DEATH STANDING
Kojima’s big, weird adventure is getting closer to release
Format PS4 ETA TBC Pub Sony Dev Kojima Productions
At the Argentina Games Show actor Troy Baker was on hand to explain just how “big and weird” Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding is going to be. It’s the first game the enigmatic developer’s made since leaving Konami and signing to Sony.
According to Baker, Hideo Kojima had the entire game in his head for two years before development began. He didn’t make any notes or detailed documents about the story, characters, or action, but chose to just jump into making the game.
“He has assembled an incredible cast to pull off a fantastical game,” says Baker, who plays The Man In The Golden Mask, a mysterious character who was revealed at the Tokyo Game Show. “It’s trippy, it’s weird; I have no idea when it’s coming out. I believe I’ve finished filming, so my role and everything – and I think Norman’s finished as well but I could be wrong.”
Those final words suggest the game is closer to completion than anyone may have expected, and hints at a 2019 release. Of course, there’s a great deal of difference between actors finishing on a game’s production and the artists and coders finalising the project.
CLASS ACTS
Baker joins a hefty cast of Hollywood stars, which now includes Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead), Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale), Guillermo del Toro (The Shape Of Water), Léa Seydoux (Spectre), Lindsay Wagner (The Bionic Woman), and Emily O’Brien (Batman: The Enemy Within).
What is Death Stranding, other than Kojima’s pet project designed to corral his friends and get the internet twitching? The honest answer is: no-one really knows. Even some of the talent involved seem to have only a vague idea of what the final game will play like.
We do know there’s a hefty multiplayer component, likely tied to co-op ideas. There’s also a meta-game in which you need to carry precariously balanced parcels across a desolate landscape of waterfalls and shingle; each parcel is its own physical object so one wrong move and they all tumble. And we also know there’s an alternate world of sorts, alien beings, dangerous unseen forces, and spooky babies that power mechanisms that can see into this hidden world. Stealth, minigames, incredible visuals… it is, as Baker says, going to be ‘weird’. But very, very impressive.
“HE’S ASSEMBLED AN INCREDIBLE CAST TO PULL OFF A FANTASTICAL GAME.”