At E3 last week Hideo Kojima revealed his studio’s new game Death Stranding. While many fans were disappointed to hear that Kojima was not making a new pachinko machine, that disappointment soon turned into anticipation after seeing the trailer.

The trailer immediately sent fans of Kojima’s previous games for a spin by the lack of “Metal Gear” in the game’s title. However, Kojima kindly explained to them that Metal Gear ran away to live on a farm upstate with Uncle Konami and therefore would not be involved with the series. When pressed as to whether fans would ever see the Metal Gear franchise again Kojima smiled sadly and said, “Of course, we all will.”

Once fans began to move past their initial confusion they began to realize that the trailer was actually pretty confusing. But after one commentor remarked that the trailer was “the most confusing thing since Evangelion 3.0” and suddenly all the pieces began to slide into place.

Looking at the trailer with the mindset that it was part of the Evangelion series, fans soon began recognizing connections to the series. Firstly, the man with a fetus attached to him was a clear reference to Gendo being Shinji’s father. Secondly, the cross shape on the man’s stomach matched the symbol which appeared when an angel was defeated in the anime. Thirdly, fans realized that the people floating in the sky over a dead sea were the same ones as were there during Third Impact. Finally, and most convincingly, fans recognized the dead fish as being strikingly similar to Rei.

Under pressure from fans of both Kojima and Evangelion eventually Hideaki Anno came out and admitted that Death Stranding is actually the final part of the Evangelion film tetralogy in the form of a video game. According to Anno, players will control Gendo Ikari (played by Norman Reedus) as he attempts to put the series to a final rest. Anno also revealed the game’s actual title to be Evangelion: 4.0 Death can (not) Strand.

“Frankly,” wrote Anno in his address, “we got stuck in writing Evangelion 4.0, I mean after 3.0 we had no idea what was even happening. Then, when we heard that Kojima was getting fired we figured ‘hey, maybe Kojima can figure out what the hell is going on.’ When we called him up he said he would love to work with us, the only thing he was concerned about was if it would be alright for him to make 4.0 a ‘bit more complex’ as according to him ‘3.0 was a bit too simple to understand.’ We instantly knew we had our guy.”

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