Hideo Kojima says Death Stranding's themes of connection came about because "I thought I lost everything when I became alone nine years ago"

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach released a brand new trailer the other day that – among other things – featured a character that strongly resembles Solid Snake. Fans have often theorized that elements of Death Stranding’s story are about Hideo Kojima’s exit from Konami, and by extension, the Metal Gear Solid series, with this lookalike only adding fuel to the fire. However, Kojima himself outright confirmed this inspiration at SXSW (where the trailer premiered).

When talking about the original Death Stranding, Kojima said, "The game was about connection," which we knew. However, Kojima wasn’t the most confident about his future, adding, "I thought I lost everything when I became alone nine years ago," referring to his exit from Konami back in 2015 following the release of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. It may have been a given that people would follow Kojima wherever he went, but I get it. When you’ve been working on one series almost exclusively for almost two decades, I imagine it’s easy to think that’s what people like. Hopefully working on his new Espionage game Physint will help him get things out of his system.

As we know now, Death Stranding was highly anticipated after it was revealed and turned out to be a big success, and Kojima realized that his fans were willing to follow him. "I had something very important, which was [a] connection with people," the director said. Although the new Death Stranding 2 trailer features a screen saying. "We should not have connected," read into that one how you will.

Kojima is clearly very excited to be working with actor Luca Marinelli for Neil (the aforementioned Solid Snake lookalike), as he chose the actor to "surpass" Mads Mikkelsen.