One of the surprising elements of 2019’s Death Stranding was the involvement of Scottish band Chvrches. Chvrches performed the song also called Death Stranding, the title track of the 2019 album Death Stranding Timefall.
Music outlet NME recently interviewed members of Chvrches about working on a Death Stranding 2 soundtrack, given their publicly known friendship with the game’s lead producer, Hideo Kojima.
Chvrches member Martin Doherty had this to say about the possibility of that happening:
“I mean, we’re available. There’s nothing formal yet. We’ve talked [and] we’ve hinted heavily at each other that we would both like to collaborate again.
There’s sort of a dance going on right now. I don’t want to be rejected by all out saying, ‘Can we be on the game please?’ and [Kojima] says no. But I don’t know.
We’re continuing to build a really special relationship with Hideo. And I think we get him and I think he gets us. If the call comes in to do more then of course, we’ll be there in a second.”
Earlier, Chvrches appeared with Hideo Kojima in the Brain Structure podcast. Answering this same question, Kojima had this to say:
“It would be nice if we could make something work. I wanna do something different, something no one has done before. Having one song in the game is expected, right? So what if we had [Chvrches] make like 100 songs or something?”
As exciting as this prospect may be for fans of both Hideo Kojima and Chvrches, they may need to keep something else in mind. Chvrches are signed to Sony Music, and in fact, the artists in the Death Stranding Timefall album were all signed to Sony as well.
Death Stranding was produced and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. So, even if Kojima and Chvrches have a close relationship, they would have to get through Sony to get a deal for music on Death Stranding 2 worked out.
When Kojima spoke about his hopes they could make something work, this is what he means. Sony have their own plans for Chvrches’ career, who are at their fourth full length album, and they may or may not be willing to extend this collaboration for more than one or two songs.
The actual composer for Death Stranding himself is Ludvig Forssell, audio director at Kojima Productions. If a closer collaboration between Kojima Productions and Chvrches would happen in the future, Ludvig would likely be a part of that too.
It would be certainly be interesting if Chvrches were more involved in Death Stranding 2? What if this is all low key a tease, and the band themselves are actually in the game? I’m sure they’re all laughing it up about teasing this right now, if that was the case.
Death Stranding 2 has been confirmed to be in development, but no platforms or release dates have been announced.
