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Kojima Productions released a statement on the third anniversary of the release of its genre-defying game Death Stranding, claiming that over 10 million players have played it.
Death Stranding received mixed reviews from critics and players alike after it launched on the PS4 in November 2019. Many players weren’t ready for the game’s drastic shift from Hideo Kojima’s typical stealth espionage fare.
Death Stranding “delivers a fascinating world of eerie sci-fi, but its gameplay fails to withstand its weight,” we wrote in our review. In 2021, we rated the game’s director’s cut a 7/10, noting that it “is more approachable than the original, but feels like a compromised version of the director’s vision.”
But in the wake of a pandemic that left many people separated from the people they loved, the game’s intricate lore and narrative—which centered on mass extinction events, the afterlife, loneliness, and loss—connected with a large playerbase.
His new estimate of 10 million includes gamers who used Playstation Plus and PC Game Pass to access the game as well as units sold across all platforms. This represents a substantial increase from the more than 5 million engagements he sold in July 2021.
The game gained new fans after being made available on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store in July 2020. The Death Stranding Directors Cut, the game’s previously announced definitive version, was then released on PC, PS4, and PS5, bringing extra story content, game modes, equipment, and more with it. Finally, Death Stranding’s base game unexpectedly made its way onto the Xbox PC Game Pass service in August of this year.