Death Stranding’s New Story Details Revealed; Kojima Picked Mads Mikkelsen Over Keanu Reeves For Cliff’s Role

“What is Death Stranding even about?” has become something of a meme at this point, owing to how little we know about it and its narrative (in spite of our best efforts), which means we hang on to every new morsel of information we get about its story. At a recent Comic-Con panel, Hideo Kojima gave more than just a morsel, revealing some very interesting details about one of the characters.

Death Stranding’s most recent huge trailer revealed plenty of new (weirdly named) characters, one of which, played by Nicolas Winding Refn, is called Heartman. Heartman, it seems, is stuck in a loop where he dies every twenty-one minutes. As soon as the twenty-one minutes are up, he goes to the “other side”, where he remains for three minutes before being brought back to life. While he’s in “the other side”, Heartman looks for his family, who’re trapped in there (via @takeshikitano3 on Twitter).

Kojima also revealed some other pretty interesting information during the panel- this time to do with Cliff, the character played in the game by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen. Kojima revealed that originally, he had been recommended to get Keanu Reeves to play the role, but Kojima went with Mads instead (via Wccftech). Of course, Keanu Reeves will be appearing in a major role in another video game, when Cyberpunk 2077 launches next year.

At the panel, Kojima also revealed the official cover art for the game. Check that out through here. Death Stranding is out exclusively for the PS4 on November 8.

New scene of NWR character who dies every 21 minutes, then is revived. Exclusive to this panel I think. Scene was with Norman Reedus. #DeathStranding #SDCC

— Jeremy (@takeshikitano3) July 21, 2019

When Heartman dies, he has 3 minutes to look for his family on the other side. #DeathStranding #SDCC pic.twitter.com/S7LHza5LNM

— Jeremy (@takeshikitano3) July 21, 2019