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The Verge
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Death Stranding 2 is bigger and more ambitious — and that includes its music
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is an expansive, captivating sequel filled with huge environments to explore and a big story from Hideo Kojima to try and wrap your head around. But one of my favorite additions is a small one: an in-game music player that basically functions as your own iPod. Woodkid, a co-composer on the game (and whose real name is Yoann Lemoine), tells The Verge that the music player was important to Kojima because it's 'the way Hideo is in everyday life… He plays songs all the time.' (And posts about songs on social media, too.) 'I think he wanted the players to be able to have the same experience,' Woodkid says. Music was a big part of the original game. Some of my favorite moments from the first Death Stranding took place when songs from artists like Low Roar, Silent Poets, and Woodkid kicked in while exploring the game's world. That still happens a lot in Death Stranding 2, and it's just as effective at setting a mood. But with the personal music player, accessible right from the pause menu, you can create your own vibe as you're traversing the game's expansive environments. Woodkid worked with Kojima for three years to make music for DS2. In the game, his music can morph and change based on the player's actions. In the opening moments, for example, Sam has to cross some treacherous mountain terrain to return to his shelter with Lou while Woodkid's 'Minus Sixty One' plays in the background. As highlighted by Kojima in a recent livestream, when you run, you'll hear drums in the song, and when you stop, they'll stop. If you take a certain route, piano will kick in as other elements fade out. The whole sequence has a bunch of elements like that. Woodkid tells me he had to reverse engineer the song as part of what was needed to make everything work behind the scenes, and when he plays the sequence, he still gets surprised by what the engine is doing. To help write the music for Death Stranding 2, Woodkid digested the big themes of the game, which he says are intimacy, fatherhood, grief, escapism, a 'very aggressive sense of political violence' about the eco-anxiety of the world, and the concept of connection and how it's positive and negative in the time of social networks. He then tried to inject those ideas into the songs. That all manifests in a wide variety of musical styles in Woodkid's music for Death Stranding 2. The game's main theme, 'To the Wilder,' is slow, haunting, and beautiful, while 'Tmrrw,' which plays at a pivotal cutscene featuring the character named Tomorrow (played by Elle Fanning), has a much harder, industrial edge. Songs from artists like Gen Hoshino and Caroline Polachek show up, too. Ludvig Forssell, who composed music for Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid V, is a composer for DS2 as well. I think the breadth of musical styles is good, maybe almost necessary. Death Stranding 2 still has a lot of long journeys from one place to another, so like a great song on a real-life road trip, the right track at the right time can make a dull drive much more memorable.
Geek Tyrant
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Hideo Kojima Reveals He Rewrote DEATH STARNDING 2 Because Too Many People Liked It — GeekTyrant
Only Hideo Kojima would look at overwhelmingly positive feedback and think, 'We have a problem.' While most developers would see high praise during internal testing as a green light, Kojima saw it as a warning sign. The legendary game creator known for embracing the strange, the bold, and the deeply personal, decided to rework Death Stranding 2 because, in his eyes, it was too well received. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Kojima's longtime collaborator and composer Yoann Lemoine (aka Woodkid) shared a surprising behind-the-scenes story about the game's development. 'There's a key moment where we had a discussion, probably halfway [through] when we were doing the game, where he came to me and he said, 'We have a problem.' 'Then he said, 'I'm going to be very honest, we have been testing the game with players and the results are too good. They like it too much. That means something is wrong; we have to change something.' And he changed stuff in the script and the way some crucial stuff [happens] in the game because he thought his work was not polarizing and not triggering enough emotions. And he said, 'If everyone likes it, it means it's mainstream. It means it's conventional. It means it's already pre-digested for people to like it. And I don't want that. 'I want people to end up liking things they didn't like when they first encountered it, because that's where you really end up loving something.' And that was really a lesson for me; not doing stuff to please people, but to make them shift a little bit and move them.' It's a very Kojima philosophy, one that fits perfectly with his legacy of crafting deeply strange yet emotionally rich games that often divide audiences. Death Stranding was already a litmus test for patience and curiosity. On paper, it was a 'walking simulator' where you delivered packages through rain-soaked landscapes haunted by invisible spirits. In practice, it became one of the most talked-about and debated games in recent memory. With Death Stranding 2 , it looks like Kojima isn't looking to course-correct for the masses. In fact, quite the opposite as he's steering even harder into the idea that his work should challenge players rather than comfort them. Interestingly, Norman Reedus, who returns to play Sam Porter Bridges, hinted that the sequel's story might be easier to follow. He said he found it more digestible this time around, which might suggest a tighter narrative. But, don't mistake clarity for compromise. Kojima's still pushing boundaries; he's just making sure that what he's building can't be described as 'conventional.' So what do you think of Kojima's decision to rewrite his game because people liked it too much?
