Around March 2025, around his appearance at SXSW, Kojima announced that Death Stranding had surpassed 20 million players across all platforms; he said that people still playing it makes him the happiest.
“now had over 20 million players”; “makes me the happiest”
“People are still playing it. I get the numbers every day. Very few players drop off. The people who love it keep playing.”
“I was pleased to receive messages from people who felt the game saved them because the game indirectly connected them to others. That was my motivation for creating things in the first place.”
“The only things I had were four staff members, my computer, and my iPhone.”
In November 2019, during the promotion of Death Stranding, Kojima received two Guinness World Records for being the game director with the most followers on both Twitter and Instagram.
“I think it takes 3-5 years for a game to receive proper evaluation.”