Death Stranding 2 Will Use “New Techniques” for “More Photorealistic CG” – Kojima

Kojima Productions games are almost always guaranteed to be on the cutting edge of technology at the time of their launch, so it seems safe to assume that Death Stranding 2 isn’t going to buck that trend. And while it’s going to be a while before we get concrete details on exactly how the game will do that, Hideo Kojima has been dropping some interesting tidbits over on Twitter.

Something that Kojima Productions is focused on for Death Stranding 2, it seems, is making more photorealistic CG, for which the studio even invited Japanese lighting director Mayumi Nishiyama to give a lecture. Kojima explained that since the studio only has experience with lighting in a CG environment, the development team had Nishiyama “demonstrate the basics of live-action lighting in order to familiarize them with this technique.”

Actor Shioli Kutsuna – who has been confirmed to have a role to play in Death Stranding 2 – served as the model for the experimentation for the technique, with Kojima saying: “It is difficult to properly express the skin tone, dark hair, and eyes of Asian people. The look of Shioli in DS2 is a challenge for us. We will be using new techniques that were not used in the previous game, but we must first go back to the basics of visuals and start experimenting.”

Details on Death Stranding 2 are currently sparse, though Kojima has dropped some tidbits about fans can expect from its story, which, interestingly enough, was rewritten from scratch due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Death Stranding 2 is in development for PS5. A release date hasn’t been officially confirmed, but there’s a chance that it launches sometime next year.

In order to make photorealistic CG more realistic, we invited Mr. Nishiyama, a lighting director to give a lecture and demonstration to KJP artist team. This experience will be reflected in the creation of future games. Please look forward to it. pic.twitter.com/eLfHorsfzE

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) February 1, 2023

2/2
From here, we can use this as reference to think about how we can reproduce the same picture on a real-time game engine. Model is Shioli Kutsuna. Costumes provided by Armani🙏🏻

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) February 1, 2023

2/2
We will be using new techniques that were not used in the previous game, but we must first go back to the basics of visuals and start experimenting.

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) February 1, 2023