Have you ever wanted a real-life version of Death Stranding? Well, you may be in luck.
During Kojima Productions’ special 10th anniversary “Beyond the Strand” event, legendary game designer Hideo Kojima announced a partnership with Pokémon Go maker Niantic on a mysterious AR project. In a trailer titled “New Dawn,” we see a man walking around different outdoor environments wearing what appears to be some kind of smart glasses, with virtual overlays appearing around him. In one instance, a holographic tree is floating in the palm of his hand.
In typical Kojima fashion, the trailer raises about a million questions, and very few of them are answered. “I can’t really speak about details yet,” Kojima admitted during the Beyond the Strand event. Instead, he teased that the AR title is “like the real Death Stranding in the real world, and you can connect with people, or you can connect with the actual environment there in your city.”
It’s interesting to consider what that means. One of the most acclaimed and unique elements of the Death Stranding games are their asynchronous multiplayer features. As you play, the constructs that you build in your game, like ladders, bridges and roads, can be shared with others, creating this sense of community and connection to the world. Presumably, this Niantic collaboration will evoke the spirit of that gameplay experience in some form. A release date has not been revealed for it.
Arguably the biggest news out of Beyond the Strand, though, was a new trailer for OD, the Xbox horror title that Kojima is working on with Oscar-winning director Jordan Peele (Get Out). Other titles discussed in the event include an animated Death Stranding movie, the live-action A24 movie from Michael Sarnoski (A Quiet Place: Day One) and the PlayStation tactical espionage game Physint.
Image credit: Kojima Productions/Niantic
