Norman Reedus Talks Death Stranding: The Concept is Mind-Blowing

Norman Reedus, the actor starring in Hideo Kojima’s upcoming title Death Stranding, made an appearance on the B&H Photography Podcast (timestamp 41:55) where he talked about the game and how it was working with Hideo Kojima.

The topic of the story came up, something that’s promising to be really mind-bending, and Reedus went in length about how he knows some things regarding the story as he works closely with Kojima.

“I know what the game’s about, to a certain extent. We went out to that music game awards a couple of weeks ago and we came on stage, and part of the scripted dialogue when you come out with the microphone was me saying: ‘now I need to go on the internet and figure out what that was about’. But I kinda know what it’s about because I’ve asked him a zillion questions.”

Regarding performance capture, Reedus said it was like nothing he’d ever seen. The process in which they develop the game makes it like a movie, but, as he comments, it makes it even more than that.

“The concept is so mind-blowing, because it’s not like, you know, ‘kill everybody and win the game’, it’s a connecting thing. It’s like the opposite. And, you know, it’s so ahead of its time. And there’s elements of social media in it, and the idea is that – you know, you have so many games, and so many parts of millennial culture I guess, is being alone in a room. And you lose physical contact with people. This is after that and the re-establishing of that physical contact.”

Another thing the game does with its unique performance capture is capture ever trait of Reedus, including unscripted movements and mannerisms of his as opposed to just the rigid “go from point-A to point-B” movements.

“It’s super super interesting, but you know, when I met him [Kojima], I was like: ‘Oh, so they’ll play me?’, and they’re like: ‘No, they ARE you’, so as we’re doing this motion capture stuff, you know, they want me to be Norman. You know, they’re all standing around and if I scratch my head a certain way they go: ‘Oh, do that!’, and they’ll capture it. So by the end of the day you’re kind of not moving because we’re like, okay, if I keep moving we’re going to keep filming (laughing).”

Death Stranding has yet to receive a release date. Kojima Productions is keeping the game on tight lockdown, but we’ve learned a small amount about the game’s gameplay and themes along the way.