Death Stranding 2: On the Beach director Hideo Kojima has revealed why he doesn’t plan on making any DLC for the critically-acclaimed title that will end up bringing any changes to its story. In an interview with IndieWire, Kojima spoke about how he, instead, likes to work around a game’s story as it was at launch when it comes to making DLC, expansions or even updates.
When asked about how, by their nature, games have the capability of changing even after they’ve been released, Kojima spoke about how there are some things that he would never change in his games, like the story, for example. Bringing up the infamous changes that George Lucas had made to the original Star Wars trilogy, Kojima said that he doesn’t like the idea of changing something to bring it “out of its era”.
“There are some things that you shouldn’t change. Like the story, for example, because there is a certain era that that story was born,” he said. “You shouldn’t change those kinds of parts. Or, you know, like [George] Lucas changed [‘Star Wars’] to all CG, but that’s because it’s a new era, right? So I don’t want to change anything that would affect the era that it first came out.”
Rather, the changes Kojima prefers to make to his games revolve more around updated accessibility or gameplay options. He also noted that DLC is something he considers “not a trendy space”, since working on DLC means that the project can’t ever be considered completed.
“The things that I said that I’m changing are, you know, all the things basically related to gameplay,” he explained. “Like: This item was not very easy to use, so I’ll make it a little bit more accessible, or, like, make the UI bigger. These small parts are the ones that I’m changing. I know that DLC [downloadable content] is not a trendy space because if you start doing that, you’ll never finish the project.“
To this end, Kojima has also confirmed in the interview that he has been paying attention to player stats for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, as well as making a plan to fix small bugs that he has been noticing. Along with this, he has also begun working on his next titles, OD and Physint. Interesting, his work on Physint is largely solo for now, while he has started working with a team on OD.
“Well, I’m checking the data of the players all over the world — what kind of weapons they’re using, the routes they’re taking, all this data,” said Kojima about what he has been doing recently. “And I also see these small bugs here and there, so I’m deciding where to fix and what to fix. I also am starting to work with the team on OD because that’s a new project, and also doing Physint all by myself because that’s at the conceptual stage. So I’m doing that.”
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach was released on PS5 back in June. Since then, the title has seen a great response, and developer Kojima Productions has even provided some interesting stats about the kinds of weapons players used the most. More recently, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach also got a minor update. Check out our review of the game for more details.