Death Stranding 2: Hideo Kojima Chose The Actors Himself

Death Stranding 2 continues Hideo Kojima’s latest franchise. With returning cast members like Norman Reedus and an extremely unique narrative, fans are excited to learn more about the direction of the next game in the franchise.

While Hideo Kojima’s extensive involvement in the project should be no surprise, the Director recently elaborated on his procedure of picking the cast for his games. According to the Director, he specifically chose each cast member for Death Stranding 2.

Why it matters: Unlike many other games, Death Stranding used popular film stars like Norman Reedus Mads Mikkelsen, and more. While this might be an odd decision, fans will be glad to learn that all the actors are picked by Kojima himself.

Since I will be spending very long period of time working with actors and voice actors, I don't let agencies/agents do casting. Of course, we ask agents to help us during the contract stage.
Various problems occur frequently in filming, voice recording, and game creation.… pic.twitter.com/IC6WGVuw60

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) June 1, 2023

Hideo Kojima recently took to Twitter to elaborate on the casting for Death Stranding 2. The game will include popular actors like Shioli Kutsuna, Elle Fanning, and the returning Norman Reedus.

According to Kojima, various hurdles can come up during the process of recording and filming during game development. Therefore, the Director likes to have a close relationship with the game’s cast to ensure development is smooth.

He described the cast as ‘special partners’. This also means that Death Stranding 2 will be a very accurate representation of Hideo Kojima’s vision, and fans of his previous work will likely enjoy what the game has to offer.

Cast members are chosen not only for their voice quality, acting, and suitability for the character, but also for their balance with other characters and their chemical reactions to each other on the set. Since we don't pick the cast by pinpoint, the chemistry between the cast… https://t.co/X2y55t6YFC

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) June 1, 2023

The Director further elaborated that he also likes to ensure the cast has chemistry and members get along well.

Since Death Stranding’s narrative is very cutscene-heavy, this decision from Hideo Kojima likely plays a huge part in the excellent performance and end result. The first game featured over 10 hours of cutscenes, and fans can expect a similar length for Death Stranding 2.

Death Stranding already featured an excellent cast, and it looks like the Director is raising the stakes for the sequel, bringing more big actors to provide another engaging experience in the Death Stranding universe.