Death Stranding had a number of bizarre celebrity cameos you wouldn’t expect, but the sequel is going a step further with Kojima including VTuber Usada Pekora as a cameo character.
Whether they’re on the main cast or show up briefly as the Prepper of a settlement you’re delivering to, Death Stranding 1 was filled to the brim with celebrities. Kojima’s studio spent a great deal of time putting faithful renditions of these people in the game.
However, Death Stranding 2 is taking it a step further, featuring a person who isn’t technically even real but that Hideo Kojima is a huge fan of.
Usada Pekora is making a guest appearance in Death Stranding 2 as one of many Preppers players can interact with in-game.
Usada Pekora becomes real character in Death Stranding 2
The entire point of Death Stranding (and assumedly the core gameplay of Death Stranding 2) is about delivering packages to settlements. There’s more to it than that, but the game is mostly about ferrying supplies.
Due to chiral rain, precipitation that rapidly ages anything it touches, along with other dangers of the post apocalyptical world, you’re tasked with delivering supplies to settlements that can’t leave captivity, with Preppers being their figureheads.
Despite more comedic additions to the original Death Stranding like talk show host Conan O’Brien and video game show host Geoff Keighley, every cameo had an in-universe character to play.
Usada Pekora is on a different level, though.
How does she fit into the story? Why is she there? Are VTubers real in the Death Stranding universe? This game has a talking, stop-motion animated puppet as one of the featured main characters, so who even knows at this point?
However, due to her showing up as a Prepper, it’s likely she won’t play a major role in the story and will merely exist as a goofy side character.
The Preppers managing these settlements often appear as holograms to briefly thank the player for their services, provide context on the area they’re in, and give outside missions relevant to the supplies they need. They have very little screen time.
Pekora may seem like a weird addition beside Hollywood celebrities, but she’s immensely popular and one of Hololive’s biggest names. So popular in fact that her mom, Pekomama, is a VTuber who exists as a side character in the Hololive fandom and has an almost equally massive following. She had over 180k concurrent viewers for her debut alone, the current record for a VTuber’s debut stream.
Pekora and Pekomama livestreaming together
Who knows? Maybe Kojima will put Pekomama in Death Stranding 2 as well.
