A sincere attempt to make the final product more comprehensible?
The returning Hollywood trend of adapting the recognizable worlds, characters and stories of video games to film has been especially pronounced this year, with multiple releases, countless announcements and several reveals of new details for upcoming projects.
Among the latter stands an announcement regarding the plot of Hideo Kojima's upcoming Death Stranding movie, issued during the Kojima Production "Beyond the Strand" anniversary broadcast on September 23, 2025.
Certainly No Shallow Narrative
Long-time video game director Hideo Kojima is well-known for incorporating complex, philosophical, but often absurd and hard-to-follow plotlines in his video games. Death Stranding (2019), a game where players follow protagonist Sam Bridges on his mission to deliver packages across a destroyed version of the USA, was the first release of his own independent studio Kojima Productions and certainly no exception to his confusing track record:
In the first game, Sam reconnects survivor outposts while fending off ghostly creatures and violent raiders. He learns that Amelie, the woman guiding him, is actually a force tied to humanity’s extinction known as the "Last Stranding", who he can only stop by sacrificing Lou, a mysterious baby who he had been carrying with him to keep himself alive. Though in the end, Lou comes back to life, signalling that Amelie had given up her plans and stopped the apocalypse.
Later, in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (2025), Sam is drawn into a new mission in Australia after Lou is "apparently" killed. He learns that Lou is actually his daughter, a similar entity to Amelie, and that the President is a soul-network amalgam trying to force humanity into stasis. In a climactic showdown, Sam and Lou defeat the central antagonist as Lou rejects her role as an extinction entity and is later revealed to follow in her father's footsteps.
No Bridges To Bridges
As for the games themselves, the first entry received mixed critical reactions, with many feeling that – while the story was certainly interesting – the way the narrative was presented was lacking, along with the gameplay feeling weird and unsatisfying; complaints which were somewhat remedied in the sequel, which released on June 26 of this year.
Director Kojima has previously commented that he feels like the stories of the first Death Stranding games are now complete, with any potential sequel instead likely focusing on another cast of characters. When considering that the complex narrative of the games would be difficult to adapt, Kojimas announcement in the above-mentioned "Beyond the Strand" broadcast of the upcoming movie featuring its own original story was really the only sensible option.
"With this project, we really want to capture the soul of the game, capture the themes of the game, but tell a story you haven’t seen in that world and explore characters you haven’t seen before." – Writer/Director Michael Sarnoski
Even though Kojima mentioned during the presentation that he will try not to get too involved in the writing, considering his appreciation of horror and production studio A24's track record, the movie may further highlight the supernatural aspects of The Stranding, though any details are currently left up to speculation.
But what do you think? Are you excited for this side chapter of the Death Stranding story? Or are you afraid the movie may just further overcomplicate the games' lore? Let us know in the comments!