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DEATH STRANDING’s E3 Trailer Is Even Weirder Than We Expected

It’s like Hideo Kojima goes out of his way to make us scratch our heads or repel in disgust. He loves it. But his vision of gaming is so singular we can’t help but sit up and take notice…and then scratch our damn heads. Death Stranding has been on the radar for years now, and we got a good look at, well, something at E3 in 2016, but it didn’t quite give us an understanding of what the game actually was. Now at 2018’s E3, we got an eight-minute teaser presentation during the Sony PlayStation conference.

…and we still don’t really know what’s going on.

Any trailer that kicks off with the butt of a fetus in utero is already off to a decidedly Kojima-ish start. Then we’re treated to star Norman Reedus walking around the somewhat alien landscape, with robot tractor drones and a whole back full of boxes, almost like a one-man Oregon Trail. We also get a look at what seems to be the game’s third person gameplay for a bit. We don’t really know what that gameplay is yet, but we got some.

But then it kicks into another gear, with ghostly presences—including the ghost of a bear-creature making footprints (or human handprints?!?!) in the mud—and several floating apparitions. Plus, we get our first look at Lea Seydoux, who at once seems to be helpful (she and Reedus hold their breath together as a ghost-bear walks by) but then also seems über creepy, eating slugs and just being generally menacing. She also has an umbrella that makes people invisible.

Then Sam (Reedus’ character) straps a fetus to his chest and a satellite dish to his back and heads off into parts unknown with ghosts everywhere. But the game leaves its biggest surprise for the end. The cast list reveals Reedus, Seydoux, the previously announced Mads Mikkelsen…and Lindsay Wagner! Yes, the star of one billion TV movies in the ’70s and ’80s. We hear her say, “You still don’t know who I am, do you?” As Reedus asks who she is, she turns around, revealing a very young Wagner, possibly from her iconic role in The Bionic Woman?

Is Death Stranding secretly some fanfic sequel to a show from the ’70s? Who can know except Kojima himself? And us, of course, whenever the game actually comes out.

Images: Sony/Kojima

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!

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