At E3 and again at PlayStation Experience, Hideo Kojima wowed PlayStation fans by showcasing the latest in Death Stranding, his all-star-casted game. As of right now details on what exactly the game will be about or what type of genre it will even fall in are scarce. What we do know is that Hannibal’s Mads Mikkelsen (most recently seen in Doctor Strange) is playing the villain role while The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus is the lead. At PSX, we also learned about a new character, played by none other than Guillermo Del Toro, which led to speculation that he’d be involved with the game as well.

As Eddie Makuch writes for GameSpot, that’s not actually the case though it’s easy to see why fans would assume he’d be more intimately involved.

 Kojima and del Toro said in the past they were interested in working together on something new, and Death Stranding was later revealed to be that game.

They were working together on Silent Hills before it was canceled, something del Toro still voices his discontent for. Silent Hills wasn’t the first video game project involving del Toro that fell apart. The Pan’s Labyrinth director was working on a horror game called Insane with publisher THQ, but it never materialized, in part due to the company’s bankruptcy. After being burned twice, del Toro has said he doesn’t intend to try to make a game of his own again. 

Guillermo Del Toro:

 Kojima-san called me and said, ‘I want you to be a character in the game,’ and I said, ‘Gladly.’ He’s discussed his ideas so I could understand the character, but other than that I’m not involved, creatively, at all.

This is entirely Kojima-san’s game. I think it’s gonna be a fantastic game, 100%. But this is him and his ideas. I’m just a puppet in his hands. My contribution is limited to being a cheerleader for his ideas and being scanned for long hours at a time. That’s about it. 

Seeing how busy Del Toro is with his own projects and the tumultuous time Kojima has had during his final year at Konami and the following gag orders that were on him, it’s not surprising to find out the two aren’t directly working on this together. Also despite Del Toro dismissing any future involvement with game development, I wouldn’t be shocked if he changed his tune if the right project came along.

Does a lack of investment from Del Toro diminish your excitement for Death Stranding or is it all about what Hideo puts on screen?