Death Stranding: Guillermo Del Toro Is Not Creatively Involved

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has clarified his role in Hideo Kojima's new game, Death Stranding. He told IGN that he is not creatively involved, though, as the Game Awards trailer revealed in December, he is a character in the game.

"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," he explained.

"This is entirely Kojima-san’s game," del Toro added. "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."

del Toro is not the only famous person in Death Stranding. The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus is the lead character, while Hannibal's Mads Mikkelsen is playing some kind of bad guy.

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.

"I have proven to be the albatross of video games," he said last year. "I joined THQ, and THQ goes broke. I join Kojima, and Kojima leaves Konami. I have decided, in order not to destroy anyone else's life, I will never again get involved in video games. Otherwise, I'll join someone and his house will explode, or something."

Death Stranding is in development for PlayStation 4 and PC. For more, check out all of GameSpot's previous coverage of the game here.