This page assumes you've played Death Stranding and its Director's Cut version, spoilers for the aforementioned game, as well as supplementary materials will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is an upcoming game from Kojima Productions and a sequel to 2019's Death Stranding. The game was first revealed during the 2022 Game Awards and is slated for a 2025 release on the PlayStation 5.
The game will see Norman Reedus returning as the legendary courier Sam Bridges some time after the ending of the original game. Despite Sam's successes in connecting the fragmented United Cities of America and saving humanity from total extinction, the Death Stranding is far from over. Now acting on behalf of an organization known as DRAWBRIDGE, Sam is tasked with heading south into Mexico and further expanding the chiral network to reach new areas beyond the UCA. His journey won't be any less difficult this time around, as new environmental hazards, more powerful foes, and a vengeful old nemesis stand in his way, not to mention some potentially unsettling truths about his adoptive child, Lou.
Léa Seydoux and Troy Baker will reprise their roles from the first game, and they will be joined by Elle Fanning and Shioli Kutsuna, with special appearances by George Miller and Fatih Akin, whose likenesses are being lent to characters voiced by Marty Rhone and Jonathan Roumie respectively.
Previews: TGA 2022 Reveal Trailer
, State of Play 2024 Trailer
This game provides examples of:
- Cool Ship: The DHV Magellan, a massive hovering ship employed by DRAWBRIDGE which boasts submersible capabilities and armaments to defend itself with. It will most likely act as a Player Headquarters for Sam.
- Death of a Child: The first two trailers spell out that Lou's death will be a major driving force for the story. That said, it's also shown that her spirit lingers on in the world of the living, making her capable of possessing other beings like the cyborg samurai seen in the State of Play trailer.
- Instrument of Murder: The State of Play trailer shows Higgs has taken up a unique guitar as his main weapon. It has a retractable blade for melee encounters and can fire bolts of lightning from its neck as Higgs plays it for ranged attacks.
- Job-Stealing Robot: The prototype delivery bots that assisted Sam with making deliveries in the first game have since proliferated, effectively phasing out human porters in areas with chiral network coverage. It's because of this that BRIDGES ended up disbanding soon after Sam's departure.
- Mecha-Mooks: Humanoid robot troops appear to be joining the enemy lineup, alongside a bipedal attack dog-like robot.
- Same Plot Sequel: There's some new plot threads and revelations about the Death Stranding in store, but Sam's main mission is the same as last time: venture across a land where people live in isolation and connect them all to the chiral network, dealing with otherworldly obstacles and braving harsh environments along the way.
- Sequel Goes Foreign: The first game takes place in the ruins of the United States, while this one takes the action south into Mexico.
- Shout-Out: It wouldn't a Hideo Kojima game if it didn't have any:
- The subtitle "On the Beach", is a reference to the famous post-apocalyptic novel On the Beach.
- Higgs' face is pale white and he uses a guitar as a weapon - considering George Miller's likeness is being used for a character in this game, it's almost certainly a Shout-Out to Mad Max: Fury Road.
- Additionally, Higgs' bears a great resemblance to Brandon Lee in The Crow (1994).
- Higgs fights a cyborg samurai - a nod to a recurring archetype from Kojima's previous franchise.
- After telling Sam that the whole world could be his with guns and violence, Higgs says "same as it ever was" with a jive that makes it clear he's quoting the Talking Heads.
