Latest news with #KojimaProductions'
Express Tribune
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Death Stranding character used to bypass UK age checks due to realistic facial rendering
UK residents are reportedly using images of Death Stranding protagonist Sam Porter Bridges, portrayed by Norman Reedus, to bypass online age verification systems. The workaround exploits the game's high-fidelity facial rendering and photo mode features. Recent government-imposed online age restrictions in the UK require users to verify their age using real-time facial recognition for accessing adult-rated content. These measures extend beyond websites to platforms like Discord, where even access to age-restricted channels is gated. To comply, users are often prompted to upload photos of themselves in different poses, preventing the use of static or duplicated images. However, images from Death Stranding's in-game photo mode have proven detailed enough to pass some of these checks. The character model of Sam Porter Bridges includes dynamic facial expressions, which users have applied to generate multiple images with varied poses. According to reports, the facial recognition systems occasionally misidentify these game-generated images as real faces, allowing users to access restricted content. Tests show the trick works with both Death Stranding titles and, to a lesser extent, other highly detailed games such as Baldur's Gate 3 and WWE 2K25. The unintended use of Kojima Productions' advanced graphics technology highlights potential weaknesses in automated age verification systems. While developers originally designed the game's photo mode to enhance player immersion and narrative depth, it has inadvertently become a tool for circumventing digital age gates. Authorities and platform providers may need to re-evaluate current systems as this method gains attention online.
Time of India
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Death Stranding 2 All Trophies and How to Unlock Them
Image via: Kojima Productions Kojima Productions' highly anticipated sequel, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, returns with its trademark atmosphere, captivating narrative, fresh new gameplay mechanics and an ever-expanding trophy system that keeps the most committed porters coming back for more. With 55 total trophies (1 Platinum, 2 Gold, 6 Silver, and 46 Bronze), this Trophy Guide breaks down everything you need to know to earn 100% completion in the game. A trophy for each stage of your path Death Stranding 2 doesn't just reward you for crashing through its high-octane story arcs, it rewards you too for honing the subtle arts of delivery and connection. The entire progression has been lovingly cultivated to guide you from your very first delivery all the way up to the most impressive achievements in cargo management and warlord excellence. The platinum trophy, of course, awarded for unlocking all other trophies, represents the highest achievement in understanding the game's nuanced mechanics and rich narrative. Death Stranding 2 - Don't Miss These 12 Powerful Early Items! Best Early Weapons Unlocks & Tips The Backbone of Trophies It has an awesome setup. Assuming you start off on easy mode, the game rewards you for finishing your first Standard Order ever with Standard Porter. From there, cadence is the name of the game, with every contract year seen as an opportunity to bring in incremental progress and innovation. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Nhà tiền chế 2025: Lựa chọn nhà ở giá cả phải chăng (Xem ngay) Nomad's Notebook Nhấp vào đây Undo As one of the examples, the Season Porter trophy requires you to be all-around great. You must do a minimum of ten deliveries, recoveries, and destruction orders each with an S rank. It's not only the number of projects, the caliber of them as well that's noteworthy. Online support for one another is equally important. The trophies Helping People to Connect and Promising Signs celebrate your impact on the game's unique asynchronous multiplayer, rewarding you when you fulfill an aid request or build your first online aid request sign. Constructing structures is the other main pillar. Trophies such as My First Structure and Master Builder recognize your developing ability to create infrastructure, be it ladders, signage, or more elaborate structures and devices. DEATH STRANDING 2 - Platinum Walkthrough 1/x - Trophy Guide How to unlock Making progress in Death Stranding 2 involves gradually reestablishing a network of connections between facilities. From Starting Point, just having your Q-pid connected is enough to unlock more routes. Keep on Connecting Challenge requires you to connect every facility to advance. The apex of this network-building experience is Connecting Hearts and Minds, which you must do by getting your connection level to all facilities as high as possible. On the personal upgrade side Modernism Activating upgrades like APAS Unlocks Self-Improvement, pushing you to better your gaming skills. This emphasis on personal development is superbly indicative of the game's main theme of progression step by step. Likes and Popularity: The Social Currency In both modes, acts of social interaction are rewarded in ways only possible in the strange world of the Death Stranding series. Sending your very first Like grants you It's Like That, but getting all the way up to 2,400 Likes will reward you with A Life Well Liked—and going even further to 50,000 Likes will net you the highly coveted A Porter at Peak Popularity. Not only do these in-game trophies incentivize players to build a constructive artistic environment, they reward players for exploring the rich tapestry of other players' work. Other trophies are tied to iconic boss fights and side missions. BT's Best Friend contest has a new challenge, to photograph the biggest BT. Conqueror of the Golden CC tasks you with defeating a formidable golden chiral creature. First, Showdown at the Tar Lake needs you to defeat the Lord of the Tar Lake. Savior of Terminal Fort Knot tasks you with stopping a void out at a vital distribution center. Finding more of the world rewards you with bonuses such as Creature Comforter for bringing wild animals to shelters and Rare Specimen Rescuer for locating albino animals. Environmental Restoration, Exploration, and Cultural Exchange Rebuilding our fractured world is a major theme this year, as seen in trophies such as: Spring into Life and Road Restorer, both of which grant you bonuses for restoring sections of damaged or unsafe roads. Dig, Dig, Dig! promotes reopening abandoned mines. Rail Restorer rejoices to have reopened an entire monorail line. 7 Crucial Tips Death Stranding 2 Doesn't Tell You Exploring the world and enjoying the game's quiet beauty will net you Written in the Stars, earned for viewing the night sky, and A Private Show!, earned for viewing a live performance in your personal space. Delivering huge amounts of cargo and over long distances are celebrated: A Compulsive Cargo Carrier has you deliver 500 pieces of cargo. Heavy Lifter requires a payload of two tons dropped off. Long-Distance Lugger dares you to complete an 80-kilometer order in one go. Lastly, A Premier Porter recognizes across-the-board greatness by achieving a porter grade of 40+ in each category. Death Stranding 2 trophies honour achievements as varied as story progression and package delivery, online world-building and environmental a little patience and planning, though, and ever-present dynamic tinkering at heart, achieving full trophy mastery is a deeply satisfying journey that honors Hideo Kojima's game-making ethos toward fostering connection amid societal division. Game On Season 1 continues with Mirabai Chanu's inspiring story. Watch Episode 2 here.
Newsweek
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Death Stranding 2 — Release Date, Release Times, Editions and Pricing
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors Kojima Productions' next game, the highly anticipated Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, is set to be released very soon after almost six years in development. A follow-up to the unique action-adventure game that won countless game of the year awards and a metascore of up to 91/100 on review score aggregator Metacritic depending on the platform, Death Stranding 2 promises to be one of the biggest releases of the year. Sam in Death Stranding 2 with an armored hand on his shoulder, as seen in the State of Play trailer for the game. Sam in Death Stranding 2 with an armored hand on his shoulder, as seen in the State of Play trailer for the game. Kojima Productions Ahead of the game's launch, we've put together all the information you need to know about Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, including the release date for Death Stranding 2, as well as the exact release time for Death Stranding 2, and all the available Death Stranding 2 editions, their contents, and their pricing. Death Stranding 2 Release Date Death Stranding 2 will be released on June 26, 2025 worldwide. The game will be released exclusively on the PlayStation 5 as it's being published by Sony Interactive Entertainment itself, although it could come to other platforms under a different publisher in the future, much like Death Stranding before it. Players who preorder the digital deluxe edition of the game – detailed in full below – will get access to the game 48 hours early, on June 24, 2025. Death Stranding 2 Release Times Death Stranding 2 will be released on PS5 at 12:00am midnight EDT on its release date. Like most Sony-published games, Death Stranding 2 is following a rolling midnight release throughout the globe. This means that it will be released at midnight in the easternmost timezone in each region — gamers in New York will get access to the game when it hits midnight there, and gamers in California will get access to it at the same time, which will be 9:00pm PDT on June 25. New Zealand will get access to it even earlier, as it hits midnight on the 26th 16 hours before New York. The digital deluxe edition advanced access for the game is also available at midnight, 48 hours prior to the release of the main game. Death Stranding 2 Editions and Pricing Death Stranding 2 is available in two editions: a standard edition and a digital deluxe edition. The standard edition of Death Stranding 2 costs $69.99 USD digitally, and includes the game itself and, if preordered before the release date, a preorder bonus of a custom Quokka hologram and three exoskeletons. The digital deluxe edition of Death Stranding 2 costs $79.99 USD digitally, and comes with the base game and the preorder bonuses, as well as the following additional content: 48 hours early access Machine Gun [MP] (Lv.1) early unlock Quokka, Chiral Cat, and Why Me? patches Battle Skeleton: Gold (Levels 1, 2, 3) Boost Skeleton: Gold (Levels 1, 2, 3) Bokka Skeleton: Gold (Levels 1, 2, 3)
Digital Trends
29-05-2025
- Business
- Digital Trends
5 years in, the PS5 proves that the PS6 can't just be a more powerful box
The leap from one console to the next used to be so pronounced that it was impossible to ignore. It only took a glance to see the world (or dimension) of difference between SNES games and Nintendo 64 games, and understand exactly what the new system was offering. I'm cherry-picking that specific generation as the greatest gap in power we will likely ever experience, but I believe that the leaps in power throughout the entire video game console generation timeline spoke for themselves right up until the Xbox 360 and PS3 era. It isn't that technical advancements have leveled off after that, but the edges are blending together more with each generation. As we approach our fifth year with the PS5, and rumors continue to swirl about the PS6, I don't believe Sony can rely on a marginally more powerful box being enough to justify whatever price it demands next time around. Recommended Videos Diminishing returns It's no surprise that the main selling point for new hardware is its technical capabilities. It is easy to show off shinier graphics, bigger worlds, and more realistic physics to a mass audience. We all knew we had to get that PS1 or N64 to experience that level of 3D graphics, or get a PS3 or Xbox 360 to experience full HD games. I'd argue that the last time the general consumer saw a noticeable gap between one generation and the next was going from the PS3 to PS4. I'm not embarrassed to admit that even I could be fooled if someone told me some PS4 games were actually on PS5 or vice versa. Check out this screenshot of Uncharted 4 — a game released almost 10 years ago — and tell me this couldn't pass for a PS5 game. If you were to analyze and pick apart this game compared to a PS5 game, yes, I'm certain the PS5 game would come out on top. But more detailed shadows or faster rendering times don't necessarily make a game more fun to play. I'm also confident that every boost in power is a godsend to developers working to squeeze every bit of juice out of the hardware. Even in this regard we are starting to see developers praising the efficiency of new hardware above any graphical leap. Kojima Productions' chief technical officer Akio Sakamoto commented on the transition from PS4 to PS5 for Death Stranding 2 to Edge Magazine saying, 'The most obvious improvement from a technological point of view is the reduction in loading times, but to be honest, the difference between the two hardware systems isn't so great,' he says. 'It's more a case that on PS5 there are more efficient ways of arriving at similar goals.' I won't deny how important it is to make the creation of games as frictionless as possible for the developers, but the fact is that those are diminishing returns for a large group of players. All we care about is whether or not we feel justified investing in the box we spend our hard-earned cash on. The trend of introducing Pro models doesn't help the issue as they further blur the lines between proper generations. The PS5 Pro reveal is a prime example, where the differences had to be zoomed in on to be conveyed. We're breaching the level of what the average consumer can even understand as an improvement. Ray-tracing isn't exactly common parlance, and I doubt most people could tell you what a teraflop is. Compounding it all is the fact that many, if not most, people don't own the types of displays that can even show it off to experience that difference. I'm not saying that we should be content with where graphics are today. Someone at every stage of gaming has proclaimed that 'graphics can never get any better than this,' and has been proven wrong each time. PlayStation absolutely needs to make the PS6 as powerful as it can, but it can't rely on that as its main selling point like past generations. Sony could get away with it with the PS5 Pro, but the general public isn't going to be impressed if they can't see a difference between a PS5 and PS6 game side-by-side without a magnifying glass. To be fair, the PS5's SSD was another touted upgrade over the PS4. Outside of Marvel's Spider-Man 2, however, this hasn't amounted to doing much that couldn't be done previously except for loading games a little faster. So, where does that leave the PS6 and other future consoles? Convenience has to be where PlayStation pivots next now that any technical advancement will only appeal to developers and the most hardcore fans. It has already started this process with a tempered PC release cadence that doesn't infringe on the core console sales, as well as by adding cloud functionality to the PS Portal without the need for a PS5. The rumors of a dedicated handheld is another necessary gamble to meet players where they are. Like it or not, we're living in a world of instant gratification and PlayStation has to remove as many barriers as possible between its players and its games. Whatever the PS6 ends up looking like, it's the games that have to be at the heart of it. Introducing new experiences, new ways to play, and the freedom to play however we want will matter far more than throwing around terms like PSSR, terraflops, and CPU clock speeds. Most of all, I want the PS6 to give me what I don't know I want yet.
