Hideo Kojima appeared at last night’s Game Awards to receive an “industry icon” award after being barred from attending in 2015, and the legendary designer brought a gift for viewers, as well: a second trailer for Death Stranding featuring two more familiar faces and a healthy amount of Kojima weirdness.
The trailer opens with similar imagery from the first video we saw back at E3, with crabs replacing the dead, beached whales lying in puddles of oil, and a still baby doll lies motionless as an unfamiliar figure quickly walks past.
As planes zip by in the sky overhead, the figure turns around to reveal that he actually is familiar — it’s film director Guillermo Del Toro, who was previously collaborating with Kojima on Silent Hills before the project was canceled by Konami. The director took to Twitter last night to express his displeasure with the publisher.
A tank, covered in what appears to be viscera, slowly drives by on a bridge directly above Del Toro, who opens up a portable incubator to reveal a baby sleeping inside … the baby then winks at the camera, because of course it does.
The focus then switches to the sewer behind Del Toro, as the baby doll continues to move with the current of the water or oil quickly accumulating on the ground. A literal skeleton army then appears out of the shadows, let by none other than Hannibal actor Mads Mikkelsen. Ink seeps from his eyes and fingers, and the skeletons are directly connected to him through what appear to be artificial umbilical cords.
The trailer answers absolutely no questions from the original reveal, and that’s exactly what we want out of Hideo Kojima. Death Stranding looks to be his most bizarre project since Metal Gear Solid 2, and we couldn’t be happier. The game will launch at an unspecified point in the future for PlayStation 4.
