Death Stranding goes gold

Hideo Kojima, the man of many roles on Death Stranding and head of Kojima Productions, has announced that his first game after his departure from Konami, Death Stranding, has now gone gold.

When a game goes gold it means that the developer has finished work on the initial code that will be shipped to consumers. This means that manufacturers will now have everything they need to produce discs, and digital storefronts too will have the code to distribute to consumers.

Any work that Kojima Productions do on Death Stranding from now on will be released as a day one patch, fixing any bugs they find in the meantime, or adding to the title with features and content that they didn’t initially have time for.

Death Stranding is a game about connections, and reconnecting the United States after an incident that has occured. The story and gameplay has been deliberately vague up until now, because Hideo Kojima says that the game is more its own genre, rather than fitting into any one genre in particular.

What is known is that players will be interacting with each other in some form of multiplayer, whilst making deliveries around the world. The story will take players to some darker places, with viscous shooter combat, as well as open world exploration on a scale similar to that of Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Hideo Kojima is well known as a visionary creator in the games industry. It’s still not clear why he was let go by Konami, but many suspect it is because his projects take far too long to develop. With Death Stranding there have been a number of delays, but the pedigree of Hideo Kojima is such that many consumers aren’t worried about the game at all. In fact, many welcomed the delays so that the end product would be even better when they get their hands on it.

Sony recently announced a Death Stranding PlayStation 4 Pro bundle during their State of Play event. The console is white, with the iconic Death Stranding handprints imposed in black on the side. The bundle comes with a custom Dualshock 4 controller, designed to look like the in-game BB players will be spending a lot of time with.