Kojima doesn’t like the Death Stranding “Director’s Cut” branding

Death Stranding director Hideo Kojima doesn’t like that the upcoming new version is called a “director’s cut”. Yesterday, he took to Twitter to explain his reasoning, saying that director’s cuts of films typically add stuff that was filmed then taken out. Death Stranding’s new version, on the other hand, will supposedly have a bunch of completely new content added. He’d rather it said “Director’s Plus” instead – a pretty reasonable argument, I think.

“A director’s cut in a movie is an additional edit to a shortened version that was either released reluctantly because the director did not have the right to edit it, or because the running time had to be shortened,” he posted.

“In the game, it is not what was cut, but what was additionally produced that was included. Delector’s Plus? So, in my opinion, I don’t like to call ‘director’s cut’.”

“Delector” is a Latin word that means “charm” or “enjoy”, which seems to be an odd translation of “director”. Unless he means to call the game Death Stranding: Enjoy More, which, honestly, doesn’t seem too far from something he’d do.

It’s an odd one because Kojima seems pretty involved in all the decision making around Death Stranding, so who came up with the name? Perhaps he liked it at first, then changed his mind. Or maybe corporate overloads at PlayStation insisted on “director’s cut” for that sweet, sweet marketing.

Death Stranding: Director’s Cut was first revealed during the Summer Game Fest stream that kicked off E3 last month. The initial trailer showed Sam Bridges sneaking around a warehouse, throwing oranges on the floor, and climbing into boxes. According to a new trailer that dropped last week, however, it seems that’ll be part of a new story mission.

It’s unclear if this new version of Death Stranding will come to PC – so far it’s only been announced for PS5. It launches on September 24th, and will cost $10/€10 for those who already own Death Stranding. Hopefully it’ll follow in the footsteps of the original game, and land on PC six months or so from then.