Every time I think I’m past caring about the increasingly drawn out and strange teases for the PS4 exclusive Kojima project that is Death Stranding, Kojima goes and does something even more ruddy mysterious that pulls me right back in.
By now you’ve probably heard that some form of Death Stranding news is arriving today (May 29), with many assuming we’re finally going to get a release date along with a trailer that (hopefully) explains how the hell we actually play the game.
This should be set to change today as the official PlayStation Twitch account has started streaming an incredible freaky looped video. The video (above) shows various handprints appearing and disappearing, with what looks like snippets of gameplay hidden in each print.
Leave the stream on for long enough, and you’ll hear some pretty strange sounds. I’ve had it on in the background while writing this article and I’ve heard what sounds like the tide lapping on the shore, rainfall, a distorted woman’s voice saying something about “connecting” (I couldn’t quite make it out), and what I’m pretty sure was the heavy breathing of some kind of monster.
Seriously guys, it’s bloody weird.
Lending further credence to the idea that today will see a release date revealed is the fact that a pre-order page for Death Stranding recently appeared on the PlayStation Store, implying we could even see it before the end of the year. Check it out below.
The pre-order page also reveals a bunch of ridiculous gold pre-order items (wtf is a speed skeleton?), along with – thank god – an actual synopsis for the game that we can try and make some sense of.
It reads:
Sam Bridges must brave a world transformed by the Death Stranding. Carrying the remnants of our future in his hands, he embarks on a journey to reunite the shattered world.
Anyone who’s been keeping track of what we’ve seen of the Kojima passion project so far will be aware that it’s pretty much boiled down to uncomfortably weird cutscenes featuring Norman Reedus and a baby in a jar, with the occasional bit of “gameplay” that showed… lots of walking.
While it certainly looks great, and is weird enough to intrigue me, I would like to know what playing the game will actually entail – especially since it was revealed back a E3 2016 and we still don’t know what to expect from it.
A little mystery is great of course, but who wants to put down £60 on a game whose gameplay they haven’t seen? I’m confident today’s reveal will finally remedy this. Okay, not confident… hopeful, maybe is a better word.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.