Death Stranding shares themes with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, according to Hideo Kojima

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Kojima says Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is Death Stranding + Metal Gear Solid 5 and I think my head just exploded

It won't surprise anybody to learn that Hideo Kojima, famed creator of the Metal Gear Solid series of video games, is a huge fan of movies. You can find the auteur citing cinema as a source of inspiration for almost any of his work, and the man likes to keep up with all the latest releases as he continues to work on Death Stranding his first PS4 (or should that be PS5?) exclusive under his new, first party studio with Sony known as Kojima Productions.

A voracious tweeter, Kojima expressed his admiration for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse after watching the award winning animation over the weekend, calling it a "masterpiece" of "next gen entertainment art". It's the last sentence of Kojima's tweet, however, that left people scratching their heads, in which he states Spider-Verse's "theme is like TPP+DS [thumbs up emoji]"... Come again? 

We know that TPP and DS are acronyms for two of Kojima's games; 2015's Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain and the upcoming PS4 exclusive, Death Stranding, but what to make of this comparison to the Spider-Verse? By theme, does he mean the movie's distinctive, inimitable art style, or is he simply referring to the fact that all three stories feature wormholes to alternative universes (lest we forget Metal Gear Survive)? 

Either that, or we're led to believe that the overaching story themes of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (identity, coming of age etc.) are found in both Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.  Indeed, in the latter game our main protagonist certainly found themselves dealing with an identity crisis of sorts, so does this mean we can expect the same kind of narrative arc for Death Stranding's protagonist Sam Porter (Norman Reedus)? 

Or is Spider-Verse what happens when you blend the themes of The Phantom Pain and Death Stranding together into one potent cocktail? Okay, well, what do we do with that knowledge?! Stop making my head hurt Kojima! It's unlikely we'll ever get clarification from the notoriously cryptic man himself, either, but the next time you watch Spider-Verse, keep an eye out for any clues that inspired Kojima to compare it to his next big project.

Death Stranding is just one of many new games of 2019 on the horizon this year. Check out what else you ought to keep an eye on, or watch our Death Stranding trailer analysis below. 

Alex Avard
Alex Avard
Former Features Writer

Alex is a former Features Writer at GamesRadar+, which once made him responsible for gracing the internet with as many of my words as possible, including reviews, previews, interviews, and more. Lucky internet!