Hideo Kojima, mastermind of the Metal Gear series, has revealed more details about Kojima Productions’ upcoming game, Death Stranding.
During Sony PlayStation’s pre-Tokyo Game Show keynote, Kojima discussed the logo and title of the game, explaining that the lines descending from some of the letters in the Death Stranding logo were, in fact, cords. The game’s central theme is one of connection. Its title, Death Stranding, seems to suggest that this connection transcends normal humanity, and transcending life is something Kojima has certainly explored many times over in Metal Gear games.
The game will apparently be an action, open-world game with, cryptically, “a degree of freedom”. It will also feature unusual multiplayer focused on “strands”, which has yet to be detailed. The game was also confirmed to release in 4K and with HDR support.
Kojima may have also hinted at co-creators: When teasing the “strand” idea, he stood in front of the …friendship ring below. In the middle are clearly star Norman Reedus and Kojima. On the far left appears to be longtime-friend and onetime-collaborator Guillermo del Toro, and on the far right appears to be Mads Mikkelsen, who’s already been rumored to be involved with the game.
Kojima says of the game, “Talking about action games in early days, a game was really the player and the PC hitting each other with a rod or a club. Next, players were connected to one another online, later emerged the concept of co-op where players co-operated with each other against the CPU as a common enemy. Although players were connected, still the connection was based on clubs or rods. In Death Stranding I want to propose the next step. Here I am to offer a new game where players are connected by a strand or rope-like element. Of course, clubs will still be used in battle but at the end of the day I want to offer an action game where people are connected by different elements.”
As International Business Times helpfully points out, Kojima seems to be “referencing a story called Rope by Kobo Abe, which refers to mankind first inventing a club to keep things away, then inventing a rope to brings things together.”
Kojima plans to reveal more about Death Stranding on September 18th, at the Tokyo Game Show.