'Death Stranding' release date, news: production going full swing next year

It's no secret that Hideo Kojima and his team at Kojima Productions have been busy working on "Death Stranding." However, the real work is about to begin soon. In an interview with IGN, Kojima stated that they would enter full-swing development next year.

GamingBolt has noted that there is a possibility that the game may hit the shelves earlier than expected in 2018 because the developers don't have to create a game engine themselves. Game Rant's Anthony Taormina also thinks that "Death Stranding" may come out in 2018 at the earliest. However, he noted that Kojima is known to take his time when developing games, so it's possible the game may come out later than 2018.

During the interview, Kojima revealed that the teaser showed at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) back in June did not use the Decima engine since they have yet to collaborate with Guerilla Games when they released it. "The teaser we showed at E3 was in a different engine," Kojima said. He also revealed that the trailer showed at The Game Awards earlier this month was "running in real time and in 4K on PS4 Pro."

Meanwhile, Kojima spoke with Red Bull at the PlayStation Experience at the Anaheim Convention Center earlier this month, and he revealed that he wanted to make an indie game after his split with Konami, but Guillermo del Toro convinced him to develop a big game.

He said del Toro is voicing the character based on the director's appearance, but they are bringing in an actor to do the full motion-capture performance. "It's [Del Toro's] voice, but we use an actor for the full performance motion-capturing because I don't want to steal too much time of Guillermo," Kojima stated.

He also revealed that he called Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen personally to convince them to join the project. "I like to call people myself directly on the phone," he said.