Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is likely the last video game in that universe, but it won’t be the last we see of the unique video game world. While games may be finished for the series–unless a Director’s Cut pops around the corner–Kojima and A24 are teaming up for a live-action movie based on the game.

During the game director’s celebratory 10th anniversary livestream of his game studio, Kojima Productions, Hideo Kojima confirmed that the upcoming Death Stranding movie will not be a direct adaptation of the first game. 

Confirmed alongside the announcement of a new anime spin-off, codenamed Mosquito, and a real-life Kojima credit card, the upcoming movie will instead tell an original story set in the virtual post-apocalyptic world. 

Joining Kojima on stage, film director Michael Sarnoski explained that the upcoming movie will focus on the themes of the game, but will explore new places and new characters that don’t conflict with the story we’ve already played.

“I think, with this project, we really want to capture the soul of the game, capture the themes of the game, but tell a story you haven’t seen in that world and explore characters you haven’t seen before, and find all of that scope and all of those incredible real locations, but also find all of those nuanced characters and just do justice to this on a macro and micro scale,” the director said. 

Sarnoski explained that Kojima will oversee the actual directing of the movie, but is “deeply involved” with its development. With this in mind, expect to see a whole bunch of weird stuff when the film releases in the future. 

While many have assumed that Kojima would jump at the chance to direct a feature-length Hollywood movie, the game director is simply too busy balancing multiple projects. At the time of writing, Hideo Kojima is not only assisting with the Death Stranding film and anime, but also directing P.T. spiritual successor OD: Knock and the Metal Gear Solid successor Physint. 

Video game movie adaptations have been stronger than usual as of late – not including Borderlands – but Death Stranding’s massive adventure is probably unadaptable in a two-hour film format. With Kojima on board, an original story is likely the correct move, and it’s definitely more exciting than a straight clone of the game.