When Kojima first explained Death Stranding to his team, "no one got it!"

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Aside from a quick spot in a trailer montage at the PlayStation E3 2017 press conference, Death Stranding was absent from E3. Just like Hideo Kojima said it would be. But the man himself was present for a E3 Coliseum Q&A session about the cinematic inspiration behind his games where he dropped an odd tidbit about Death Stranding's development: not even his own team understood what the hell he was talking about when he first revealed what he wanted it to be.

"Every time I think of a plan, I explain what I'm thinking for the game system," Kojima said through a translator. "The first people I explain this to is my team. For Death Stranding, I started explaining a year ago to the team what I wanted to make. No one got it! Because I was trying to make something new and something different. So for me, I personally think that if people are opposed to you, then you're on the right track. That's game making for me."

At least that means Mads Mikkelsen wasn't alone in being totally "lost" about Death Stranding when Kojima tried to explain it. Fortunately, the actor only needed to understand his character's background and motives to put in the performances we've seen so far. The same couldn't be said for the people actually developing the game's systems and composing its cinematics.

"When you're trying to make something new, even if people are opposed to you, it is your team. I need my team to get it. So day in and day out I explain and I convey what I want to make. And while we move forward and make different experiments, little by little by the team starts getting what I want to make. Right now what I wanted to achieve is already here and it's working. But my team, everyone is saying, 'We're geniuses!' But I'm just like, 'No, no, no, I thought of this!'"

Make sure you check out our full E3 2017 schedule to stay tuned for all the details as they arrive, and check out our roundup of all the E3 2017 trailers. For more E3 2017 highlights, check out our Nintendo E3 2017 recap, PlayStation E3 2017 recap, and Xbox E3 2017 recap. 

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.