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The news that Rockstar was pushing the Grand Theft Auto VI release date to May 2026 was a huge relief to many people in the gaming industry, who were worried that their 2025 releases would try (and probably fail) to compete with GTA for people’s attention. One person who was unbothered, however, was Hideo Kojima, who says that Death Stranding 2’s release date was set in stone long before he knew they wouldn’t have Grand Theft Auto to compete with – and just how finished the game currently is.

Now we know that Grand Theft Auto isn’t coming out until 2026, but when Kojima recorded his latest podcast episode in mid-April, Rockstar was still aiming for a 2025 release window. “If GTA VI were announced for November, the second that happened everyone else would move their game’s release date out of that month,” which is a testament to just how big a release the new Grand Theft Auto is set to be.

When the episode was recorded, Hideo Kojima confirmed that Death Stranding 2: On the Beach was around 95% completed, with most of the development time now going to fixing bugs in the open-world game. He also explained the June release date was set in stone by Sony regardless of when Grand Theft Auto came out. “Sony has other various games lined up, so we can’t overlap with these titles. It’s the same with movies. This decision was made quite a while back… If we end up releasing Death Stranding 2 even slightly late, it will be a problem.”

Those games appear to be Ghost of Yotei, the sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, in October and the remake of Kojima’s own Metal Gear Solid 3 in August. There is also Borderlands 4, which is due out in September and could have posed as solid competition for Death Stranding 2.

As it is, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will release on June 26, 2025, well clear of those titles and nearly a year ahead of Grand Theft Auto VI’s eventual release date. Something that even Hideo Kojima is probably thankful for.

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