The latest game from industry legend Hideo Kojima is not afraid to take some wild swings. It’s one of a recent string of games that have pushed the medium to weirder places –– and have found success along the way.
The highly anticipated “Death Stranding 2: On the Beach,” from legendary game designer Hideo Kojima and his team at Kojima Productions, has arrived five years after its predecessor. The series is still weird.
Players take on the role of a deliveryman trekking across a post-apocalyptic, ghost-filled United States. Said deliveryman (portrayed by Norman Reedus, star of “The Walking Dead”) has a fetus in a pod strapped to his chest and can only defeat the specters infesting the U.S. by throwing his own bodily fluids at them. There’s no way around it: Despite the hyper-realistic graphics and presence of famous actors like Reedus, Mads Mikkelson, Elle Fanning and Léa Seydoux, the “Death Stranding” series is unafraid to be strange –– and so is its audience.
The original “Death Stranding” has sold 19 million copies as of its five-year anniversary in 2024. Its equally weird sequel (it contains a death cult that worships an electric guitar-playing cyberninja) has largely been hailed as a masterpiece and will likely sell millions of copies in its own right.
“Death Stranding 2” isn’t an outlier. In recent years, some of the most notable games have achieved success by refusing to sand down the edges that might push some players away. Games like “Baldur’s Gate 3,” “Elden Ring” and this year’s “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” all have idiosyncratic design elements that didn’t push players away but pulled them in. The results speak for themselves.
Within a month of release, “Clair Obscur” sold 3.3 million copies. “Baldur’s Gate 3” has sold 15 million copies as of the end of last year. “Elden Ring,” with all the obtuse narrative design and extreme difficulty of studio From Software, sold 30 million copies in three years.
So, are gamers entering their freak era? Experts don’t expect the teams behind AAA moneymakers like “Call of Duty” to start taking big swings anytime soon. But they acknowledge there is a clear hunger for games made by teams that take risks.
“People are looking for these experiences, and they’re looking for something to surprise them,” says Fox Zarow, an assistant teaching professor of game design at Northeastern University. “They’re looking to feel like the money they spent was worth it and that it is still a good game. … People are hungry for something fresh, something that makes them feel something. I do think we’re going to get more of those games.”
The appetite for weirder, more unique games is a symptom of where the games market is currently, explains Alexandra To, an assistant professor of game design at Northeastern. The biggest games –– multiplayer “forever games” designed to be played for hours upon hours –– are increasingly unsustainable for many people. Players only have so much time to play these games that are designed to be played daily.
Then there are the broader economic factors that are contributing to spending habits for players, she adds.
“In a time where income disparity is so high, people don’t have a lot of extra money for luxury goods, which is what games are. You want something that’s going to be worth it, that’s going to capture your attention and creativity,” To says.
The question is less about if these games will be made and more about where they will come from.
The biggest studios in the AAA space are unlikely to take massive risks on games that take years to make and cost hundreds of millions of dollars, although Zarow doesn’t think it’s impossible.
“It’s just such a difficult artistic experience to preserve those hard edges in a project that goes through giant teams and has all of the expectations of the board room,” Zarow says.
More likely, what will happen, Zarow says, is that small independent teams and midsized AA studios, like “Clair Obscur” developer Sandfall Interactive, will continue to take risks and likely reap the benefits. Meanwhile, the AAA standard bearers will rely on tried and true franchises with diminishing returns.
Someone like Kojima –– and there really is no one else like him in the industry –– can afford to take risks because of his built-in audience and the support of a studio like Sony. “Grand Theft Auto” studio Rockstar Games –– and even Nintendo –– have the same kind of creative freedom.
Zarow predicts the real innovation could come from “super group studios of industry veterans who are leaving AAA for greener pastures.” This is already happening in fits and starts: the team behind “Clair Obscur” is made up of some former designers from “Assassin’s Creed” studio Ubisoft.
So, is “Death Stranding 2” an anomaly? Perhaps, but it’s also not without its own lessons for an industry that could stand to get a little weirder, for its sake.
“Trust the audience more and trust your creatives to have the taste to be leaders as opposed to reactors and followers to what you think the market wants,” To says. “Trust the maturity of the audience to follow you when you make bold moves and try to innovate.”