The development process for Death Stranding was likely a lengthy and arduous one given the nature of the game and its immense scope. Since the divisive title released earlier this year to mostly positive reviews, the folks over at Kojima Productions are already prepping themselves for the team’s next big project, whatever that may be. Still, Hideo Kojima has never been one to stay quiet about the projects he’s worked on, and he recently revealed some early concept ideas for Death Stranding much to the delight of his fans.

Hideo Kojima took to Twitter on Christmas Eve to announce that, instead of going out to see Last Christmas, he had instead decided to stay at the office and work on the “next concept.” One of his next tweets ended up taking a step backward in time to show off some early Death Stranding ideas back when he was working on some sort of presentation for it, likely something that Sony would have ended up seeing had he not gone in a slightly different direction. Check it out below:

While I was writing the concept for the next project I found the old documents in my computer, I miss those early days of working on DS presentation doc. pic.twitter.com/ZnSSXwslr9

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) December 24, 2019

Some of the earlier notable concepts shown above include the mention of “Sticks” which likely evolved into what are now called Strands, Sam’s glorified version of some good ol’ fashioned rope. It’s also interesting to see bits of what could have been, including the natural forming of “roads” instead of what players actually have to do, which is grind out materials and partake in communal projects. Still, most folks are pretty happy with how the game turned out, especially those of us that have a background in the delivery/postal field.

Death Stranding is now available for PlayStation 4, with a PC version arriving next year.

So, thoughts on some of the early concepts for Death Stranding? Let us know in the comments section below, and as always, stay tuned to Don’t Feed the Gamers for all the latest gaming and entertainment news! Don’t forget to follow DFTG on Twitter for our 24/7 news feed!