Death Stranding Won’t Be At E3, But At Least We Get A New Image From Kojima

You’ll be waiting a bit longer for another Death Stranding update. Hideo Kojima confirmed Death Stranding will not make an appearance at E3 2017. The game was first announced during Sony’s press conference at E3 2016. Kojima’s latest IP came as a surprise since the game developers was coming out of a nasty break-up with Konami.

Kojima tweeted on Wednesday, “Apologies to our fans, Death Stranding will not be @ E3 as we are fully focused on development. Pls see me with @geoffkeighley on 6/14!”

So Kojima will be at E3, but the game won’t be. Kojima also released an image with the above tweet. It looks like this:

Yeah, we still have no idea what this game is about, but it looks cool. The spider web goes along with the theme of “strands” that tie everyone together. The last Death Stranding update from Kojima came during a panel at Tribeca Games Festival. He dropped a few gems while casually discussing his vision for the game, including the reasoning behind prominently featuring a naked Norman Reedus in the first Death Stranding trailer.

“I was definitely thinking about Norman when creating the character,” Kojima said through his interpreter. “I’m specifically thinking about Norman with him in mind. For the teaser, when you see Norman naked, that’s something I specifically had in mind. I wanted people to see first a naked Norman and from there you’ll see him in different costumes, hairstyles and equipment.”

More naked Norman, please! He went on to say the development for Death Stranding is on schedule. The PlayStation-exclusive game uses the new Decima engine to create the Death Stranding environments. Kojima mentioned during Tribeca Games that his team is working on fine-tuning details in the world to make it feel authentic.

“Let’s say that Norman’s character is walking in New York -- and the game is not set in New York, this is just an example -- we’re trying to see if what we can depict with Decima Engine actually looks like New York, if it scales correctly and feels good there,” Kojima said. “Let’s say the character goes in an Italian restaurant, who the character meets going into the restaurant, what he will be eating, all those details are decided, are set.”

Don’t hold your breath for a Death Stranding release date within the next few years. Kojima is a perfectionist who wants things done right. Remember, this game is coming from a guy who was paranoid about the big Death Stranding reveal leaking last year and went out of his way to make sure fans were surprised. We don’t blame Kojima for taking his time after his split with Konami and the cancellation of Silent Hills.

It’s been two years since Konami and Kojima announced the cancellation of Silent Hills and we’re still a little bitter. Even after the cancellation, fans of Silent Hills P.T. were still finding secrets hidden within the game. We can’t even imagine what Kojima will bring to Death Stranding, though we are definitely hoping it involves more butt shots of Norman.