Contrasting its tight storytelling and heavy themes of grief and human connection, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is scattered with a good deal of absurd silliness. From Kojima’s favorite VTuber Usada Pekora making a big cameo as a Prepper, to Ghost in The Shell director Mamoru Oshii flinging around raw pizza dough in a martial arts sequence – it is undeniably self-indulgent. Naturally, Death Stranding 2 also includes some references to Kojima himself.
In a recent joint interview reported on by Game*Spark, Kojima was asked whether the Easter Eggs related to him were his own doing or something his development team snuck in. Kojima says that “All of that stuff was added by me.” Not only that, but when he would ask his staff to add such self-referential humor to the game, they would often go “Huh?” and pretend they didn’t hear anything – which is equal parts heartbreaking and hilarious.
While Kojima is no doubt exaggerating in jest, he says that some of the stuff he’s hidden inside Death Stranding 2 “might cause certain people to cringe hard” so it’s easy to imagine his staff being less-than-enthusiastic about implementing it .
In particular, Kojima mentions an Easter Egg that you can discover when you visit a hot spring, look up at the sky and zoom into the stars. “Try it out for yourselves,” he says.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is out now on PS5.
