Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is out now, and the latest Hideo Kojima Game by Kojima Productions certainly have critics raving good things. Not as much as us here, but I still think it’s worth the long, arduous cargo-delivering trip. Especially when you consider some of the cool things that some may or may not get, depending on what fandom you are in.
And while it’s always clear how much Kojima loves films—look at the lineup of Hollywood stars and directors that make up the cast—Death Stranding 2 is also a title where the video game auteur share his passion on other things pop culture, one that’s seen the rise in the last few years.
I’m talking about Vtubers. In particular one Vtuber that Kojima has been a fan of recently.
(Minor Spoiler Warning: This feature will spoil parts of Death Stranding 2: On The Beach which contains content associated to the Data Scientist character.)
In Death Stranding 2, you’ll meet various folks that command the are stationed in the each region of Mexico and Australia. And a lot of the likeness you see in the holograms greeting you at these stations, the Preppers, are celebrity cameos. A who’s who list of who Kojima thinks is cool, and likely have hanged out in some ways before getting them on board and make a cameo in the game. One of these Preppers is unlike the other. She’s the only one to speak in Japanese, undubbed, when played in English—something of note when you see a few celebs that don’t speak English natively are dubbed over. And she also appears straight out of an anime.
She’s… the Data Scientist.
In the world of Death Stranding 2, most of these preppers don’t play as themselves outside a few. So for the uninitiated, these are just characters in a video game. But the Data Scientist sticks out like a sore thumb. I imagine quite a few gamers who got jumpscared after connecting that part of Australia into the chiral network only to have a rabbit anime girl to appear, if the Japanese voice that you’ll hear first upon your first visit isn’t jarring enough.
But I also imagine that folks who had fallen into the rabbit hole (Kojima included), this is the hypest thing ever. It’s Hololive 3rd Generation’s Usada Pekora! It’s her! The nominee for Content Creator Of The Year at The Game Awards 2024! The top 3 most popular female streamer of Q1 2025 and biggest channel by number of followers in 2025 with 14 million subscribers on YouTube!
She’s here greeting nicely to Sam-ojisan as she calls him, as you make your first delivery to her, a pizza, in a curiously large packaging.
And fans who do know her will get that despite the kawaii nature of her persona hides her more… playful side. As the Data Scientist, you’ll get this impression immediately as you’ll see her engage in a little bit of trolling. As you approach the destination a bunch of turrets will lock on you and shoot missiles. It was on purpose. The Data Scientist coyly apologises for this antic, and she’s happy to receive her pizza which includes a side order: guns. Typical Usada Pekora behaviour.
And fittingly, she gives you unlocks for more weaponry, too. Keep sending her those lost packages and complete her aid requests, peko.
All that’s missing in this game is her infectious omnidirectional laughs. She’s all sweet all the time as the Data Scientist.
This could’ve been just a small little cameo, like most of the other celebrity Preppers. But no, it goes a step beyond. Improving your connection with the Data Scientist and you’ll unlock a new cosmetic, the Nousagi hat.
This is a reference to the name of Pekora’s fanbase, called the Nousagi, personified as these little limbless blobs of rabbits, as depicted on this hat that I’m surprised is not an official merchandise you can buy right now. It’s not a product placement like those puffer jackets the Drawbridge crew wear while on the bridge of the DHV Magellan. But it should.
But this funny hat has an undisclosed feature: it changes all of Sam’s usual barks, the voicelines Norman Reedus says during gameplay. With the Nousagi hat equipped, Sam, and by extension Norman Reedus, becomes a Nousagi. From time to time, Sam will blurt out “peko peko peko” in a rhythm of him walking replicating the verbal tic of what is now his oshi. The shouts when you press down the touchpad? It’s all now a variation of him calling out for Pekora.
And you should bring Sam the Nousagi into combat. His CQC combos is now peppered with “peko, peko, peko!” between each punch. And go do that running superman punch. Sam gives out a guttural “Otsupeko!” like he means it. That’s Pekora’s catchphrase when she says goodbye, like when she’s about to end the stream, a play on the “Otsukaresama deshita” (“thank you for your hard work”) saying in Japan.
Sam says the typical Japanese saying when someone is clocking off from a long day’s work, as he’s about to clock someone from a long day’s work. It’s incredible to behold.
For most of the celeb cameos, it’s safe to say Norman Reedus has little to no interaction with them. The way most video game voice recordings work is that a voice actor records their line in isolation, rarely with any direct interaction with a fellow actor. So Reedus could just be unaware of who else Kojima has managed to rope in to be part of Death Stranding 2.
But the fact that Reedus has to utter catchphrases and chant Pekora’s name, he’s either a really versatile actor that can play ball with just about anything, a really good voice director guided him to give those outstanding reads, or he had a crash course about Vtubers and an explainer who the hell is Usada Pekora.
Whichever is true, it’s still funny to think about that this Hollywood actor has to indirectly interact with a Vtuber. It’s not the first time of course, Vtubers under Hololive, the agency which Pekora is part of, have regularly interview Hollywood actors and directors (the results are as fascinatingly mixed). But to see such interaction, indirectly, preserved in a video game, is amazing.
The things Kojima does for I assume to be his kami-oshi. He’s turned Norman Reedus into the strongest nousagi.
And for the nousagis out there, you too can live out vicariously through Sam/Norman Reedus to show your appreciation to your kami-oshi. As seen here, you can wave to Pekora’s hologram and see her wave back, kneel down before her, or have her displayed on the private room wall as if you’re tuning in to her livestream.
And should you wish to spread the good word and send more unassuming Kojima fans into the rabbit hole, you can decorate upgraded structures so Pekora would greet you. She even does her full intro (the updated one, of course, though I do miss the old one where English speakers misheard the ending bit as “almondo almondo”). Share the love, let them see more of the adorable war criminal (due to current world events I must clarify this is an in-joke) and discover the vast content within the Vtuber space.
Kojima thinks Vtubers are cool. I think so too, and I’m glad he and the Kojima Productions team went above and beyond in making this cameo something real special. Vtuber fans, we won.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is out now on PS5. Check out our review here.