Hideo Kojima has revealed that the sheer amount of info he gives away in trailers is a somewhat intentional spoiler.
When I finished playing Death Stranding 2: On the Beach earlier this year, there was one major thought that popped into my head: “Damn, they really did give absolutely everything away in the trailers.” The behemoth 10-minute gameplay trailer that premiered at South by Southwest this year had tons in it, and what we didn’t know at the time is that a lot of that footage was straight up pulled from the last chapter of the game.
And considering this is the same Hideo Kojima who made multiple trailers fooling players that Solid Snake would be the main character of Metal Gear Solid 2, naturally some wonder why Kojima is suddenly so keen to give details away.
Speaking to The Washington Post, Kojima explains that the culture around what can be considered a spoiler has changed in recent years, citing Captain America: Brave New World as an example. “Harrison Ford played the Red Hulk, if you remember that movie, and this was supposed to be a big reveal. But when we went to see it, the poster was already on display at the movie theater,” Kojima says, adding, “We’re living in that kind of era of information, and I wanted to use that as a hook.”
He also notes that “many people became furious,” after The Last of Us Part 2 showed Joel in parts of the game where he wasn’t in order to not spoil events in the game. “I’m trying to make it different from a movie or a book, where people say, ‘Oh I knew that all along,'” Kojima continues. He adds: “It’s more like if you play 60 hours, and at the very end you feel it’s great that it was a happy ending, just as you hoped at first. I put that in deliberately. I deliberately drip-feed those kinds of spoilers.”
Be sure to check out our Death Stranding 2 review if you’ve not played Kojima’s latest game yet, or read our guide to Death Stranding 2’s ending explained if you’ve already rolled credits.