Summary
Death Stranding 2may have failed to be as divisive asHideo Kojimawanted, but he’s certain that his next game,OD, won’t be as critically acclaimed.
Although most creators just want the things they make to be well-received, that isn’t the case for everyone. A lot of games decide to go beyond just being enjoyable experiences to try and make something truly unique. Perhaps thebiggest example of this in recent memory is Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding.
The original Death Stranding received fairly mixed reviews from criticsdue to its simple but laser-focused gameplay loop of delivering packages around the world. Before Death Stranding 2 launched,Kojima clearly expected (and even wanted) the same kind of divisive response, but that isn’t what happened at all.
Kojima thinks OD is going to be more divisive than Death Stranding 2
Which makes sense since we hardly know anything about it
As we all know,Death Stranding 2 was received much more positively than the first game, and has in-fact come out as one of the best-reviewed games of 2025 so far. This is despite the fact that Kojima changed the game in response to the positive impressions before launch, which seemingly weren’t enough. It sounds like he’s more confident in his next game being controversial, though.
During an interview with Ssense(thanks Eurogamer), Kojima noted that OD,his strange horror game that we don’t really know anything about, is going to be “something totally different” and that gamers are either going to “love it or hate it”. Kojima is so prepared for a mixed response to his next project that he also added that he’s not expecting people to understand it right away, and that the “real evaluations” will come up to 20 years later.
The real evaluations come after—10 or 20 years from now. - Hideo Kojima
Of course, Kojima has said this before about his previous projects and clearly wanted that response to be the case for Death Stranding 2, so it’s not a surprise to hear him claim this now. That being said, OD does really seem like something completely different to what we’re all expecting from him, so there’s a good chance that he’s actually right this time.
