Death Stranding 2: On The Beachjust came out with a second ten-minute trailer, and it has me convinced that there’ll never be another sequel. This new trailer is a lot more somber anda lot less bizarre than the last one. It reveals quite a bit about the game’s story, with a lot less screentime devoted to showing off its massive all-star cast or its electric guitar-playing Joker-Higgs, although both of them do show up. At this point, I’ll eat up anything Hideo Kojima puts out, but this particular one is absolutely dripping with his unique vision.
The trailer, which reveals preorder details alongsidea release date forDeath Stranding 2, is bittersweet in many ways. There’s a Metal Gear Rex lookalike. There’s an appearance by Luca Marinelli, an actor Kojima called “the spitting image of Solid Snake” in a 2020Instagrampost, here seen donning a bandanna and army fatigues. There are some emotional moments between Sam and Fragile, Tomorrow and Higgs - even if we don’t know the context of it all just yet. But there’s also an air of finality about it all, which makes me thinkthis second game could also be the last.
Will There Be A Death Stranding 3? Doesn’t Seem Likely
DS2 Feels Incredibly Final
Honestly,I never really expectedDeath Strandingto turn into an enduring franchise. The first game was great, and the second one already looks brilliant - I can’t wait to see what it has in store. But the world ofDeath Strandingis so unique that each successive game has to totally reinvent itself to continue the series, and that’s just not sustainable in the long term.
This first sequel is justified, but things might get muddy if the series went on too long. The story of the sequel appears to be the complete inverse of the first game: inDeath Stranding, we were rebuilding a fractured society piece by piece, quite literally forging connections via the Chiral Network in the world’s first-ever Strand-type game.Death Stranding 2looks to be the perfect escalation of that concept: we rebuilt society, so now what? Was it really worth it?
Death Stranding 2 Is Carrying Over The Worst Aspects From The First Game
Death Stranding 2 will have a number of new revolutionary gameplay features, but it is also holding onto some of the worst ones from the first game.
Just about every plot point I could’ve imagined aDeath Strandingsequel to explore seems to be brought up and resolved neatly inDeath Stranding 2, which makes me thinkthere’s no need for a sequel. The sequel peeks at life before the Death Stranding began - we see Sam running through a dust-covered street lined with modern cars. It checks in on a slightly older Lou, now a blonde-haired almost-toddler seen tumbling around theMagellan. There’s a cameo by Deadman in silhouette, Heartman appears to be piloting Metal Gear, and then there’s whatever’s going on with Tomorrow and Higgs.
Like I said, an embarrassment of riches, and one that’s so thoroughly original it hurts. It feels like the ultimate realization of Kojima’s vision, and it’s hard to imagine where his series could go from here. It’s a world all his own, populated with filmmakers he admires, headed up by his own studio with his own name plastered all over it. Another big, triple-A game would be nice, but it feels more unrealistic than anything.
There was a time, after initiallylukewarm reception to the firstDeath Stranding, whenKojima expressed a desire for his production company to start working on smaller-scale projects: simpler, non-open-world games, maybe a manga or a movie or two. I doubt he’s let go of that dream, and I could genuinely see his company moving in that direction afterDeath Stranding 2. That’s not to say it’ll never make another triple-A game, but don’t be surprised if it sets aside its flagship property for a while after this next entry.
Death Stranding 2 Is A “Final Journey” In The New Trailer
But Final For Whom?
If nothing else, it seems likeDeath Stranding 2will be the last ride for Norman Reedus’ Sam Porter Bridges. He undeniably looks a lot older here, even though the sequel is only set eleven months after the ending of the original. Maybe all that Timefall is catching up with him, but either way, he seems to be setting up his departure from the spotlight. I suspect that, if there is ever aDeath Stranding 3, Sam will only play a minor role.
Death Stranding 2seems to be gearing up to retire Sam in the most effective way possible, by resolving all his major plot beats from this game and the last one. The trailer features several especially pensive shots of Sam: standing on top of mountains, looking up at the sky, et cetera. Intermittently, he’s seen playing with Lou, and even sharing a kiss with Fragile.
This Death Stranding 2 Feature Is So Bizarre It Might Make It A GOTY Contender
Death Stranding 2 has a number of novel gameplay mechanics, but one in particular is so mindblowing that it could just see it win GOTY.
Ultimately,DS2seems to be resolving feelings that Sam could barely acknowledge in the first game: his parental instincts and his loneliness. He’s now allowed to be a father figure to Lou, unfettered by the sterile science of Bridge Baby maintenance. And in voiceover, Fragile is even heard assuring him that he was never alone - his friends and allies were with him the entire time.
Besides,the trailer pretty explicitly calls this a “final journey,”which can be interpreted in many ways. It strikes me in relation toDeath Stranding 2’s connections to Egyptian mythology, particularly theBook of the Dead. In it, death is portrayed as a final journey each person must undertake, after which they may rest in the afterlife. In a similar vein,Death Stranding’s porters must journey to cremate the bodies of the dead far outside the major cities, so that the Chiralium doesn’t attract BTs.
SoI wouldn’t be terribly surprised to seeDeath Stranding 2lining up to kill off Sam, although I don’t necessarily expect it. An ending like that could be pretty unsatisfying if executed poorly. Still, I’m almost certain it’s the end of his story one way or another - and he may not be the only one.
DS2 Appears To Be The End Of Kojima’s Story
Kojima May Be Scaling Back
Frankly, it seems to me thatDeath Stranding 2could be Kojima’s last major release before scaling back his involvementin game development. He’s now 61 years old, and though he shows no signs of stopping, it’s clear that there are other things he wants to achieve: the allegedly still upcomingDeath Strandingmovie, pluswhateverODis going to be.
To be clear,I don’t think Kojima will ever fully retire. He himself said in a 2023 post onX(formerly Twitter) that “there is no retirement,” going on to explain that, for him, creating ideas and telling stories isn’t a job, but effectively his reason for being. That’s obvious from even a brief glance at his lifelong output - he clearly has a strong drive to create, and an incredible work ethic. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if he later announced thatDeath Stranding 2was his last big, triple-A video game.
If Kojima continues working on games after the sequel, I’d rather see him explore new worlds and new ideas than have to invent excuses for the continuation ofDeath Stranding. Unsurprisingly, this most recent trailer does seem to be setting up a definitive ending inDeath Stranding 2: On The Beach, but we’ll have to wait for release to see what’s really in store.
