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We got closer to two Death Stranding characters and a whole lot of babies at the Opening Night Gamescom 2019 presentation. Game director Hideo Kojima introduced two new Death Stranding cutscenes on stage, focusing on Sam's allies Mama, played by Margaret Qualley, and Deadman, played (but not voiced) by Guillermo del Toro. Also babies, but we'll get to that in a bit.
Kojima explained on stage that Death Stranding's world is filled with many characters, each of whom has "a substory apart from the main story." You'll get to know your fellow residents of this bizarre post-apocalypse by playing through their substories.
Mama's called that because she's the loving mother of an ethereal ghost baby - a non-hostile example of the "BTs" who are otherwise your greatest threat in Death Stranding. Somehow, her child was born in the nightmarish mirror world inhabited by BTs, but Mama and baby nevertheless have a kind of umbilical connection. Mama explains that she's still lactating, so going through the motions of breastfeeding with this floating otherwordly presence is comforting for both of them. This may be the first example of faux-breastfeeding to appear on a Gamescom stage.
We also got to spend some time with Deadman, or at least his holographic surrogate. It looks like Deadman is Sam's... pod baby expert. Deadman explains that Bridge Babies, or BBs, are fetuses taken from the wombs of comatose mothers. By carrying a BB in an incubator pod and connecting to it, Sam is able to see the BTs and (hopefully) evade them. However, they must be periodically synced up with a "stillmother" via the post-apocalyptic internet to keep them functioning properly. BBs don't have much of a life to look forward to once they stop being useful for detecting BTs, Deadman says, but it sounds like Sam doesn't plan to give up on his pod fetus friend.
Kojima also showed off a new look at Death Stranding gameplay, featuring a mushroom that grows from players' collective urination. This game, folks, I don't even know.
Need to cool off after all that? No problem, just check out these wintry Death Stranding screenshots.
