30 Interesting Facts About Death Stranding

Interesting Facts (6)

#001
Hideo Kojima stated that he was a fan of Lindsay Wagner since watching her in The Bionic Woman (1976) when he was 13.
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#002
Kojima noted that the genre of this game was going to be something new, thus mirroring to what he said when the first Metal Gear (1987) was launched, as it popularized and established many tropes in the budding stealth genre.
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#003
Death Stranding is the first Kojima game since Metal Gear Solid with other dubs besides either English or Japanese and also the very first game dubbed to Latin American Spanish.
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#004
The release date was leaked hours prior to the release date reveal trailer on May 29, 2019.
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#005
Contains a major spoiler — show
Mads Mikkelsen has a similar appearance in this game to his appearance in Doctor Strange (2016). Both have similar makeup styles with strange black liquid dripping under their eyes. Kojima has confirmed that Mads is the antagonist of Death Stranding. Mads was also the villain Kaecilius in Doctor Strange.
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#006
There were rumors and hints that actress Stefanie Joosten, who played Quiet in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015), would be in the game. Stefanie visited Guerrilla Games, which programmed Death Stranding's Decima engine. She also tweeted a photo of herself with a poster of Mads Mikkelsen, who appears in the game, and deleted it shortly afterwards. At PS Experience 2016, when a fan asked whether she was involved with the game, she said 'I can't comment on that.' Stefanie wore a Kojima Productions t-shirt on her StefPlays gaming channel on YouTube. Joosten later said in an interview in December 2017 that she had 'nothing to do with' the game. The carrying of a character resembling Joosten on Sam's back in the 'Golden Masked Man' trailer seems to confirm her involvement in the game.
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Production Story (11)

#007
In late September 2019, Hideo Kojima received backlash for an English tweet wherein he clarified that he uses the "A Hideo Kojima Game" label because of his direct involvement in many crucial aspects of a game's development from beginning to end. The use of "me doing" in his English tweet led many to criticize him for seemingly taking full credit for the aspects of game development he mentioned. However, his tweet was partially mistranslated from his original Japanese tweet. The correct translation of that word is "Involved" and not "me doing" as used in the English translated tweet and states that he would not use the label if his only contribution were a concept, game design, or producing.
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#008
Conan O'Brien was heavily speculated to be in the game due to him visiting Kojima Productions HQ in September of 2018. On October 23, 2019, Conan himself confirmed that he appears in the game as a Prepper.
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#009
A few months after the release, fans pointed out similarities between this game and the COVID-19 pandemic, as both included a deadly illness, a divided society, lockdowns and self-isolations, and people relying on delivery services in order to not leave their homes. This prompted Hideo Kojima to rewrite the story for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (2025), because he didn't want to predict the future again.
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#010
The exact extent isn't known, but Kojima has confirmed that the SAG-AFTRA Voice Actor Strike caused delays in the game's production, which is part of the reason information about it was scarce after it was announced.
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#011
Stefanie Joosten, Quiet's voice actress in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, was initially approached by Kojima to voice Fragile. He eventually cast Léa Seydoux in the role instead without notifying Joosten herself.
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#012
In early October 2016, Kojima took the development team of Death Stranding to visit the Meguro Parasitological Museum, to show his staff members how fundamental parasites are to the ecosystem.
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#013
Pretty much most of the big names that were slated to make Silent Hills are involved in this game, which alongside Norman Reedus and Guillermo del Toro mentioned above, there's also horror mangaka Junji Ito who provided his likeness as a cameo. Additionally, most of the Japanese dub's cast are Metal Gear veterans. Artist Yoji Shinkawa, who has worked as Kojima's go-to character and mech designer since Metal Gear Solid, fills in the same role on this project too.
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#014
The design of the corpse bag in Death Stranding was inspired by the mummy package of the Inca Empire. In the photo on the right-hand side, the mummy exposes the face, and the outer cover has been taken by a thief.
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#015
There is no traditional 'Game Over' state. Instead, when players 'die' during combat, they will find themselves in an upside-down realm, searching for a way back to the living. However, in some cases, such as when important cargo is destroyed, a game over state will appear.
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#016
"Bring Me the Horizon" frontman Oli Sykes has been very open about his love of Metal Gear Solid and Kojima, even naming a song off Sempiternal "Shadow Moses" in tribute. Now, the band is contributing music to the soundtrack of Death Stranding.
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#017
On November 9, 2024, the fifth anniversary of Death Stranding's PlayStation 4 launch, Kojima Productions announced it had re-acquired the intellectual property rights from Sony Interactive Entertainment and planned to bring the game to additional platforms, alongside an immediate Director's Cut launch on the Microsoft Store for Windows, Xbox Series X/S and Amazon Luna.
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Behind the Scenes (1)

#018
The cakes that appear in the game were handmade and then scanned. After that, the team ate them.
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Characters & Cast (5)

#019
Mads Mikkelsen has admitted in the past that he is at the very least a casual gamer and broadly considers Kojima to be "the master" of the craft. When Kojima approached him for the role, he did not even have to consider it. The relationship also goes both ways, as Kojima considers Mikkelsen to be the greatest actor alive and says it is a dream come true to work with him.
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#020
Guillermo del Toro is providing his likeness to a character, who is to be motion-captured and voiced by somebody else. According to del Toro, he is Kojima's "puppet" and he has no idea what his role in the game will be. This is likely the collaboration he and Hideo Kojima were referring to after the cancellation of P.T. (2014) by Konami.
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#021
Keanu Reeves was one of the people who was considered to be in the role of Cliff, but Kojima chose Mads Mikkelsen instead.
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#022
Canadian journalist and video critic Geoff Keighley appears in the Death Stranding gameplay trailer as a hologram interacting with the main character Sam in the delivery station.
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#023
Japanese writer Junji Ito appears in Death Stranding as the hologram of the Engineer, a role voiced by Yuri Lowenthal.
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Easter Eggs & References (5)

#024
While Sam is using the toilet, the closed cover shows an ad for Norman Reedus's AMC show "Ride with Norman Reedus".
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#025
Three Death Stranding Easter eggs can be found in Guerrilla Games' Horizon Zero Dawn. 1. Stranded Necklace - Sam's Q-pid, described in-game as "Six tarnished metal ingots threaded with a plain wire". 2. Stranded Shackles - Sam's cuff links, described in-game as "Shackles made from an unknown, smooth material". 3. Stranded Figure - Amelie's doll, described in-game as "A battered idol of an infant, smelling faintly of decay".
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#026
When you first hand Deadman BB-28 at the Distribution Center and he is shaking it slightly, the baby appears to be flipping him the bird (as opposed to waving like it does toward Sam).
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#027
Léa Seydoux's character Fragile and her carrying the umbrella and the bag is a homage to Mary Poppins.
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#028
Hideo Kojima and Norman Reedus appeared at the 2017 Game Awards and walked on the stage after the premiere of the new Death Stranding trailer. When Hideo said that the two of them were working together again, Norman said, "And nothing is gonna stop us this time!" This is referencing Konami's mistreatment of Kojima and the cancelled Silent Hills project.
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Deeper Meaning (2)

#029
A key theme in the game, as well its namesake concept, is cetacean stranding - the phenomenon of cetaceans stranding themselves ashore. The event is more encompassing in Death Stranding than it is in reality; however, several other forms of marine life are seen stranded on the Beach alongside cetaceans, including crustaceans and fish.
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#030
The character Higgs is named for the Higgs boson, as stated by the character himself. In physics, the Higgs boson acts as a bridge between universal particles and the Higgs field, allowing the all-encompassing field to interact with particles in the universe, such as electrons. Metaphorically speaking, Higgs is comparable to the boson in that he acts as a mediator and manipulator between the BT phenomena and the physical world of Death Stranding.
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Sources & editorial notes

Sources for the entries on this page

Wikipedia Death Stranding — WikipediaEncyclopedia · accessed 18 Sep 2026

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