Even *Death Stranding 2* Can’t Hold It All: How Many Steps Behind Is Sony in Learning from Kojima?

A couple of days ago, while I was clearing icons on an open-world map, I casually browsed through player communities again. It felt like spotting an unmarked path on Google Maps, and suddenly I came across a very interesting piece of industry news. Sony has officially launched the “The Playerbase” project, hoping to send some of PlayStation’s most loyal fans into the worlds of its biggest games. The idea does sound appealing—who wouldn’t want to step out from behind the screen and into a game world, leaving behind a set of coordinates of their own?

But if you venture a little farther across the map, you’ll notice that gamesradar’s take is quite blunt: Sony is clearly following Hideo Kojima’s lead with this move. The comparison is also very specific—namely, the celebrity cameo approach used in Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach in particular, according to the original report, is packed with well-known figures, to the point that the development team eventually had to turn down some cameo candidates because there simply wasn’t enough room.

That’s where the gap becomes most obvious. Kojima’s approach is like crossing over a mountain and discovering that what lies behind it isn’t just a backdrop texture, but an entire living settlement. The creator is genuinely treating “who gets to enter the world” as part of the content itself. Sony’s “The Playerbase” this time feels more like the entrance has been built, but the door hasn’t been opened wide enough. gamesradar also specifically pointed out that “Sony’s event this time not only offers very few spots, but the participation process is also extremely cumbersome, making its sincerity clearly fall short of the former.” For players, the most frustrating feeling is exactly this: the map clearly shows a signpost, but when you get there, you find layer upon layer of access restrictions waiting for you.

If you look at this within the broader direction of the industry, it actually makes perfect sense. Major companies are placing more and more emphasis on player co-creation, community involvement, and identity, because games stopped being just about selling content progression a long time ago—they’re also selling the feeling of “do I truly belong in this world?” Kojima’s brilliance lies in the fact that he made cameos more than just a marketing gimmick; he turned them into part of the world’s terrain. Sony’s issue, by contrast, is that the form is there first, but the value of exploration hasn’t caught up yet.

From a player’s perspective, I don’t think Sony can’t learn from this—the key is not to copy only the surface-level moves. If it genuinely wants to bring fans into the world of PlayStation, then it should deepen the number of spots, the system, and the sense of participation all at once, rather than offering only a handful of showcase slots. The reason open worlds are so captivating isn’t because the maps are big, but because every time you stray from the main road, you might stumble upon something unexpected. If Sony turns this into nothing more than a high-threshold, low-capacity model event, then what it brings won’t be the thrill of discovery, but something more like a scenic walkway fenced off from all sides.