussion.
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