Here's How Death Stranding's Norman Reedus Met Hideo Kojima

By now, you're likely aware that Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead) provides his likeness, voice acting, and motion-capture performance to the video game Death Stranding from Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions. He portrays Sam Bridges, the game's protagonist. But how, exactly, did Reedus even get involved with Kojima? As it turns out, we have Guillermo del Toro to thank for that.

There have been versions of this story that have made the rounds before, but this latest -- from Reedus himself -- offers more details on exactly how he came to be involved with the Silent Hill game that Konami canned, and how that ultimately translated to his involvement with Death Stranding.

"I first met Hideo when Guillermo del Toro called me and said, hey, there's a guy who's going to call you and wants to do a video game with you," Reedus tells The Hollywood Reporter. "Just say yes. I said, who is he? And he said, trust me, just say yes. Guillermo gave me my SAG card and my first acting job and I trust him with everything. I knew this guy would be good if Guillermo was saying this."

"So, Hideo, Guillermo and I were going to do another game, a Silent Hill game, but Konami and Kojima had a falling out so it went radio silence for a minute," he continues. "Then they came back and said Sony's back in with Hideo and we're going to make a brand new game. I was more excited about that, to be honest, because Hideo came down to San Diego Comic-Con and had an iPad and was showing me some of the graphics he was working on which were just mindblowing. I knew it was going to be a home run right from the get-go."

What do you think of Reedus' story here? Is that about what you'd expected? Have you seen the launch trailer yet? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!

Here's how PlayStation's official product page for the video game describes it:

"In the near future, mysterious explosions have rocked the planet, setting off a series of supernatural events known as the Death Stranding. With spectral creatures plaguing the landscape, and the planet on the verge of a mass extinction, it's up to Sam Bridges to journey across the ravaged wasteland and save mankind from impending annihilation."

Death Stranding is scheduled to release on November 8th for PlayStation 4, and it was recently revealed that the game would also be coming to PC in 2020. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the upcoming video game title right here.