Norman Reedus casually reveals the existence of Death Stranding 2
The Walking Dead star blithely ended years of speculation about a follow-up to Hideo Kojima's 2019 package delivery game
Aux News Norman Reedus
Video game development can be a weirdly secretive endeavor, with even the existence of a future project kept as some powerful reveal, only to be doled out when the hype engine goes hungry. Sure, Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding was a critical success, made a lot of money, and got a big, fancy director’s edition earlier last year, But a sequel? Who’s to say?
Norman Reedus, apparently: The Walking Dead star gave a long, genuinely interesting interview touching on a wide number of aspects of his career—Actor! Artist! Author! Motorcyle Man! Etc.!—that also briefly touched on his job as the face, body, and voice of Sam Porter Bridges, star of the 2019 package delivery simulator. And also its sequel, which Reedus revealed, completely casually, while talking to Leo, even though neither game director Kojima, nor game publisher Sony, have revealed the second game’s existence in any concrete terms to date.
“We just started the second one,” Reedus notes when asked about the series, accidentally breaking major gaming news before going on to reference Ms. Pac-Man of all things. Reedus also revealed the very charming story of how he got the gig:
Guillermo Del Toro, who gave me my first movie, called me up and said, “Hey, there’s a guy named Hideo Kojima, he’s gonna call you, just say yes.” And I go, “What do you mean just say yes?” He goes, “Stop being an asshole, just say yes.” Then I was in San Diego and Hideo came with a big group of people, he’s from Tokyo, and he showed me what he was working on on a game called Silent Hill. I was blown away by what he was showing me, and I was like, “Yes, let’s do this.” It’s not Ms. Pac-Man; it’s so realistic, it’s so futuristic, it’s so complicated and beautiful, and I was completely blown away.
It took me maybe two or three years to finish all the MoCap sessions and everything. It takes a lot of work. And then the game came out, and it just won all these awards, and it was a huge thing, so we just started part two of that.
We would like to note that a), we all genuinely deserve to have a Guillermo Del Toro in our lives, and b), the technical requirements for Death Stranding and its sequel do sound more technologically complicated than Ms. Pac-Man (1982), so, fair point to Reedus there.
Reedus goes on to talk about the weirdness of being scanned by game makers so that his likeness can be used in perpetuity (something he shares with future Ride With Norman Reedus guest Keanu Reeves, whose digital appearance in Cyberpunk 2077 spawned a whole bunch of questions about how these sort of virtual likenesses can be, uh, “used” by fans). He also talks about what’s going on with his Walking Dead spinoff, his upcoming book, and all of the millions of other things Norman Reedus does when he’s not killing zombies on the teevee, or blowing up the marketing plans of massive video game developers.
13 Comments
Kojima has such a tin ear for character names and English. Wish he had enough self-awareness to work with English translators better more to come up with less goofy ones. I’m sure his overpowering vision is way more important, but man Death Stranding sounds so fucking awkward.
I always thought it was just intentional goofy weirdness. Either way, it’s one of my favorite things about Death Stranding
You may be right. I used to think it was intentional and cool, but by the time we got to MGS5 and characters were simply called Quiet, Skullface, Code Talker, I began to think maybe something else is up. Then Death Stranding rolls around and we’re getting Heartman, Die-hard Man and Fraglie. Even going back to the original Metal Gear, characters were called Machine Gun Kid and Fire Trooper. If he had made a Silent Hill game- a horror franchise rich in metaphor- how literal would he have been?
At this point it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. I think if Kojima released a game with normal names, his fans would be disappointed.
I dunno, man. I’m not sure if I can handle another FedEX Apocalypse Experience. Overall, I liked it, but I still have dreams sometimes where I’m wearing this big backpack and just tip-tip-tipping left, then trip-stumbling forward, then tip-tip-tip to the right, then baaaaack-and-catch, and then I wake up falling out of bed.
It’s basically Fallout: QWOP, isn’t it?
It makes me wonder. Keep with the story weirdness as left at the end of DS1…Or come up with some completely new batshit weirdness (Jar Baby is back – and PISSED with sixteen new tentacle heads with a continent on each one to explore!) and go off in some completely new direction that nobody expected?Each has their appeal, TBH.
Great news! I loved the first game. In my old age, I’ve found I really like pedantic video games. I spent hours in the first game just gathering all the materials needed to build all the roads, then just driving my truck on those roads as I made deliveries. That was the bee’s knees!
Between The Phantom Pain and Death Stranding, I don’t think Kojima makes very good/interesting open worlds. I’d be ok if he got back to more focused experiences.
Yeah, the best parts of TPP were easily the story missions where everything was more tightly focused.
Does Reedus think he’s still making Silent Hills?
Just my standard reminder I post on all Kojima articles:If any of you thinks they understands the storyline in a Kojima game, please seek help.
Kojima’s storytelling is not deep at all. It’s just surrounded by a lot of fluff of long cutscenes and ridiculous pompous dialogue that no one speaks in the real world. If you think there’s some deeper hidden and more philosophical meaning to Kojima’s game than what’s so blatantly thrown at your face then you’re the one who needs to seek help, honestly.