Early this Morning Hideo Kojima provided a small update on the development of his upcoming game Death Stranding, of which we still know very little.
Kojima-san confirmed what he said at the beginning of the month, mentioning that the game is not yet in its debugging phase, but the team is currently working on combining all the elements they have created.
He himself is currently playing Death Stranding every day on PS4, connecting the pieces and making and making adjustments, which is a key phase in development.
You can find the original tweet below and a handy translation by Kojima Productions Head of Communications Aki Saito.
Death Stranding is not in its debugging stage, but combing all the game elements formed in the development tools into the game. So everyday, Hideo’s playing the game on PS4, connecting, adjusting. It’s adding and taking out things at the same time. Key time in the development! https://t.co/YDzGDozH7I
— 齊藤昭義(Aki Saito) (@akisaitokojipro) March 24, 2019
Incidentally, you may have seen some sites translating this as the game being in a “critical phase” of development. That’s a very weird and unconventional way to translate “重要なフェーズ” which is much milder in its meaning, and Saito-san correctly translated as “key time”.
I’m not sure if that’s an intentional attempt to manufacture a more sensational headline to keep the hits up in the weekend or simply a gross mistranslation, but it’s very odd that they didn’t use Saito-san’s translation, which was retweeted by Kojima-san himself and is basically official given his position.
That being said, it’s interesting that the game is already playable on PS4, even if obviously it still being worked on and this doesn’t give a precise indication of how much time in development is still required to finish Death Stranding.
If you want to know more about the game, you can read some recent impressions by Head of Marketing and Communications Aki Saito and actor Norman Reedus, and more by Guerrilla Games Managing Director Hermen Hulst. You can check out a lovely Holiday card designed by Yoji Shinkawa, a long gameplay video from E3 2018, a trailer from last year, and another from two years ago.
For now, we know that Death Stranding is coming to PS4, and recently Hideo Kojima himself possibly teased a 2019 release.
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