It’s been a hot minute since 2019’s SDCC, but sound bites are still flowing into the web like twigs in a stream, and you can bet that revelations from Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima aren’t going to be left unpublished!

So it goes, that in Kojima’s SDCC panel appearance with Nicolas Winding Refn last week, the pair managed to be just about as on brand as you can imagine, with Only God Forgives director Refn uttering declarations like “Hideo and I enjoy destroying ‘good taste'” and Kojima revealing that he picked Hannibal’s Mads Mikkelsen over Keanu Reeves for Death Stranding, while also taking a swipe at games like Fortnite.

Kojima also revealed the box art for Death Stranding at the panel, and dished up a bit more information about Refn’s character, Heartman, in the forthcoming game.

“Nicolas wanted me to create a character that stands out more than Mads,” he said, whilst the two were in the middle of joking about Refn being a better actor than Mikkelsen. “His character has died and he wants to look for his family on the other side for three minutes and resurfaces.”

Refn also told the gathered audience at SDCC that after putting Kojima in his Amazon TV series, Too Old To Die Young, he also plans to add him to the cast of his mooted Maniac Cop reboot. Hideo will apparently be, er, “canoeing”.

Yes, there’s canoeing in Maniac Cop now. Make of that what you will.

Probably the most amusing tidbit to emerge from Refn and Kojima’s panel was the news that Kojima was stopped at US customs on the way to SDCC to have his Death Stranding Bridge Baby – that weird baby in an orange pod thing – inspected, just in case it was potentially dangerous.

As you would! We’re not even in charge of making sure weird dangerous stuff doesn’t get into the country, but we want to inspect it, too.

Wireframe #18 is out now