Death Stranding’s latest boss-focused trailer shows Kojima is up to his old tricks

Despite Hideo Kojima giving fans an insight into what’s to come in upcoming supernatural action game Death Stranding, fans still have little idea what’s going on in the game. For all of its whimsical mystery, Kojima’s latest trailer seems to walk a more predictable line by introducing what looks like one of the game’s bosses: Troy Baker's “The Man in the Golden Mask.”

Previous trailers have left a lot of question marks following their release, such as who the group of floating people are, why the world is plagued by invisible monstrosities and whether Mads Mikkelsen will ever truly know what his character is doing prior to the game’s release. Death Stranding’s 2018 Tokyo Game Show (TGS) trailer does very little to answer these burning questions, however it does inject a sense of familiarity in what has otherwise been an unrecognisable world.

トロイさんバージョン???? pic.twitter.com/i8LVPhwMHb

— 小島秀夫 (@Kojima_Hideo) September 23, 2018

The trailer starts with Norman Reedus’ character making another delivery, or perhaps the same one we’ve seen him trudging across terrain for in previous gameplay reveals. This is suddenly interrupted by Troy Baker’s charismatically charming voice, sending Reedus into hyperventilation. After teasing Reedus, Baker’s character removes his distinct golden mask and punches it into the ground, drawing the power of the strange souls emerging from the water beneath his feet.

Of course, Baker isn’t in it for the fight this time around, summoning a gigantic, supernatural, mask-bearing canine to do the dirty work. All Reedus has to do “to make it out alive is not get eaten,” before Baker’s villain disappears akin to the invisible threats seen in previous trailers.

Kojima is no stranger to hammy, albeit fun dialogue and falling in line with otherwise typically introduced boss fights, however Death Stranding fooled many into thinking this would have been a turning point for the developer. That’s not to say that Kojima has shown all of his cards face up – in fact, he’s likely hiding many more close to his chest – but it does show that Death Stranding will likely be much more accessible than many had thought.

KitGuru Says: Personally, I’m happy that there is some amount of familiarity as Kojima has crafted some of the best boss fights in the history of video games. While I don’t think this is likely to house the next Psycho Mantis, or even The End, hopefully Death Stranding finds a place of its own. What do you think of the latest Death Stranding trailer?

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