A recent interview with Hideo Kojima on the PlayStation Blog revealed some interesting Death Stranding details that fans will likely enjoy. Since the announcement at Sony’s 2016 E3 presentation, the game has gotten plenty of teasers that have only increased the hype. With actors like Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen among the cast, anticipation is as high as the expectations.

After RTX Sydney, Kojima sat down with PlayStation to discuss the exclusive PS4 title. His answers were thoughtful and pertinent, stating that he believes that as society changes, games need to be made that are in line with that. With that note, the first Death Stranding details he discussed were the type of game it would be, and what players can expect.

You can think of Death Stranding as an action game. Many people play games in the shooting genre and I want to make a game that is very intuitive for them so they can get into the experience very easily, but when they play it for a bit they will realise there is a certain new type of depth to it, something that they might not have seen before.

While there were Death Stranding details that Kojima was unwilling to discuss so early in development, he noted that this game would be open-world and full of action. Players would have freedom to do what they want, drive vehicles, and the game is open to many different styles of play. His hope is that once players get into the game and explore, they’ll find things they’ve never seen before.

New ideas are also in the works, with a “Strands” concept that, according to Kojima, would be an alternative to simply using guns to end conflicts. In regards to online play, he suggests that this isn’t the type of game where you campaign and then take it to online mode. Though not more forthcoming than this, the ideas are very interesting and we’re looking forward to what this could entail.

One of the more remarkable points in the interview comes after Kojima was asked about his choice in a game engine. Hideo Kojima and Mark Cerny visited studios all around the world looking for an engine that could support open-world and photo realistic graphics. When they came upon Guerrilla Games in Amsterdam, developers of the upcoming Horizon Zero Dawn, they were surprised by what happened next:

Usually when you go to use, buy or borrow an engine, someone will say, “Lend us your name,” or of course ask for payment. We had no contract with Guerrilla Games, but when we met them they suddenly gave us a box, a very pretty box. When we opened the box, there was a USB dongle inside that had the source code for the engine.

Keep in mind we had no contract or anything at this stage, yet still they handed over what was basically the crystallisation of their efforts over many years. They simply said, “Mr. Kojima please use this engine,” and we thought these people are incredible.

There was one condition though, that Kojima Productions doesn’t just use the engine, but that we develop the engine together with Guerrilla Games, that it should be a collaborative effort. So we were really blown away by their stance on this and being so open with the engine and we thought “Wow, these are the people we have to work with.”

The two studios would pass the code back and forth for about six months until they had developed the “Decima” engine. The name, derived from an artificial island in Japan, Dejima, where the Netherlands and Japan traded during the Edo period. Ultimately, Kojima felt the two studios working together made the process much faster and something very fantastic came out of it.

More Death Stranding details were discussed during the interview and you can read up on them here. For now, the studio is in hardcore production mode and according to Kojima, they have the framework worked out. We’ll take what details we can get but are really looking forward to hearing more on this PS4 exclusive title.

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