Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding Looks as Epic and Incomprehensible as Ever in Eight-Minute Launch Trailer

Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding is very nearly here, and the much-anticipated title has received an extensive, intriguing and utterly mystifying new launch trailer, shared by Sony Interactive Entertainment on Wednesday ahead of the game’s release next Friday, Nov. 8.

Over music created for the game by Ludvig Forssell (“BB’s Theme,” featuring Jenny Plant), the cinematic trailer sets the stage for the adventure game via alternating voiceover and title cards, the latter of which read: “An Age of Isolation … A Disconnected Society … A Man Who Cut Ties with the Living-Sam … A Young Life Bound to the Dead-BB … Make Us Whole Again … Rejoin Life and Death … United the Divided … On a Journey to Reconnect the World.” You simply can’t make this shit up … unless you’re Kojima. Then you can.

Death Stranding’s official synopsis is a touch more straightforward:

In the near future, mysterious explosions have rocked the planet, setting off a series of supernatural events known as the Death Stranding. With spectral creatures plaguing the landscape, and the planet on the verge of a mass extinction, it’s up to Sam Bridges to journey across the ravaged wasteland and save mankind from impending annihilation.

The game’s launch trailer emphasizes the all-encompassing stakes of its story, as well as the many A-listers lending their likenesses and voices to the game: Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, Margaret Qualley, Guillermo del Toro, Nicolas Winding Refn, Tommie Earl Jenkins, Troy Baker and Lindsay Wagner make up the Death Stranding voice cast, as you’ll see in the trailer sequence featuring every single one of their characters (with the notable exception of Wagner’s) crying. Emily O’Brien, Jesse Corti and Darren Jacobs are also in the mix.

After years in the making, Death Stranding will do what Death Stranding is going to do on Nov. 8. Hold your mind open as wide as you possibly can to take in the launch trailer below and revisit a previous trailer here. Hell, we’ll even throw in a PlayStation 1-style, fan-made trailer, too. Don’t say your pals at Paste never did anything for you.

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