As the Death Stranding release date is revealed as 8 November in a bewildering nine-minute trailer, we revisit our interview with director Hideo Kojima in which he talks about working with his favourite Hollywood actors and why every game could be his last...

When The Telegraph sits down for a rare audience with iconic game developer Hideo Kojima in a private meeting room off the E3 show floor his body is with us in downtown Los Angeles but his mind is very much up the road in Hollywood.

The night before he premiered the fourth trailer for his latest opus Death Stranding at Sony Playstation’s press conference. Much like the first three it proved both utterly compelling and completely baffling. Opaque cutscenes featuring foetuses in jars and invisible monsters who left handprints in the mud punctuated long-awaited first glimpses of gameplay almost completely comprised of scenes of The Walking Dead actor Norman Reedus’ courier character trudging forlornly across beautiful but barren landscapes.

Kojima obsessives - of which there are many due to his incredibly popular series of mind-bending Metal Gear Solid action games - have spent two years poring over these clips and also the director’s social media feeds in an attempt to decipher what it all means. Significant swathes of the internet are stuffed with fan theories taking in everything from hardcore scientific theory to hatstand science fiction fantasies - often all at once.