Death Stranding celebrates 5th anniversary with almost 20 million total players

In a surprise announcement, Hideo Kojima revealed that his studio has acquired the rights to the Death Stranding IP, allowing the 2019 title to now be published on Xbox consoles. Alongside this, it has been revealed that the much-loved ‘Strand-type’ game has been played by almost 20 million people.

Making the announcement via Twitter, Kojima celebrated the game's 5th birthday, saying “DEATH STRANDING 5th anniversary. Thank you all so much. We have over 19 million players (porters) all over the world. Really, I’m so happy I went independent and created this game.”

For the uninitiated, Death Stranding started as a PlayStation 4 exclusive, before coming to PC less than a year later.

The game then received an enhanced remaster in the form of Death Stranding Director’s cut in 2021 for both PC and PS5. While unlikely to have contributed too much to the total player count, the game also arrived on iOS and other Apple platforms back in January of this year.

Of course, it is worth noting that 19 million players does not necessarily mean the game has sold 19 million copies, especially as the title has been made available on the likes of PlayStation Plus Extra and the Epic Games Store in the past.

Even so, Death Stranding is an excellent and unique game, and so it is exciting to see that Xbox players can finally try out Kojima’s most recent creation.

KitGuru says: Are you one of the 19 million players? What’s your opinion on Death Stranding? How long of an exclusivity period do you think DS2 will have on PS5? Let us know down below.

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