Nintendo helped develop Death Stranding 2 in a fairly roundabout way. Video games are a very collaborative effort, a lot of studios help each other in various ways. Epic Games has a hand in a ton of games thanks to the fact it developed Unreal Engine, Crystal Dynamics is helping out on Perfect Dark, and a lot of teams under a larger umbrella like Sony or Xbox often help each other out to make the best game possible. It’s pretty much unheard of for a big AAA game to be developed solely by the team that is credited on the box. Even Call of Duty is developed by a wide variety of studios these days.
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With that said, some may be surprised to see Nintendo is named in Death Stranding 2‘s very long credits sequence at the end of the game. This credit is specifically for Nintendo Pictures, a Japanese animation studio owned by the gaming giant. They do a variety of things for the animation medium from CG to motion capture, but their appearance in the credits certainly raised some eyebrows for some fans.
As noted by VGC, the credit is possibly the result of a contract that was made when Death Stranding 2 entered production about 4 or 5 years ago, which was before Nintendo even owned this company. The company was previously known as Dynamo Pictures and worked on a wide variety of projects, but Nintendo acquired the company in 2022 and renamed it.
The company was credited on the original Death Stranding as well, but it’s probably less likely that they will work on future Kojima games or a potential Death Stranding 3. It’s still an interesting credit and cool to see Nintendo collaborate on a PlayStation game, especially given the unique history between the two companies. Some have assumed there’s bad blood between PlayStation and Nintendo, but PlayStation did put LEGO Horizon Adventures on Nintendo Switch last year and there are some rumors that more games could come to Switch 2, but that remains to be seen.
As for Death Stranding 2, it’s one of PlayStation’s best games this generation. The game is being hailed as a Game of the Year candidate as it refines the ideas from the first game and makes them far more engaging and exciting. It’s a huge leap for the series as the first game was quite divisive, but the sequel is being embraced in a big way.
