Death Stranding 2: On the Beach director Hideo Kojima has made no secret of the fact that he wants his upcoming title to be provocative and controversial. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, one of the musicians who provided music for the game – Yoann “Woodkid” Lemoine – has revealed that Kojima had already changed the game’s story once because of play testers liking early versions of the game.
According to Lemoine, Kojima didn’t like the fact that the game was already turning out to have a positive reception during its internal play testing. The musician states that Kojima had decided to make changes to Death Stranding 2: On the Beach around halfway through the development cycle of the title.
“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,’” said Lemoine.
“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.”
Lemoine brings up points that Kojima has made before about not wanting Death Stranding 2: On the Beach to be a “conventional” game that won’t stick in players’ minds because they had already seen something like it before, referring to it as being “pre-digested for people to like it”. Rather, Kojima, according to Lemoine, is more interested in offering players with new experiences that they have never seen before.
“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,” said Lemoine.
Kojima had spoken about the game getting positive internal reviews earlier this month, going on to talk about his approach to feedback. He noted that, while he does listen to criticism, especially with regards to gameplay mechanics, he doesn’t like making changes to the story to make it more palatable for players. Rather, he would be happier with 4 out of 10 players liking the game, referring to it as being “a good balance.”
“In fact, I did a lot of monitoring tests for the original Death Stranding,” he explained. “I’d find that four out of ten people would love the game, but six would say it was a terrible game. For me, I think that’s a good balance. But with the playtests for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, everyone seems to be positive.”
“Sony is pleased, of course, but I do wish I was a bit more controversial. Blockbuster films need an 80 percent approval rating – I don’t want to make games like that. I’m not interested in appealing to the mass market, or selling millions of copies… That’s not what I’m aiming for.”
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is coming to PS5 on June 26.
