In celebration of the game’s surprise fifth anniversary, Kojima Productions and 505 Games have just released the Director’s Cut of Death Stranding on Xbox Series X|S and Amazon Luna.
Hideo Kojima’s groundbreaking game, originally released by Sony as a PlayStation 4 exclusive, with the sequel expected to be similarly exclusive to PlayStation 5, is now available on Xbox. The studio also confirmed that it now has full ownership of the Death Stranding IP.
Hideo Kojima said: “I’m pleased to finally announce that the Director’s Cut of Death Stranding will be delivered to Xbox players. I would like to thank all the fans who have stayed in touch with us, as well as all the members of the Xbox community who have been patiently waiting. Kojima Productions will continue to connect more and more gamers around the world, so stay tuned.”
The production of Death Stranding seems as unique and individual as Kojima’s career as a game author. Given a startup by Konami following the release of Metal Gear Solid V, Kojima started his own game studio, doing so with the support of a very enthusiastic Andrew House and Sony, who secured the company’s next game as an exclusive – which turned out to be Death Stranding in 2019 – and helped them gain access to Guerrilla Games’ Decima engine.
However, there seems to have been a lot of wiggle room in this publishing partnership. While Sony had exclusive rights to the console, Kojima could also have signed a deal with 505 Games to release the game on PC in mid-2020. In 2021, an enhanced version of Director’s Cut was released on PS5, followed by a similar release on PC, and in early 2024, the company took another opportunity to make the game available on Mac, iPad and iPhone.
It now appears that the publishing deal was for five years, after which the intellectual property rights reverted to Kojima. In porting the game to Xbox, we now find ourselves in an intriguing place where the excellent Decima engine is now also available on Xbox.
What does this mean for Death Stranding 2? Well, probably a similar situation to the first game. Death Stranding 2 is published by Sony, which means the game will be a console exclusive for a good few years after launch. Time will tell if 505 will get involved again and aid bring the game to PC and other platforms.
Death Stranding 2 is scheduled for release in 2025 on PS5.
