Announced at E3 2016, Death Stranding was little more than a concept at that stage as active development on the game had not started. However development on the game was done quite rapidly as according to Kojima the game took less than 3 years.

In a series of Twitter posts Kojima outlined his and Kojima’s Production’s journey after they left Konami post completion of Metal Gear Solid 5.

The legendary developer outlined the timeline that led to starting active development on the game (via 1,2), which subsequently started after their office construction completed in January of 2017.

Do note by active development we’re referring to all hands on development, the pre-development had obviously begun quite sooner.

2015/12/16 established KJP & started recruiting

2016/1 searching for engine

2016/4 making LUDENS CG

2016/5 moved to office

2016/6 announced 1st trailer

2016/7 announced KJP trailer

2016/fall engine decided

2016/12 announced PV by DECIMA had to stop shooting due to SAG strike

2017/1 office construction has been completed

He further explained how by the beginning of 2016 (January to be specific) Death Stranding only existed in his brain. Kojima spent the year finalizing the game’s cast including convincing Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen (via 1,2).

2016/2 met Norman in LA and asked to be the main role

2016/3 did Norman’s scan & P cap in San Diego for the trailer

2016/6 did presentation to Mads on Skype

2016/7 asked Mads to be a part of this project in San Diego

2016/8 did Mads’ scan & P cap for the trailer in UK

2016/9 did Guillermo’s scan & P cap for the trailer in Canada

Guerilla Games’ Decima Engine is certainly a beast helping Kojima create such an ambitious open-world game like Death Stranding in such a short amount of time. Kojima Productions deserve a lot of credit for this as well as they tend to be fairly efficient with their development. I think the game that took the longest dev time for KP was Metal Gear Solid 4 and even that took 4 years, which is somewhat the standard with AAA game development nowadays.

Death Stranding releases November 8, 2019 on the PS4.

Thoughts on the news? What do you think of Death Stranding? Let us know in the comments below.