On the Beach is properly out in the wild, but there were times when even director Hideo Kojima thought he wouldn't be able to finish making the open-world blockbuster. "Death Stranding 2 is out now," the Metal Gear Solid auteur wrote in a heartfelt social media post,

For Kojima, those experiences led to a different approach for the sequel. His own sense of isolation that arose from having to develop Death Stranding 2 with a remote team saw him reconsidering its tale — yet it’s also this isolation that led to Kojima realizing the perils of digital connectivity.

Death Stranding 2 is Hideo Kojima's safest modern sequel, and while that sounds like a downgrade, it's more complicated than that.