Latest news with #Woodkid
The Verge
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Death Stranding 2 is bigger and more ambitious — and that includes its music
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is an expansive, captivating sequel filled with huge environments to explore and a big story from Hideo Kojima to try and wrap your head around. But one of my favorite additions is a small one: an in-game music player that basically functions as your own iPod. Woodkid, a co-composer on the game (and whose real name is Yoann Lemoine), tells The Verge that the music player was important to Kojima because it's 'the way Hideo is in everyday life… He plays songs all the time.' (And posts about songs on social media, too.) 'I think he wanted the players to be able to have the same experience,' Woodkid says. Music was a big part of the original game. Some of my favorite moments from the first Death Stranding took place when songs from artists like Low Roar, Silent Poets, and Woodkid kicked in while exploring the game's world. That still happens a lot in Death Stranding 2, and it's just as effective at setting a mood. But with the personal music player, accessible right from the pause menu, you can create your own vibe as you're traversing the game's expansive environments. Woodkid worked with Kojima for three years to make music for DS2. In the game, his music can morph and change based on the player's actions. In the opening moments, for example, Sam has to cross some treacherous mountain terrain to return to his shelter with Lou while Woodkid's 'Minus Sixty One' plays in the background. As highlighted by Kojima in a recent livestream, when you run, you'll hear drums in the song, and when you stop, they'll stop. If you take a certain route, piano will kick in as other elements fade out. The whole sequence has a bunch of elements like that. Woodkid tells me he had to reverse engineer the song as part of what was needed to make everything work behind the scenes, and when he plays the sequence, he still gets surprised by what the engine is doing. To help write the music for Death Stranding 2, Woodkid digested the big themes of the game, which he says are intimacy, fatherhood, grief, escapism, a 'very aggressive sense of political violence' about the eco-anxiety of the world, and the concept of connection and how it's positive and negative in the time of social networks. He then tried to inject those ideas into the songs. That all manifests in a wide variety of musical styles in Woodkid's music for Death Stranding 2. The game's main theme, 'To the Wilder,' is slow, haunting, and beautiful, while 'Tmrrw,' which plays at a pivotal cutscene featuring the character named Tomorrow (played by Elle Fanning), has a much harder, industrial edge. Songs from artists like Gen Hoshino and Caroline Polachek show up, too. Ludvig Forssell, who composed music for Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid V, is a composer for DS2 as well. I think the breadth of musical styles is good, maybe almost necessary. Death Stranding 2 still has a lot of long journeys from one place to another, so like a great song on a real-life road trip, the right track at the right time can make a dull drive much more memorable.
Time of India
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Was Death Stranding 2 reworked because playtesters liked it too much? Composer Woodkid speaks out
Yoann 'Woodkid' Lemonine is a French composer who's worn many hats throughout his career. From being a CGI artist in video games to directing the music videos for Taylor Swift's Back To December and Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, the man already had a meaty Resume before being hired by Kojima Productions to work on the upcoming Death Stranding 2. When interviewed by the Rolling Stone magazine, Woodkid was promoting the soundtrack he'd produced for the game, titled Woodkid for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. He then proceeded to reveal many eye-catching details about the game's production, notably how director Hideo Kojima actually reworked the game because playtesters were too uniform in their praise. Kojima wanted the game to be more divisive When asked whether he had any insights to share about Death Stranding 2's development, Woodkid revealed that Kojima believed the uniform approval playtesters gave in their feedback was a problem. As Woodkid put it, Kojima had 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.' According to Woodkid, Kojima was very concerned about the finished game having too much mainstream appeal. Worried that these positive reactions were actually indicators of an underlying blandness to the narrative, Kojima actively worked to make the game more polarizing in response. He believed that if players grew to appreciate the story over a prolonged period instead of immediately liking what they saw, the game would end up far more impactful. Woodkid considers Death Stranding 2 a balancing act Woodkid has called Death Stranding 2 both mainstream and radical at the same time, and he believes that is a tricky balance to achieve. As Woodkid put it, artists frequently compromise their creative vision to appeal to the masses, but Kojima's an exception. Woodkid admired his singular dedication to his creative vision, but he also considered Kojima to be receptive to feedback, and considered his collaboration with the game director to be a 'dialogue' rather than a one-sided relationship where he just did as he was told. Hideo Kojima has often worn his Hollywood influences on his sleeve, but Woodkid ended his interview by claiming that just like the Metal Gear franchise, Death Stranding would also prove to be massively impactful, both in gaming and in Hollywood.
Geek Tyrant
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Hideo Kojima Reveals He Rewrote DEATH STARNDING 2 Because Too Many People Liked It — GeekTyrant
Only Hideo Kojima would look at overwhelmingly positive feedback and think, 'We have a problem.' While most developers would see high praise during internal testing as a green light, Kojima saw it as a warning sign. The legendary game creator known for embracing the strange, the bold, and the deeply personal, decided to rework Death Stranding 2 because, in his eyes, it was too well received. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Kojima's longtime collaborator and composer Yoann Lemoine (aka Woodkid) shared a surprising behind-the-scenes story about the game's development. 'There's a key moment where we had a discussion, probably halfway [through] when we were doing the game, where he came to me and he said, 'We have a problem.' '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.' And he changed stuff in the script and the way some crucial stuff [happens] in the game because he thought his work was not polarizing and not triggering enough emotions. And he said, '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. 'I want people to end up liking things they didn't like when they first encountered it, because that's where you really end up loving something.' And that was really a lesson for me; not doing stuff to please people, but to make them shift a little bit and move them.' It's a very Kojima philosophy, one that fits perfectly with his legacy of crafting deeply strange yet emotionally rich games that often divide audiences. Death Stranding was already a litmus test for patience and curiosity. On paper, it was a 'walking simulator' where you delivered packages through rain-soaked landscapes haunted by invisible spirits. In practice, it became one of the most talked-about and debated games in recent memory. With Death Stranding 2 , it looks like Kojima isn't looking to course-correct for the masses. In fact, quite the opposite as he's steering even harder into the idea that his work should challenge players rather than comfort them. Interestingly, Norman Reedus, who returns to play Sam Porter Bridges, hinted that the sequel's story might be easier to follow. He said he found it more digestible this time around, which might suggest a tighter narrative. But, don't mistake clarity for compromise. Kojima's still pushing boundaries; he's just making sure that what he's building can't be described as 'conventional.' So what do you think of Kojima's decision to rewrite his game because people liked it too much?
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Woodkid Says Hideo Kojima Changed ‘Death Stranding 2' Because It Wasn't ‘Polarizing'
Over the course of his more than 20-year career, Woodkid (real name Yoann Lemoine) has worked in just about every medium. The French singer-songwriter started his career in as a CGI artist in video games before becoming a prolific music video director, helming videos like Katy Perry's 'Teenage Dream,' Taylor Swift's 'Back to December,' and Harry Styles' 'Sign of the Times.' In 2011, he shifted yet again with the release of his own EP, titled Iron EP. Since then, he's continued down the path as a musician, releasing two more albums (2013's The Golden Age and 2020's S16) and the song 'Prologue' for the Paris 2024 Olympics, has never strayed too far from the gaming world — he counts himself as a fan of this year's breakout hits Blue Prince and (France's own) Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, to name a few. Now, he's returning to an active role in game creation as co-composer of PlayStation's Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (out June 26). More from Rolling Stone 10 Years of 'Critical Role': 'We Are Never Going Away' With the Release of the Switch 2, the Original Nintendo Switch Is Marked Down Online An Ode to the Nintendo DS Over the course of three years, Woodkid worked directly with Death Stranding creator and gaming visionary Hideo Kojima to produce hundreds of hours of music, a curated version of which now comprises the game's official soundtrack, Woodkid for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (out today). Unlike most video game music, Woodkid's tracks aren't just ambience, but fully vocalized songs with lyrics. The other twist is that each of the tracks has been designed to change dynamically based on the player's actions in-game, fluidly looping, extending, and contorting to run shorter or longer depending on how the game is interacted with, all without ever cutting lyrics or losing the narrative cohesion with the overall story. It's heady stuff, and extremely complicated from a technical perspective — which is fitting, given that Death Stranding itself and the work of Kojima (who previously created the Metal Gear Solid series) are often seen as highly experimental and philosophically obtuse. For Woodkid, it's a dream project; working with a collaborator like Kojima affords him the opportunity to create something that's artistically satisfying while also near guaranteed to be a mainstream success. For Kojima, having Woodkid on board means his creative vision can be brought to life sonically by someone who truly gets it. They better, there's no room for compromise ('You have no idea how much he doesn't give a shit,' Woodkid says.) Ahead of the game's recent live premiere event in Los Angeles, Rolling Stone met with Woodkid to discuss the complex process of reverse engineering his own music, the state of video games in popular culture, and how he bonded with Kojima over their shared 'fetishes.' This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. How did you get involved with ? Did Hideo Kojima seek you out?We met before the pandemic, and he used some of my songs in the first episode [Death Stranding], but it was songs from my previous records. He used 'Goliath' and 'Pale Yellow' in the gameplay. He contacted me just after, when he was working on the sequel, and he asked me to write a song for the new game. I was like, 'Yes, but I'm done with the whole email music and Covid, so if we work, we work together.' So, I went to Tokyo where I met with the teams and I worked in the building at Kojima Productions. And I wrote the first song, but because I wanted to give some options to Hideo, I wrote a couple songs, and then at the end of the day, [he] was like, 'Oh yeah, this I'm gonna use, and this one I'm gonna use, [this] gives me an idea.' But then I give him options, and then the options are becoming two different cut scenes. And then, what was one song ended up being like 20 hours of music. It's just a very fun experience of being sucked into Hideo's universe and just writing for it based on the actor's performance, the storyline, some scenes that he would show me, some gameplay moments. It started simple and it ended up a very, very complicated adventure How deeply involved was Kojima in the day-to-day production?It has always been very organic, in a way. It was more like I was feeding him elements. I've been working on procedural music, so music that can evolve all the time. That is difficult because they're pop songs, so they're sung. So, there was a whole level of procedurality that we had to create in the music based on the evolution of chord progression, the different layers of music. Every song that I was giving him was just a pop song, but it was also like 100 alternatives of that song that then the programmers could work with and exchange back and forth with us, so we would fine tune things. I think the fact that he had material that was shapeable allowed him to evolve with my work without it being constraining on my side. It was almost like planting seeds, and then he would grow the garden. How do you even write music that changes in real time while playing? Well, the main challenge is that when you sing a song with lyrics, there is, of course, another level — which is the narrative. And you kind of have to make it work with the storyline and whatever the action [that's] happening. And if you want a song to start at a certain point, but end at a certain point — and it can be two minutes for a player, but it can be 20 minutes for another player — you have to be able ton fill in the gaps between the words, between the meaning of the words and depending on what the player does. It's been a whole adventure of programming our own samplers and sequencers that would recreate code sequences based on musical theory so that the processors could rebuild the evolution of the harmonic progressions based on the actions of the player, but with it sounding very organic and not [like] it was computer-made. It was very interesting to create; it's almost like you have to extract the essence of what a song is on its purely theoretical, mathematic approach, and then you have to let the machine rebuild. It's almost like making a song, reverse engineering it, and then letting the machine rebuild it. It's like a four-minute song that becomes a 30-minute song. Have you wanted to create music like this before?It's very, very, very geeky, and something I've always been interested in conceptually — to create music that was ever-evolving, and that wasn't fixed and wasn't condemned to one version. Which is what you do when you do a first studio album; when you do a studio album, you kind of trap these songs, and it's often the first encounters you have with that song as an artist. Afterwards, you go on stage and you get to play them and make them change and evolve over time. Is what's on the soundtrack the original recordings or versions informed by the game's development?All the base stuff was made in Tokyo with Hideo, and I think it defined 90 percent of what's on the record now. But then I worked with people like Elle Fanning, [who] came in the process. I had already sung with her in the past; I've known her for 15 years now. She's a good friend, and she sung a version of 'To to Wilder' on the record. Describe the title track, 'To the Wilder.'I knew I wanted to make a song that was a celebration of the people who understood the game, the people who understood the statement of the [first] game. You know, the fact that the game was called a walking simulator and all this, I thought it was fun to reference that because I believe that it's the exact same [people] that love spending hours on their horse in Red Dead Redemption II just wandering around. I find that very ironic. I think that there is so much control in the work of Hideo; he knows exactly what he's doing. It's not random. And I think that the celebration was something that he really connected with, and the song, because that was exactly his intention. It was to celebrate the people that are wild and the people that love games that are different. How did Elle Fanning get involved with the alternate version that's on the soundtrack?When we started working on the song with Hideo, he's like,' Should we have her sing it?' It was like, 'Yes, I was dreaming for you to ask for it.' So, we met a year ago in Los Angeles, and we recorded the song. It was just, finally, I left like the song was coming alive, because it was just, suddenly, another voice was saying my words, and it felt like it was kind of validating the emotions that I had put in that song, especially when it comes from such a wonderful actress and talented person and singer like Elle. It has a complete other meaning. The lyrics can be heard as one person talking to one person, and that gives the idea of someone breaking up with someone. But when two people sing it and share these lyrics and sing it to each other, it's more about incompatibility with love and the way two people are too wild to live with each other, and this gives a total other dimension to the song. It becomes dialogue. The soundtrack has an eclectic mix of tones, from industrial to Americana. How did you reconcile those different sonic footprints?There are a lot of sides and approaches to my music over time, because I've composed a lot for stage, for my own records, for intimates and writings, but I've also worked a lot with images and cinema and video games. And I thought that [this] was the perfect project to reconcile this very bipolar kind of tonalities that are in me. [I also] think the work of Hideo is very bipolar. There's a political violence to it, but there's also a very sensitive human tenderness to it. And I thought it would be really interesting that the soundtrack would be a real reflection of that natural versus industrial and mechanical kind of texture that's there in the game. I think [there are] moments of the game that called for narrative and human emotion, where I sing, where I'm in a very sensitive territory with folk and Americana kind of ballads. I also wanted extreme I also wanted extreme German industrial record kind of violence, because I think the violence of the machines in that game really called for that. And it's something that I would have never done on a personal record because I don't know how I would have reconciled this inside the same record. For some reason, it makes a lot of sense in the world of Death Stranding. What appeals to you about the world of ?First of all, it's not geeky. Which is very important for me because I'm, more and more, looking for games that are not referencing themselves or that are self-digesting their own culture over and over again. I'm just so tired of seeing the same RPG, steampunky kind of worlds and I need to breathe fresh air. And I have this with the world of Kojima. I think he's so inspired by cinema and contemporary art and other forms of art. And I love the approach he has to nature, which is something that is very touching. Somehow, the way he celebrates nature in the games — he lets you watch and embrace nature. Do you think Kojima approaches sci-fi differently than other people?I like his approach [to] the future, which is not necessarily like a very Black Mirror kind of one-sided vision of technology in the future. It's always ambivalent. It's not like, 'Oh, AI is bad. AI is going to eat us all.' It has more depth to it, more intelligence, or more political intelligence in the way he approaches the themes. And I love that the first installment was about the idea of connection through technology. And the second one differs a little bit from that; the second one is a take on the first one, which I think is a very interesting narrative. How do you view your relationship with Kojima?I mean, we're friends. It's just a very intimate connection that we have. I think we have a lot in common, visually. A lot of fetishes that are common. I knew a lot about his work because I played Metal Gear Solid when I was a child, or a teenager. It was such a shock for me, visual shock. I think the PlayStation culture and, especially, these games like Final Fantasy and the world of Hideo, really shaped my eye and my sensitivity for this kind of medium. At the end of the day, it sweats in my work — his work sweats in my work and, even if I don't want it or don't want intellectualize it, it's just part of what built me. There's just this kind of connection of fetishes and visuals that I think are very strong between us, and I really appreciate that we're not afraid of darkness, and the melancholy that comes with darkness and these very sci-fi themes. It's just something we really embrace together and we're not ashamed of. Is there something essential that you learned from him over the course of development?There's a key moment where we had a discussion, probably halfway [through] when we were doing the game, where he came to me and he said, 'We have a problem.' 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.' And he changed stuff in the script and the way some crucial stuff [happens] in the game because he thought his work was not polarizing and not triggering enough emotions. And he said, '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. I want people to end up liking things they didn't like when they first encountered it, because that's where you really end up loving something. And that was really a lesson for me; not doing stuff to please people, but to make them shift a little bit and move them. It must be invigorating to work on something like this that's not a real anomaly in the work of Hideo and Death Stranding, which is [that] they're mainstream games, but are so radical. It's so hard to be mainstream and radical today, at the same time. To be mainstream, you kind of have to compromise with so much. You can make pieces of art that are halfway of everything, but Hideo? You have no idea how much he doesn't give a shit about this. He really doesn't. He doesn't compromise; he does what he wants. He knows what he's doing, and it's the traits of a genius. It doesn't mean that he doesn't listen, which is why I think he's a genius. [He's] shaping his world with the ideas of his teams. It's not just him bossing around everything. I've been feeding him; somehow, at some point shapeshifting and edit or something. But's always been a dialog. It's never been, 'I know exactly what I'm doing and no one else can interfere in the process. So, he's always been the exact opposite of this — having control by letting people in. People sometimes have the fake impression that Hideo is very egotistical, [but] he's someone that changes his mind very intelligently based on what people bring him. Do you think will inspire other developers?I think it will probably inspire people the way Metal Gear inspired so many people, the way his work has been inspiring to so many people. I already see a lot of Death Stranding in indie games, in the tonality and the ambition of the emotions. Some of these games try to mimic, but I think it's hard to copy Hideo. It's difficult, and it's very visible. It wouldn't be surprising seeing him being a very strong source of inspiration for film directors. I know the cinema world is really envious of his success and his vision and the radicality of his vision. 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Geek Feed
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Feed
Hideo Kojima Changed Death Stranding 2 Because People ‘Like it Too Much'
Death Stranding was already polarizing when it came out, and with the second game incoming, it's been revealed that 'polarizing' is exactly what Hideo Kojima wants out of his games. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Death Stranding 2 composer Woodkid reveals that Kojima opened up to him about a problem early in production where play testers 'liked it too much.' Woodkid explained: 'There's a key moment where we had a discussion, probably halfway [through] when we were doing the game, where he came to me and he said, 'We have a problem.' 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.' According to Woodkid, Kojima thought that if the game was being generally well-received, that means that it's 'not triggering enough emotions.' Woodkid continued to explain: 'And he said, '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. I want people to end up liking things they didn't like when they first encountered it, because that's where you really end up loving something. And that was really a lesson for me; not doing stuff to please people, but to make them shift a little bit and move them.'' If you've followed Hideo Kojima, you'll know that he's considered to be a modern auteur, and even though he's admittedly not for everyone, he does have a loyal fanbase who are always in for the ride that Kojima is promising them. We don't know if DS2 will end up polarizing enough, but maybe Kojima is aiming for The Last of Us Part II levels of backlash. I wonder how it will change the movie adaptation. Watch out for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach when it comes to PS5 on June 24.
