Was a Google Stadia-exclusive Death Stranding 2 in development months ago? Maybe in a parallel universe, but in ours, it’s impossible. Explanations.
Death Stranding 2 is not yet official but it is at the heart of a very strange new rumor that does not hold water.
Death Stranding 2 on Stadia? Hideo Kojima is not a decision maker
The 9to5google site published an article in which, according to their sources, Hideo Kojima was supposed to be working on Death Stranding 2 with a view to making it a Stadia exclusive (RIP little angel gone too late). Is it possible ? Not really.
Not because the creator could not knock on another door, he is independent and does what he wants as he recalled, but quite simply because the franchise belongs to Sony Interactive Entertainment and not to Kojima Productions. The studio is therefore not free to dispose of its license as it sees fit, and therefore to go see a competitor to propose a sequel.
According to their information, this new component should have been a solo game. Without asynchronous multiplayer like the first game. After being validated by Stadia, the project would have been canceled in mid-2020 due to the absence of multiplayer. And this is where we realize that there is probably a problem in the choice of words and / or a mixture of a previous noise in the hallway, voluntarily or not.
A confusion with Overdose?
9to5google uses the term well “follow-up”, or sequence. But it is possible that the word was used in the sense “what follows DS”clearly the next project and not Death Stranding 2 strictly speaking.
However, has Hideo Kojima been in contact with Google Stadia? Yes. Did the collaboration fail? Yes, Stadia would have refused a game by Hideo Kojima according to our colleagues at VGC who have proven to be reliable very often – note that Google has refuted this, but the abandonment of Stadia has also been denied many times before the we only discover the closing of the studios and now the total shutdown of the service. It was about a horror title in episodic format. Until then, everything is clear but it gets complicated.
According to Tom Henderson, a very knowledgeable insider of the video game scene, Kojima-san and his teams are working on a horror game called Overdose. The main character would be a woman in a blue dress played by Margaret Qualley. A description that matches his role in Death Stranding. And the confusion, voluntary or not, may start from there. Or maybe Hideo Kojima planned to recycle the character of Margaret Qualley (Mama) and her tragic story for a horror production that wouldn’t have been the real Death Stranding 2.
And does Death Stranding 2 exist? Presumably.
Hideo Kojima is currently on two identified projects. An Xbox game that could be Overdose, the cloud gaming title refused by Stadia, and another soft on PS5. The developer has overseen a large number of performance capture sessions recorded from a studio owned by Sony. It would be Death Stranding 2 if we are to believe the Norman Reedus leaks to which MGS’s dad reacted.
And the project with movie star Elle Fanning? We dry while waiting to know more.