Hideo Kojima has spent the past three decades crafting videogame narratives with a cerebral quality and a cinematic eye. Previously best-known for espionage thriller series Metal Gear Solid, which he developed at Konami, he has since become independent, allowing his arthouse ambitions to flourish further. This is particularly apparent with his latest Playstation 5 game, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, released in June of this year, which took form amid Kojima’s renewed focus on creative collaboration during the pandemic.

This release is a bold, emotive, and creatively expansive follow-up to 2019’s ambitious and near-uncategorisable Death Stranding. Players take control of Sam Porter-Bridges (Norman Reedus), a hiking deliveryman in a fractured, post-apocalyptic future, tasked with collecting and depositing cargo in order to reconnect the world and bring humanity back online. The first game’s narrative proved prescient, as 2020’s pandemic came to reshape the world and the way that we connect within it. 

Like its predecessor, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a genre-defying, perhaps even medium-defying work. Kojima, increasingly renowned for enlisting the brightest stars from across artistic mediums to contribute to and appear in his games, has here brought on board his most eclectic crew to date – spanning arthouse actors and directors from across the globe, indie musicians, comedians, and even V-tubers. Each and every one of them can be discovered in-game – in motion-captured performances, in likenesses, in sound, and in spirit. 

So what makes working with Hideo Kojima so special? As Kojima Productions turns ten, Dazed spoke with a diverse group of Kojima’s collaborators to explore how his singular creative process has shaped their own artistic practices.

NORMAN REEDUS, ACTOR

Walking Dead alumni Norman Reedus plays player-protagonist Sam Porter-Bridges in Death Stranding and its sequel, and has been collaborating with Hideo Kojima since the Konami project Silent Hills (cancelled in 2014)

“I first heard about Hideo from Guillermo del Toro, who’d given me one of my first acting roles. He called me and said, ‘Look, there’s a guy named Hideo, he’s going to call you. Don’t be an asshole – just say yes.’

“I met Hideo at San Diego Comic Con. He was working on a Silent Hill game, but then had a falling out with Konami, so it didn’t end up happening. But he said he had another game he wanted me to be in. In that game, Death Stranding, he basically wanted me to play myself. Every little ‘Normanism’ that I did on set, he wanted to record. In between takes, I would stretch, I’d yawn, or I’d scratch my forehead, and he’d make me do it again and record it. He explained that the more players can connect to me personally, the more they would connect with the character. 

“It’s a very organic thing, how Hideo casts. He meets people, and if he likes their personality, he finds a place for them. The casting of Death Stranding 2 went in that direction. He doesn’t cast from a photo or a reel – he wants to meet you, and if he feels you and what you’re about, then he finds a place for you. What he’s making is just a different form of cinema. He’s taking the world of video games and making you feel something for the characters, making you think about the world around you and your place in it. 

“Guillermo saw where he was going way in advance, and he was right. Hideo has the same childlike wonder and infectious work ethic. These people are curious about life and what makes people tick – they inspire each other. I think Hideo gathers friends and collaborators in the same way. He inspires people who are creative, and I think creative people inspire him as well.”

SHIOLI KUTSUNA, ACTOR

Until now, Australian-born Japanese actress Shioli Kutsuna was best-known to Western audiences for her lead role in Apple TV+ drama Invasion and as Yukio in the Deadpool films. In Death Stranding 2, she plays Rainy, a pivotal new character with a unique relationship to the world that Sam walks through

“Hideo asked Rinko Kikuchi, a fellow actor friend, to reach out to me. I wasn’t a gamer, so I had no knowledge of Hideo working with amazing actors and having them perform in his game. His office was the craziest office I’ve ever been to. Every room is so futuristic. 

“To explain the role, he needed to explain the whole world of Death Stranding, and what my character, Rainy, represented within it. The information was so sensitive that we weren’t allowed to take scripts home, so I only had that one occasion when I first went to his office to read this thick storyline of Death Stranding 2 before we shot the game. You have to play it by memory.

“What surprised me the most was how amazing a writer Hideo is. He truly cares about humanity.  He has said that he knows some gamers can be a little socially lonely, and that he wants his games to bring these people a sense of connection with each other and the world. I think that’s the beauty of his storytelling.

“He’s also a film fanatic, so he’s been to all these film sets and seen how these amazing directors work. He also comes prepared like an actor does, whether that’s with music, or an object, or an instrument that our character would use. For the most emotional scene I had as Rainy, he had already created the music with Woodkid. He gave me a tiny earpiece so I could hear it. He thinks so far ahead. 

“I think he’s really good with actors. When he sees it and he feels it, he knows it’s right. There’s a language barrier because he doesn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Japanese, but I can tell when I look at his face after a scene when we’ve got it and when he wants to try something else. It’s a wild world to work in, because it’s not just your voice and face, your tone and your movements. There are all these other layers to it, because it’s got to be rendered and put together with the ground melting underneath you. He has to compartmentalise all his different things that he wants in his scene, and they all have to add up. It’s beyond my comprehension what he has to think about while he’s watching you do something. But he’s got it all there. He knows exactly what he wants, what he’s doing.

“Most of the other actors weren’t gamers. I think everyone was on board because they saw the level of work that he was doing. There’s so much heart in his stories. That’s what brings us all together to create with him.”

WOODKID, MUSICIAN 

French electronic artist Woodkid had contributed to videogames before, but never on this scale. He is a primary composer on Death Stranding 2, crafting procedural music from tracks new and old and composing themes such as “To The Wilder” and “Tmrrw”. He cameos in the game as The Mechanic.

“I met Hideo in 2019. A friend introduced us, and we really connected on a deep level. A lot of my work is indirectly inspired by his, because I grew up with his games. I think he fetishises things that I fetishise, and we share a deep understanding of darkness and melancholy. He asked to use some of my songs in the director’s cut of the first game.

“During the pandemic, Hideo was going through severe depression. I think he was struggling with the distance and the fact that he lost his team to remote work. This solitude had him consider my music, possibly because S16, my previous record, had some of the themes that he liked. He called me and asked me to write a song for the new game. I was suffering from what I call email music – making music over email – which is happening more and more in a world of ‘featuring’ and collaborations. I was kind of sick of it, so I told him I would come to Japan.

“When I arrived, Hideo showed me a lot of the game. It was 20 per cent done, very early on. We spent a lot of time talking about the ideology behind it. I connected quickly with what he wanted to say. We were in times of confinement, which I think really resonates in the game. 

“I wrote the song ‘To the Wilder’ very quickly. It was about celebrating freedom and loneliness. You have to be a bit of a weirdo, a loner, to fully understand Death Stranding. I wanted to celebrate castaways, strays, and trailblazers – as I sing at the end. At first, I had no verses, but as the game developed, the lyrics came little by little.

“Hideo is a man of visions and textures. Death Stranding is very sensorial – I spent hours building monorails in the rain at night, and the feeling was so special. It speaks to depression, solitude, and reconnection without words or hashtags – it’s just something you feel. [Kojima] has nothing to prove anymore, we know he's an amazing director. But there’s something about working with him – you know that you're working with a legend. There’s nothing geeky about it, it’s pretty intellectual. It references a broad spectrum of things, but not video games. I think anyone who’s pursuing an artistic career would want to learn from someone who’s trying to make things differently. I think that’s the only way you grow – by making stuff that hasn’t been done before.”

YUSAKU MATSUMOTO, FILMMAKER 

Acclaimed for his Tokyo-set urban drama Noise and techno-thriller Winny, independent filmmaker Yusaku Matsumoto cameos in Death Stranding 2 as The Architect

“I first met Director Kojima when he saw my debut film, Noise, at a preview screening. He liked it very much, and he even wrote me a comment in support of the film. Since then, every time I have a new work, I have him watch it.

“My involvement in Death Stranding 2 started when Kojima Productions invited me to come play. When we were touring the studio, Kojima asked me to appear in the game. I honestly couldn't believe it – even now I wonder if it was all a dream.

“His works have a unique appeal, it’s no wonder they attract people all over the world. His games are not just games – they have such powerful storytelling that I feel that Kojima’s works are already ‘films beyond films’. He is someone who can naturally narrow the gap between himself and the world. In Japan, where many people are said to be introverted, this kind of attitude is truly rare. I respect him from the bottom of my heart. He made me feel a little closer to the world.”

CHVRCHES, MUSICIANS

Icons of emotive, lyrical synthpop, CHVRCHES contributed an original song to Death Stranding – its title track. Composed of multi-instrumentalists Iain Cook, Lauren Mayberry and Martin Doherty, the band cameo in Death Stranding 2 as the staff of the animal shelter.

Iain Cook: “We came to know Kojima when he asked us to write a song for the first game. CHVRCHES were playing Tokyo in 2018 and he invited us to the brand new Kojima Productions office, which was like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It felt so futuristic, sort of like being inside Kojima’s head. He sat us down and played through a section of the game and explained how it worked and what he was trying to achieve. The world of Death Stranding has a unique atmosphere – austere but full of life. I think that duality, and the sense of hope is fertile and evocative territory to draw on musically.

“There was very little direction from Kojima. He showed us the game and we had dinner and talked about movies and video games all night, then he just left us alone to do what we do. We were working on it on tour – we had a little studio in the back of the bus. It all fell into place reasonably quickly. When we sent him the song, we were nervous that he was going to hate it, but he was really moved.”

Lauren Mayberry: “Lyrically, CHVRCHES had tended towards personal narratives, so it was an exciting challenge to write for someone else’s story. I think there’s a common thread of mild sadness between us all – or maybe a yearning for things to be better than they are. The Scots love a yearn, and maybe so does Kojima.

“It was interesting coming into this as someone who doesn’t game a huge amount. Being in a band with two gamers, who really admired and respected the amazing worlds Kojima had built before, gave us a real grounding for how to approach it all. So much of the game is about love and loss, disillusionment versus hope – themes that felt quite CHVRCHES. 

“It was incredible to see how far the game had come at that stage, and that Kojima wanted to work us into the universe further. He is a master of the easter egg, and he really cares about the small things that will add to fans’ experience. 

“I haven’t met many people who are so clear and focused when it comes to their vision, and you can feel that level of care in the work. It’s also rare to meet another creative who is so vocal about being a fan of other things. It really feels like he just loves art – making it, experiencing it, living amongst it – and that was very inspiring to see.”

KOICHI YAMANOHA (GRIMM GRIMM), MUSICIAN

Hypnotic and elegiac, Grimm Grimm’s tracks add greater texture to Death Stranding 2’s world. Tokyo-born and London-based, Yamanoha also cameos in the game as The Tar Therapist.

“A mutual friend gave Kojima my second album, Cliffhanger, four years ago. Since then, we’ve kept in touch, and I’ve had the chance to visit his office a few times. Once, he showed me footage from somewhere in the middle of the production process. In it, whales and dolphins drifted through the sky, their bodies engulfed in flames. The atmosphere was both dreamy and severe, carrying a strange familiarity – as if past, present, and future were all intertwined. Seeing it on the screen felt like glimpsing an enormous inner space. Kojima described it as transforming a philosophy of life into sensory images, and we ended up discussing writers like JG Ballard and the music we both love. It’s like existing within apocalyptic architecture, yet finding a light within yourself and running toward it.

“I was visiting Kojima Productions when, on a whim, he invited me to join the game. When he asked what kind of character I’d like to play, I remember saying a small role – like Steve Buscemi playing a local serial killer or something. That made him laugh. I only found out after the game’s release that my character is a therapist who independently studies tar. My hologram’s face looks pale and very devoted, kind of insane, which I find hilarious.

“Kojima is a bit like David Lynch. At the heart of his philosophy, there’s a deep sense of humanity and love. Even though the world he creates is dystopian – sad and absurd, much like the reality we currently live in – there’s still this underlying belief in human potential and a connection of consciousness. From what I understand, Kojima is a spiritual person, and an artist who truly values every encounter and connection. Whether he meets a waiter by chance in a small restaurant or an influential figure, he treats each person with the same genuine respect.

“The pandemic affected us all in different ways. While some experienced brief moments of bliss, many felt a profound isolation. Kojima and I once discussed this, and we both felt that death had never seemed closer. With that awareness, he rewrote the entire story during that period, approaching creation and thought with a renewed sense of hope –  as if counting backwards from that truth. Hope is a decision – something I believe lies at the very heart of this game, as well as our lives”.