Hideo Kojima shocked fans during a Q&A session at the Tokyo Game Show today when he announced that his upcoming open world action title Death Stranding will release before 2019.
Kojima first stated that the game would release before the next Olympics, referring of course to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
He quickly elaborated by saying
To go a little further, there is a movie called Akira, and it will be out before the year in which Akira is set.
Akira is a highly regarded Japanese animated movie set in the year 2019, thus on can assume that Kojima at least plans for Death Stranding to release by the end of 2018.
Kojima was joined by long time friend and character and mech designer for the Metal Gear series Yoji Shinkawa, who joined Kojima at Kojima Productions to work on Death Stranding. Questions for the sessions were provided by fans via Twitter, and these two gentlemen revelaed some very interesting tidbits of information about the highly anticipated title.
Kojima having fun at Tokyo Game Show before the fan Q&A
Probably the biggest piece of news after the release window is the fact that Death Stranding will include a female protagonist, though the planning for this is still in the early stages, and casting is currently underway. Officially, the only cast member is currently Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead fame, who we can assume will play the male protagonist. No hints were given as to whether the player can choose to play as either hero or heroine, or if switching between them will be mandatory via scripted sequences or missions.
Shinkawa stated that he would love to see some mechs in Death Stranding.
Kojima also confirmed that Death Stranding is being developed on a “well-known” third-party engine, as opposed to in-house engine made from scratch.
What do you think of Death Stranding? Seems we won’t have to wait decades after all? One can hope… Drop us a comment and let us know!
For all the latest news on Death Stranding, keep an eye on Late Night Gamers!
Article written by Richard Doyle.
If you’d like to chat about gaming you can find me on twitter@LordRaminas
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