Fans weren’t treated to a new Death Stranding trailer at this year’s Game Awards, which means Hideo Kojima and team must be hard at work on the title, right? While that is likely true, we are still without a release date for the highly-anticipated game.

That said, Kojima himself may have just teased when we will all be able to get our hands on mysterious adventure. In the most recent issue of Famitsu, the director shared a New Year message that translates to: “Is 2019 the year of the Whale? Please look forward to Death Stranding!”

Now, this could just be Kojima making a generalization that the game will be arriving in the future, but it couldn’t be that simple, could it? We know that the development team has been making some rather impressive progress on the upcoming title, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that we’ll get to play it within the next year.

With all of the rumors surrounding the release date of Death Stranding, it’s difficult to pinpoint when the game launch. Since this is Kojima himself seemingly teasing such information, however, we’ll go ahead and mark this up as a big “maybe.” For all we know, the director is optimistic about 2019 being the year, but doesn’t feel confident enough to set a concrete date. Either way, we’re sure fans will happily wait, even if they need it now.

Keep it tuned to Don’t Feed the Gamers as this story develops, and for other gaming goodness going on right now, check out the following:

• Kingdom Hearts III Collaboration Announced For Final Fantasy Brave Exvius (VIDEO)
• Ridiculous Mortal Kombat Fan Art Sees Aladdin’s Will Smith as Goro
• New Fortnite Update Covers The Entire Map In Snow

What say you, gamers? Do you think 2019 will be the year that we get our hands on Death Stranding? If not, when will the game officially be released? Sound off in the comments section below, and be sure to follow DFTG on Twitter for live gaming and entertainment news 24/7!