Between Ghost of Tsushima and Death Stranding (opens in new tab), Sony's big thing of late is updating and rereleasing its first-party games with "Director's Cut" editions. But that particular phrasing doesn't appear to have sat well with Death Stranding director (and noted cinephile) Hideo Kojima.
Over the weekend, the storied game director took to Twitter (opens in new tab) to make a surprisingly public rebuttal against his own game's marketing. In his eyes, a director's cut doesn't involve making anything new, only remixing what's there or reintroducing content cut during development. Adding a brand new racing minigame (opens in new tab), in his eyes, does not make for a director's cut.
"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," said Kojima.
"In the game, it is not what was cut, but what was additionally produced that was included. Director's Plus? So, in my opinion, I don't like to call 'director's cut'."
Of course, Death Stranding's "Director's Cut" is nothing new to games. It's the "Game of the Year Edition", filtered through PlayStation's obsession with cinematic presentation (opens in new tab) (fittingly, we did name Death Stranding our game of the year (opens in new tab) for 2020). Kojima's definition may also need updating in a world where Zack Snyder can spend over $70 million (opens in new tab) on Justice League reshoots.
We still don't know if or when Death Stranding: Director's Cut will come to PC. But when it does, it'll add brand new story missions, a host of new weapons and fights, and a cargo catapult for yeeting your parcels across America. How's that for express delivery?
