After feedback that Death Stranding was 'too slow,' Kojima wanted more players to see Death Stranding 2 all the way through to the end

After feedback that Death Stranding was ‘too slow,’ Kojima wanted more players to see Death Stranding 2 all the way through to the end | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these Action Death Stranding 2 devs thought ‘Brutal’ mode was hard enough, but pushed the game to ‘the upper limit’ with its new difficulty option on PC Action Death Stranding 2 review: Catharsis in the age of the algorithm Action Death Stranding 2 guide Action Kojima makes Death Stranding 2 PC port official in new trailer, and it’s coming pretty darn soon Action 13-year-old Decima engine allows Death Stranding team to ‘accomplish many things that would be difficult to achieve elsewhere’ Action Hideo Kojima posts a cryptic message about ‘editing’ something and an awful lot of people are convinced it means Death Stranding 2 for PC will be announced later this week RPG ‘No matter what we changed, somebody was going to get mad:’ After hearing what an Obsidian dev went through to get RPG difficulty right, I get why nobody’s ever gotten RPG difficulty right Action ‘We’ve never considered adding difficulty settings to the Nioh series’, says Nioh 3 game director, who gives players different ways to tackle challenges instead Action Here are the Death Stranding 2 PC unlock times in your timezone RPG Cyberpunk 2 director says there’d be no point in giving players more time with Jackie in Cyberpunk 2077: ‘It’s like saying we should spend more time on Tatooine with farmer Luke before he got involved with all this Jedi stuff’ Action Death Stranding 2 system requirements are good news for gamers trapped between aging PCs and skyrocketing hardware prices, and there’s even a ‘portable preset’ for playing on handhelds Fallout Fallout 76’s design director is still defending its original absence of NPCs: ‘At the beginning, we wanted it all to be player-driven’ Fallout Todd Howard says Bethesda really didn’t expect people to hate the way Fallout 3 ended with a full stop: ‘We thought this is Fallout, it’s great! People hated it!’ Action Baby Steps’ designers trolled players by placing stacks of cans at the top of ‘plausible’ climbing challenges they didn’t even bother testing, and players managed to climb them all—except one RPG Nioh 3’s open world is incredibly formulaic compared to Elden Ring’s, so I’m slightly embarrassed by how much I’m loving it Popular PC Gamer ClipsCrimson DesertMarathonBest PC gearGDCQuizzes Games Action Death Stranding 2 After feedback that Death Stranding was ‘too slow,’ Kojima wanted more players to see Death Stranding 2 all the way through to the end News By Wes Fenlon published 24 March 2026 Being more divisive wasn’t the goal after all. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Kojima Productions) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter PC Gamer The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? Every Friday GamesRadar+ Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you’re going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them. 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From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we’ve got you covered. Signup + Once a month SFX Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month! Signup + An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter When Kojima Productions set out to develop Death Stranding 2, writer and director Hideo Kojima gave his team a clear goal: Keep people playing all the way through this time.”Kojima wanted more people to enjoy the game all the way to the end. This was an order he provided,” said lead level designer Hiroaki Yoshiike, in a recent interview with PC Gamer.That directive might sound surprising if you saw a widely circulated quote about Death Stranding 2 last year from co-composer Woodkid. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the musician alleged that director Hideo Kojima changed the game based on playtesters liking it too much, striving to make it less conventional. It was a compelling quote out of context—the auteur, going against the grain! But in reality, as Kojima cleared up in December, he actually made the writing more explicit and “changed the game to make it more playable and fun” based on focus tests. He just didn’t want it to be too “digestible,” easily played and quickly forgotten.Article continues below You may like Death Stranding 2 devs thought ‘Brutal’ mode was hard enough, but pushed the game to ‘the upper limit’ with its new difficulty option on PC Death Stranding 2 review: Catharsis in the age of the algorithm Death Stranding 2 guide Kojima did take feedback about the first game to heart, though, and his reaction wasn’t to double down on making the sequel harder to like.Yoshiike said that for Death Stranding, the developers needed to be “very elaborate” as t