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Death Stranding Game's Heartman Character Video Streamed in Japanese

The official YouTube channel for PlayStation Japan began streaming on Friday a Japanese-dubbed character video for Kojima Productions' Death Stranding PlayStation 4 game. The video highlights Heartman, voiced by Houchu Ohtsuka in Japanese.

The video debuted in English on July 27.

Kojima stated in a Twitter post that the character is a member of BRIDGES whose heart stops every 21 minutes. After that, he spends three minutes in the world of the dead, and then he comes back to life by AED. He does this 60 times a day. The character's likeness is based on filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, but Refn is not voicing the character. Darren Jacobs is voicing Heartman in the English version of the game.

The game will ship on November 8. The Collector's Edition of the game will include special cases, a BB Pod, a Ludens keychain, a digital soundtrack with behind-the-scenes video, 10 PSN character avatars, and four in-game items. The Digital Deluxe Edition will include the soundtrack, avatars, and in-game items. The Special Edition will include the Steelbook case, soundtrack, and in-game Ludens Mask item. The Japanese version of the game will include both English and Japanese audio tracks, but Kojima Productions has not yet revealed if the North American version of the game will also have the Japanese audio track.

The game's cast in both English and Japanese includes:

• Norman Reedus / Kenjirō Tsuda as Sam Bridges (character modeled on Norman Reedus)
• Lindsay Wagner / Kikuko Inoue as Amelie (character modeled on Lindsay Wagner)
• Léa Seydoux / Nana Mizuki as Fragile (character modeled on Léa Seydoux)
• Akihiko Ishizumi as Deadman (character modeled on director Guillermo del Toro, English voice actor unknown)
• Troy Baker / Satoshi Mikami as Higgs
• Tommie Earl Jenkins / Akio Ohtsuka as Die-Hardman
• Mads Mikkelsen / Kazuhiro Yamaji as Cliff
• Maaya Sakamoto as Mama (model based on actress Margaret Qualley, English voice actor unknown)

The Japanese cast will also include Tomokazu Sugita, and the English cast will also include Jesse Corti and Emily O'Brien.

Kojima Productions describes the game:

Besieged by death's tide at every turn, Sam Bridges must brave a world utterly transformed by the Death Stranding. Carrying the stranded remnants of the future in his hands, Sam embarks on a journey to reunite the shattered world one step at a time. What is the mystery of the Death Stranding? What will Sam discover on the road ahead? A genre defining gameplay experience holds these answers and more.

Kojima Productions is developing the game using Guerilla Games' Decima Engine. The game will be an action game, and will have open-world elements with "some degree of freedom." Kojima stated the game's name originates from the phenomenon of cetacean stranding, where dolphins and whales wash up on land and die. While other games offer elements analogous to "sticks" for gameplay, Death Stranding will also offer "ropes" to tie and link players together.

Source: PlayStation Japan's YouTube channel