At what ended up being one of Sony’s most successful E3 press conferences ever, Hideo Kojima appeared on stage after an introduction by PlayStation President and Group CEO Andrew House to much applause.
The prolific game creator came on stage to show off a teaser for his new game, Death Stranding.
The trailer, starring Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead), depicts a man waking up from what appears to be a caesarian section, discovering a child laying next to him, then realizing he is on a beach covered in oil with thousands of dead sea-life all around him. No, there is no proper way to explain this game, so perhaps watching the trailer will do the description justice.
But does the teaser trailer really matter in the grand scheme of things? No. In fact, this may be the teaser that is farthest away from an actual game in the history of the medium. This is actually not a teaser trailer, it is no more than internal concept art made to look really pretty for the outside world. Heck, even Rainbow Six: Patriots was further along in development than this game is.
Speaking with Geoff Keighley at YouTube Live at E3, Kojima revealed quite a bit about the game’s current stage of development, and it sounds like the game isn’t even really in the works yet.
Kojima Productions has yet to choose an engine that the game will run on, saying that there are a still couple of candidates. The teaser we saw was said to be running in real-time, but could be running on any modern 3D engine given that it is a non-playable demonstration.
Having revealed that it will “take some time before we are able to play the game,” Kojima also revealed that Ludens, the character behind the Kojima Productions logo, is not a part of this title. This goes in contrast to what many believed in that Ludens was said to be the main character–or one of them–in the company’s next game.
While no one expected Kojima to have a game released in the next two to three years, as it stands, the teaser for Death Stranding is little more than a piece of hope meticulously manufactured as eye and ear candy. Don’t get us wrong: it was an impeccably crafted trailer that raised many questions and left few, if any, answered. It does exactly what a trailer should do.
But be careful: just because the teaser is out there doesn’t mean the game is any closer to completion than, say, Half-Life 3 is at this stage.