Death Stranding turns 7 and the series passes 28 million players worldwide

Seven years of carrying packages, and the porters keep coming. Kojima Productions announced late Saturday (ET) that “the DEATH STRANDING series has now surpassed 28 million players worldwide,” timed to #DeathStrandingDay on November 8. The original game first launched on PlayStation 4 on November 8, 2019, and Hideo Kojima got the party started a little early with his own post: “DEATH STRANDING turns 7 today… Thank you to all the Sam Ones around the world!”

What the 28 million actually counts

This is a player number, not a sales number, and that matters. Per iXBT Games and VGTimes, the total spans every console and PC version of the original Death Stranding, Death Stranding Director’s Cut and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, plus people who played through subscription services. VGTimes adds that free giveaways count too. Kojima Productions did not break the number down by game or platform, so there’s no way to tell how much of it is the sequel.

The climb has been steady. VGTimes lays out the path: about 5 million copies sold by March 2021, 10 million players by November 2022, past 20 million by March 2025, and over 27 million by this summer. Death Stranding 2 launched on PS5 in June 2025 and reached PC in March 2026, where iXBT notes it sits at a 95% positive Steam rating from roughly 28,000 reviews.

More than a number

The studio also shared a new anniversary piece from concept artist Entei Ryu, and the anniversary poster leans hard on BB, with the line “7 years since BB was born.” Kojima has also been pointing fans at the Kojima Productions exhibition, which is showing never-before-seen production material from both Death Stranding games.

PPR take: I’ll be honest, Death Stranding was never a “for everyone” game. A walking-and-delivery sim with a baby in a jar shouldn’t add up to 28 million players, and yet here we are. Part of that is reach: Game Pass, PS Plus and those Epic giveaways put the original in a lot of hands that never paid full price, and a player count is a friendlier stat than copies sold. But you don’t keep a fanbase growing for seven years on freebies alone. The asynchronous stuff, building a bridge and finding out later that strangers used it, is still one of the coolest multiplayer ideas out there. With the sequel now on PC and doing very well on Steam, 30 million feels like a when, not an if. Happy birthday, BB.