{"id":55072,"date":"2025-12-18T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=55072"},"modified":"2025-12-18T18:00:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T09:00:19","slug":"death-stranding-2-on-the-beach-doesnt-have-extreme-player-dropout-points-like-its-predecessor-kojima-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/death-stranding-2-on-the-beach-doesnt-have-extreme-player-dropout-points-like-its-predecessor-kojima-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Stranding 2: On the Beach\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0have \u201cextreme player dropout\u00a0points\u201d like its predecessor, Kojima says\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In a recent interview with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/xtrend.nikkei.com\/atcl\/contents\/casestudy\/00012\/01782\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nikkei Cross Trend<\/a>, Hideo Kojima&nbsp;gave some insights about how Kojima Productions approached development of&nbsp;<strong>Death Stranding 2: On the Beach<\/strong>, including the tricky subject of difficulty.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe gave a lot of&nbsp;thought&nbsp;to difficulty,\u201d Kojima says. He notes that&nbsp;despite&nbsp;ultimately attracting&nbsp;over 20 million&nbsp;players,&nbsp;the original Death Stranding&nbsp;had some \u201cpretty sharp edges,\u201d&nbsp;so improving playability was one thing he was conscious of with the sequel. \u201cWe wanted to&nbsp;retain&nbsp;the theme and gameplay&nbsp;mechanics, but&nbsp;make adjustments&nbsp;so&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;easier to play.&nbsp;That\u2019s&nbsp;why we added more&nbsp;vehicles, for example.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1351\" height=\"756\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1351px) 100vw, 1351px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/20251217-55072-001.jpg\" alt=\"Death Stranding 2: On the Beach\" class=\"wp-image-55075\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/20251217-55072-001.jpg 1351w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/20251217-55072-001-380x213.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/20251217-55072-001-768x430.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Interestingly,&nbsp;he admits to intentionally leaving in some \u201cextreme\u201d design choices in the first Death Stranding,&nbsp;which&nbsp;led to the game having two&nbsp;major&nbsp;points&nbsp;where&nbsp;players dropout rates soared.&nbsp;One of these was the mission in which you deliver President Bridget Strand\u2019s dead body.&nbsp;On the other hand, when making Death Stranding 2, the developers&nbsp;didn\u2019t&nbsp;include these kinds of intentionally punishing moments, and&nbsp;more players are able to reach the game\u2019s ending as a result.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the same time, Kojima is aware that the milder difficulty made some hardcore players find the sequel \u201clukewarm\u201d compared to Death Stranding, commenting that the right balance is hard to find when it comes to difficulty.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kojimaproductions.jp\/en\/deathstranding2_otb_now_available\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Death Stranding 2: On the Beach<\/a>&nbsp;is available on PS5.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related:&nbsp;<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/hideo-kojima-wants-to-make-the-kind-of-games-aliens-will-call-cool-centuries-from-now\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Hideo Kojima wants to make the kind of games&nbsp;aliens will call cool centuries from now<\/strong><\/a><strong><\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/saga-series-creator-would-rather-players-give-up-on-his-games-for-being-too-hard-than-risk-being-boring\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>SaGa series creator would rather players give up on his games for being too hard than risk being boring<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hideo Kojima talks about the extra care Kojima Productions put into balancing difficulty in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":55074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-55072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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