There may be plenty of bad blood between Konami and their former colleagues Hideo Kojima, Guillermo del Toro, and Norman Reedus, but something good is coming out of it: Death Stranding, the new game Kojima is making, sans Konami. The promotions for the game have been mysterious, and Kojima has said clues can be found by rewatching:
How did You like our new DEATH STRANDING teaser? There're various hints(misleads) hidden so pls watch it to think as many time as you want. pic.twitter.com/6B8NzEDDxi
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) December 2, 2016
The first trailer featured a naked Norman Reedus, a disappearing baby, and five intimidating figures floating in the sky. The second trailer featured a frightened Guillermo del Toro, a materializing baby, and five intimidating soldiers led by Mads Mikkelson. If it seems like there are similar notes between the two, you’re right.
When both trailers are played at the same time in YouTube Doubler, the similarities become more obvious, especially when the baby disappears from a Norman Reedus’ hands and appears inside the machine Guillermo del Toro is holding. Considering Reedus seems to be in the post-apocalypse and del Toro appears to be witnessing the breakdown of society, this hints at a time travel element to the machine del Toro is carrying. Here’s a GIF of that moment, via Kotaku:
This was originally spotted by constablegrimes, and the commenters over there spotted plenty of little details, like the hand prints in the first trailer following the same path del Toro walks in the second trailer and the scar on Reedus’ stomach matching up with the mark on the floating doll’s stomach in the second trailer.
It’s also worth noting that Kojima has said the scientific equations on Reedus’ dog tags are clues, and those equations include the Schwarzschild metric (related to black holes) and the Dirac equation (which predicted the existence of antimatter). But, if you’re like me, you were too distracted by a naked Norman Reedus to notice those.