Kojima Productions premiered a new, 10-minute long trailer for Death Stranding 2 at SXSW over the recent weekend, and while it features some familiar faces – like Norman Reedus and Lea Seydoux, who reprise their roles from the first Death Stranding – the trailer opens on a new face: Luca Marinelli. But Marinelli isn’t just playing a new character in the Death Stranding universe… He seems poised to become Kojima’s new Solid Snake.
Who is Luca Marinelli playing in Death Stranding 2?
Marinelli is an Italian actor who provides the voice and likeness of the character Neil in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. While the vast majority of Marinelli’s film roles have been in Italian language productions, he is likely best known to English-speaking audiences as the immortal mercenary Nicky from Netflix’s The Old Guard.
In the latest trailer for Death Stranding 2, Marinelli’s Neil is first shown in an interrogation room, being accused of unknown crimes by a man in a suit. Neil says he was only doing the “dirty work” for this suited man and seems to be trying to end the working arrangement he has with them. The man angrily responds that Neil “has no choice” but to keep working for him.
The scene then jumps to Neil talking to a Bridges employee named Lucy (played by Marinelli’s real-life wife, actress Alissa Jung). This conversation hints at the pair’s romantic relationship, and also reveals that the job Neil is doing for the suited man is smuggling cargo — brain-dead pregnant women, to be precise.
Wait, brain-dead pregnant women?
One of the most iconic images from the original Death Stranding is Norman Reedus’ Sam Porter Bridges with a glowing orange flask containing a baby strapped to his chest. The infant he carries is a Bridge Baby, or BB; a seven-month fetus removed via c-section from a brain-dead mother. Such a scenario creates a limbo state between life and death, which in turn allows BBs to communicate with the world of the dead. BBs can then help their adult carriers detect Beached Things, or BTs, which are malevolent souls trapped in the world of the living that cause Voidouts.
Okay, breathe, we’re almost done. Prior to the events of the first game, the US Government was experimenting with BBs to explain the Voidouts, large destructive events caused by BTs that can level entire cities similar to a nuclear bomb. However, the study was discontinued after a BB experiment created a Voidout in Manhattan, destroying the city and killing the US President. Except the experiments on BBs did continue, in secret, hence why Neil is smuggling in the brain-dead pregnant women. He’s presumably doing this for the United States government so that it can continue its illegal research.
Is Solid Snake in Death Stranding 2?
The new SXSW Death Stranding 2 trailer ends with a shot of Marinelli’s Neil tying a bandana around his forehead. In that moment he undeniably looks very much like Solid Snake – the much-loved protagonist of Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series.
So does this mean that Solid Snake is in Death Stranding 2? Not quite – but the visual similarity between Neil and Snake is certainly intentional. To understand the connection between the two characters you need to go back to 2020, when Hideo Kojima posted an excerpt from an interview he took part in on his official Instagram.
One of the questions asked was “Which creators and actors currently have your attention?” To this Kojima responded, “There are many actors that I follow. Luca Marinelli recently caught my eye after watching “The Old Guard” and “Martin Eden.”
“I think if he donned a bandana, he’d be a spitting image of Solid Snake!” Kojima added.
Fast-forward to SXSW, and we now have footage of Marinelli donning a bandana and looking like the spitting image of Solid Snake. To be clear, Neil is not (as far as we understand) Solid Snake – the universes of Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding are separate. However, it’s undeniable that Kojima is referencing his most famous creation.
How Death Stranding 2 connects to Metal Gear Solid
Neil’s Snake cosplay isn’t just a cheeky homage and easter egg for Kojima fans, however. The new trailer is intentionally evoking Metal Gear at every opportunity. To continue pulling on the Neil thread, the trailer makes it clear that Neil becomes Beached at some point. His soul is stranded in the living world, much like what happened to Cliff Unger (Mads Mikkelsen) in the first game.
Like Unger, Neil’s Beached form takes on the guise of a soldier accompanied by a platoon of undead warriors. During this reveal in the trailer, a narrator talks about the re-emergence of the United States’ gun culture on the “new continent.”
It harkens back to one of the biggest themes Kojima explored throughout the Metal Gear series: the proliferation of weapons, particularly nuclear missiles, and how arms destabilize humanity. This has been a key theme across much of Kojima’s work throughout the years, with almost every Metal Gear game being about stopping nuclear weapon proliferation. The irony is that Snake must sometimes use weapons to stop nuclear war, but even this is shown to have a corrosive effect on both his and Big Boss’ soul. This anti-armaments stance is probably why there are several Metal Gear games where non-lethal playthroughs are possible.
While the thematic parallels are clear to see, there may also be something of an artistic philosophy connection, too. Neil could be a “version” of Solid Snake through metaphysics. Beached Things are deceased souls tethered to the world of the living, and what is Snake if not dead (at least in the artistic sense – Metal Gear as a franchise seems over, remasters and remakes notwithstanding.) Perhaps Neil is Kojima’s way of saying the soul of Snake is trapped in the world of Death Stranding, hence why Neil’s face briefly flashes into a skull during the trailer.
Outside of Neil, the trailer features a second major reference to Metal Gear when Heartman seems to combine the ship, DHV Magellan, with a colossal BT to form a humanoid bio-robotic giant, not unlike the Sahalanthropus from Metal Gear Solid 5. While the Metal Gear machines from the MGS series are often used to launch nuclear weapons, the Magellan is, in a way, also housing nukes if the BT it combines with can also cause Voidouts.
Speaking of MGS 5, the last time Kojima released a trailer as cinematic (and as long) as the newest Death Stranding 2 preview was the 10-minute long Red Band trailer for Metal Gear Solid 5. Both are epic in scope, presenting the characters as if they were movie stars, and combining gameplay and cutscenes into one, heroic showcase for Kojima’s newest game.
Will there be another Kojima Metal Gear Solid game?
By now it is pretty clear that we will never get another Metal Gear Solid game from Hideo Kojima. He was forced to leave the franchise behind after his departure from Konami, and so any MGS game going forward – such as the upcoming remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 – will be produced without his involvement.
Despite this, it’s clear that the imagery and themes of the series are still burned in Kojima’s imagination. With Death Stranding 2, Kojima might not be making a game like Metal Gear Solid, but he’s clearly taking inspiration from his own series to create a new chapter for Death Stranding.
The trailer for the sequel makes it clear that Kojima’s ambitions for Death Stranding 2 are even bigger than they were for the first game, with more diverse environments (like rainforests and oceans) and seemingly a greater emphasis on combat. Combined with the visuals, themes, and new gameplay, Death Stranding 2 looks closer than ever to being a new Metal Gear Solid game, even if it doesn’t share the same name.
Matt Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.
