It’s not quite the first time we’ve written about a video game, but it’s surely the first I’ve felt so compelled. So’s my compulsion with Hideo Kojima, that rare joystick auteur (and confirmed cineaste) whose decades-deep oeuvre justifies fastidious attention to the ends of actual reverence. His boundlessly brilliant, convoluted, maddening Metal Gear Solid, of course—personal choice for the greatest media franchise of my lifetime—but most recently Death Stranding, perhaps the closest a AAA console game’s come to achieving some Béla Tarr-like insistence on tedium and desolation; another way to say playing his nine-figure dystopic walking simulator deep in the heart of a pandemic winter marked a pinnacle media experience in this decade.

I was appropriately giddy at last night’s reveal of Death Stranding 2. Not least for this trailer’s return and prevalence of Léa Seydoux, whose work first time around marked some of her strongest across any medium and—almost needless to say—the best I’ve seen via motion-capture, certainly any game, probably the first to confirm this medium as a valuable actors’ venue. Prevalent enough to be a new protagonist? Though Norman Reedus returns, a bold example set by Metal Gear Solid 2 has me hoping some changeover’s in store. (Maybe I’m just overly enamored with that tight-lensed elevator shot.) As for what the rest of the game (which adds Elle Fanning and Shioli Kutsuna) might hold? Kojima promised there’s plenty easter eggs across these four minutes. But I have no clue.

Watch the preview below:

No more articles