Death Stranding Update
This weekend, at the Tribeca Games Festival, Hideo Kojima shared an update about his mysterious and highly anticipated game Death Stranding! He also explained why Norman Reedus, an actor from The Walking Dead, appears naked in the first trailer for the game which originally came out at E3 last year.
Although Hideo Kojima doesn’t get into specifics about Death Stranding, he did confirm that his team at Kojima Productions is currently testing the game using their Decima Engine. Further to this, the general plan for the project and the plot for the game are in place, and these tests the production team is running, for the game systems, characters, and environments is “going pretty well.” These details could mean the game is still in the earlier stages of development, however it could apparently come out sometime next year!
Hideo Kojima explained that when he created the role for the protagonist of Death Stranding, he had Norman Reedus specifically in mind to play the character. Mr. Kojima also explained why we saw the Norman Reedus’ character naked, stating that he wanted to see the character naked at first, and then players would be able to see him dressed in different costumes, hairstyles and equipment. From the simple, to the more complicated versions of the character it seems. He also mentioned that he began working with movie actors because the artificial CG just isn’t that fun, stating that he wanted something more real.
By involving real actors, the results could be unpredictable, and outside of the results originally imagined. Hideo Kojima said that this is a way to be able to expand the project beyond the original intent. The Kojima Productions boss also explained how everything is going, using a metaphor from the real world:
“Let’s say that Norman’s character is walking in New York (and the game is not set in New York, this is just an example), we’re trying to see if what we can depict with Decima Engine actually looks like New York, if it scales correctly and feels good there. Let’s say the character goes in an Italian restaurant, who the character meets going into the restaurant, what he will be eating, all those details are decided. What we’re working right now on is what kind of tables will be there, the specific dialog, what is gonna be the menu of this restaurant… Those things are the things that we’re tuning right now.”
Hideo Kojima delved into the creative process of the game as well, saying that while the overall story has not changed, details will need to be adjusted as the development process continues. The production team is completing the whole process within the company where Hideo Kojima envisions a character and then Yoji Shinkawa prepares a design where it then gets passed onto 3D designers to create models. If any changes need to be made throughout this final process, it gets kicked back to Yoji Shinkawa.
Keep it locked for updates as they become available.