In an exclusive interview with Glixel, Hideo Kojima spoke of his upcoming game Death Stranding, referring to it as "not a horror game" but "something that looks very unique, something you haven't seen before, something with a more artistic slant to it." Kojima also insisted that "I'm not pursuing a dark aspect to the game." Which does sort of make sense. Kojima's body of work does not restrict itself in terms of genres or content. Kojima's Metal Gear games cross several lines. They are at one glance typical spy action games, but when you look deeper there is something intensely political there with a lot of thought put into the character's motivations and histories. Kojima's also got a tendency to add strange mechanics and move games from being simply games into experiences by having boss fights you can only win by switching your controller into a different port on the console, having the antagonist mock your saved game history – including the content of other games you've got on your hard-drive.

Kojima went on to say that "humor is a very important aspect for games. You play a game for a very long time – Death Stranding is a big game, too – and you put stress on the player and you lead them through peaks and valleys. Humor is an important aspect to make sure the player can enjoy playing across these peaks and valleys. So we'll have humor in this game too, but to a degree that it doesn't ruin the world setting. It will be at an appropriate level." Which can mean so many things to us. Maybe we'll have some typical Kojima shenanigans where Norman Reedus spends an entire cutscene hanging out in a cardboard box or maybe something more 4th-wall breaking. Possibly both. And honestly, there will definitely be things about this game that I would never even be able to guess.

Death Stranding will be no different, that I think we all know. But the trailers we've seen for Death Stranding are incredibly eerie. From the first trailer debuted with Reedus, the inclusion of director Guillermo del Toro who is known for his dark yet imaginative movies, to the Mads Mikkelson announcement, there is something dark about the game – other than the title itself. Honestly, the Mikkelson announcement trailer has an abundance of creepy elements. From del Toro's baby in a jar to Mikkelson's face, I'm not seeing much room for comedy. Then again, surprising differences in tone is something Kojima is known for.

What we do know about Death Stranding so far is rather limited for a game that has been hyped this much. We know it will be on Guerilla's Decima engine like Horizon: Zero Dawn, that it will feature acting by Reedus, Mikkelsen, and Guillermo del Toro, and that it will be released before 2019 for the PS4. So. Pretty vague. Oh right, and something about dead whales probably. But, we'll see what we get over the coming days as Kojima has been very active this week. Maybe we'll get something a bit more concrete from Death Stranding. Or maybe we'll get the usual Kojima treatment.



