Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will be released on June 26 for PlayStation 5, game director and Kojima Productions founder Hideo Kojima announced Sunday during a panel at SXSW 2025 with a lengthy new trailer for the game.
That trailer offered a new 10-minute look at Death Stranding 2 and its stars, including some fresh faces. The sequel to the 2019 action game will once again star Norman Reedus as Sam Bridges, the package-toting hero of its bizarre story. Léa Seydoux and Troy Baker will return too, as Fragile and Higgs, respectively. They’ll be joined by new characters played by Elle Fanning (Tomorrow), Shioli Kutsuna (Rainy), and George Miller (Tarman). Also joining the cast are Luca Marinelli as Neil, Debra Wilson as Doctor, and Alissa Jung as Lucy. (There’s also a cameo from Korean action star Lee Dong-seok, aka Don Lee.)
Death Stranding 2’s new trailer even appears to have a handful of nods to Kojima’s previous game franchise, Metal Gear Solid. Marinelli’s Neil looks unmistakably like Solid Snake at one point, with the giant tar creature that fuses with the DHV Magellan — becoming the Magellan Man, Kojima said — giving Metal Gear Rex/Sahelanthropus vibes. Beyond that, there’s plenty of gameplay action and story hints to chew on for Death Stranding fans.
Kojima Productions’ new trailer explains that Death Stranding 2 is set 11 months after the formation of the United Cities of America. Servers line the beach and deliveries have been automated, ostensibly putting porters like Sam out of work. Chiralium from the Beach continues to warp the environment (and the cats!), just as a new faction is spreading its influence. But none of that, it seems, will stop Sam from doing his job.
In Death Stranding 2’s first trailer at 2022’s The Game Awards, Kojima said his experiences during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic prompted him to rework the game’s script, which will follow the events of the first game’s journey across a post-apocalyptic America ravaged by inky black monsters known as Beached Things.
The second, 10-minute trailer from a State of Play stream last year showed the delivery company Bridges worked for has dissolved and a new organization called Drawbridge has risen in its place. But as with all Kojima-led games, the exact details are murky.
