Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding appears to be a fair bit further along in development than any of us would have expected- he already has the engine selected, the story and concepts down, and apparently feels confident enough in the game to have shared a very extensive trailer for it at The Game Awards recently.
However, full scale development of the game has not begun yet- that said, it will be starting very soon. In an interview with IGN, where Kojima and Guerrilla Games both discussed the DECIMA engine and the development benefits that it provides, Kojima confirmed that development for the game will ‘enter full swing’ in 2017.
Given that, and Kojima’s typically longer development cycles (that should be under control somewhat this time around thanks to him not having to develop an engine from scratch), we should probably expect Death Stranding in 2018 at the earliest- maybe very late 2017 if we are extraordinarily lucky, which we probably won’t be.
Still, at least we now have a date we can estimate for the game. That alone should keep Kojima fans going for a while.