Anecdote 2025-06-13
“If everyone likes it, it means it's mainstream. It means it's conventional. It means it's already pre-digested for people to like it.”
What it documents
Midway through development of Death Stranding 2, Kojima told composer Woodkid that player tests were returning too positive and that this was a problem, and he changed elements of the game so it would not be liked by everyone.
Sources
“Then he said, "I'm going to be very honest, we have been testing the game with players and the results are too good. They like it too much. That means something is wrong; we have to change something." [...] "If everyone likes it, it means it's mainstream. It means it's conventional. It means it's already pre-digested for people to like it. And I don't want that."”
Video Games Chronicle (VGC), by Jordan Middler; original Rolling Stone interview with Woodkid, 2025-06-16. View source ↗