Everything We Know So Far About Hideo Kojima’s ‘Death Stranding’

During the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Hideo Kojima finally released gameplay footage from his most anticipated game, Death Stranding. Since leaving Konami in 2015, gamers all over the world waited for Kojima’s next move. We all wondered – will he work as an independent developer or will he join a different gaming company?

Unsurprisingly, Kojima chose to start his own gaming company and is now making one of his most ambitious games yet, in partnership with Sony.

But even after watching the gameplay and all the previous trailers, some of us have been scratching our heads trying to figure out what it all means. As if the magnitude of the game itself is not enough reason for us to buy PS4 at Harvey Norman right now, it seems Kojima is just bent on teasing us. So to help deduce what Death Stranding, here is everything we know so far about the game.

What is Death Stranding?

Hideo Kojima is known for his complex and philosophical plot points, which we saw in the Metal Gear Solid series plus the short gameplay for the now-cancelled Silent Hill game. Now that he is working under his own brand, it is looking like Kojima is continuing his complex thematics, and maybe going even further with Death Stranding.

The game follows Sam, played by Walking Dead‘s Norman Reedus, who describes himself as a delivery man. He is navigating in what looks like a post-apocalyptic setting, escaping figures connected by stands to the sky. Reedus is joined by Hannibal’s Mads Mikkelsen, Palme d’Or winning actor Lea Seydoux, Emmy Award-winning actor Lindsay Wagner, and Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro.

This is the debut game of Kojima Productions, a new gaming studio in which some of Kojima’s core development members from his Metal Gear years are a part of.

Theories and expectations

Of course, with a game as vague as Death Stranding, forums are ablaze with theories about who the characters are and what the game means. Some of them came as far as looking into the media Hideo Kojima consumes himself, as well as some of the overarching themes in some of the games he has developed.

There are theories that focus on each character’s abilities or traits and how these may be powers that will be relevant in the gameplay. But the most interesting theory to come out is about the plot itself.

Death Stranding is supposed to be the name of an event that happened in the game. While nothing is clear about what the event actually is, the setting somehow became filled with fetuses in glass containers powering suits that detect invisible creatures. Going from just the trailers, Death Stranding may have caused freaky changes to reality.

There are some theorists that have gone beyond world building and onto symbolism, saying that the characters may quite literally depict avatars of real gamers who are aware of their existence as in-video game personas.

At this point, we are only certain of one thing when it comes to Death Stranding: we will get all the answers once it is released. So we might as well buy our PS4 consoles at Harvey Norman now because this game is definitely going to blow our minds.