A sequel to Death Stranding has seemingly been confirmed, courtesy of comments made by actor Norman Reedus, and subsequent social posts by developer Hideo Kojima. In a new interview with online outlet Leo, Reedus appeared to casually confirm he was in the midst of working on a second Death Stranding game.
‘Okay, so you got the book going on, you’ve got the final season coming out, then the spinoff, and you’re filming Death Stranding, the video game,’ journalist Ilaria Urbinati of Leo said.
In response, Reedus simply confirmed: ‘We just started the second one.’
He went on to describe an anecdote about how his long-running relationship with Kojima came about. According to Reedus, he was talked into meeting Kojima by famed director Guillermo Del Toro, who gave Reedus his very first movie role. Del Toro insisted Reedus meet with Kojima and accept his offer to star in a video game – and while Reedus was initially hesitant, he was ultimately blown away by what Kojima had to show.
‘I was in San Diego and Hideo came with a big group of people, he’s from Tokyo, and he showed me what he was working on on a game called Silent Hill[s]. I was blown away by what he was showing me, and I was like, “Yes, let’s do this.” It’s not Ms. Pacman; it’s so realistic, it’s so futuristic, it’s so complicated and beautiful, and I was completely blown away,’ Reedus said.
Following their collaboration on Silent Hills, a game which was eventually cancelled, Reedus went on to work with Kojima on Death Stranding, one of the most beautiful and baffling video games of 2019.
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With a unique world drenched in ghostly spirits, strange science, and – yes – human piss, it was a shocking revelation. Kojima’s stories have always been wildly creative and mind-boggling, but Death Stranding was Kojima unfiltered and free – his first major foray as an independent developer and studio runner.
Death Stranding 2 has the potential to be just as wild and wonderful as the original game, even more so now that the game is a known and successful entity – as of mid-2021, it had sold around 5 million copies on PlayStation and PC.
While a sequel to the surreal action-adventure has not officially been confirmed, Reedus’ comments appear to have been acknowledged by Hideo Kojima, in a tweet that directly referenced the events of Death Stranding.
Following the virality of the Leo article, Kojima took to Twitter to share a number of images of himself and Reedus, with the caption, ‘Go to your private room,my friend’ followed by a ‘thumbs up’ and a ‘heart eyes’ emoji.
One of these images does show Kojima mid-way to hitting Reedus with a baseball bat prop from The Walking Dead (Negan’s Lucille), but there appears to be no hard feelings following the seeming leak of the sequel’s existence.
We’ll have to wait longer to hear official word on the status of Death Stranding 2, but given Reedus’ comments and Kojima’s tweet, it’s highly likely the game is currently in development behind closed doors. The harrowing tale of courier Sam Porter Bridges is more than likely to continue.
