Death Stranding Isolations carries the subtitle “My mom became a crater.” Anyone who has played Hideo Kojima's games will get the meaning right away.
A crater, in Death Stranding, is the mark left by a voidout. That’s the blast that follows when a Beached Thing (BT) consumes a human. The anime therefore begins with a death, and its first official trailer, which came out on Oct. 30, focuses on the girl who has to live with that loss.
The footage centers on a blonde-haired girl, one of the series’ two main characters. BTs are the souls of the dead stuck in the world of the living, and they keep appearing in her visions and won’t let her be.
Sam Porter Bridges doesn’t lead this one, and neither do any of the other familiar faces. Isolations was announced in 2025 as an original net anime with its own story and protagonists, separate from Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. It’s expected to arrive in 2027 as a Disney Plus exclusive.
A newer studio with a capable team
The animation comes from E&H Production, a fairly young studio set up by MAPPA veteran Sunghoo Park. Ninja Kamui is among its credits, and it’s also working on the upcoming Magic Knight Rayearth remake.
Takyuki Sano, who has years in the industry and worked on Attack on Titan: The Last Attack and Jujutsu Kaisen 0, is directing. Isolations is the first project he has directed.
The screenplay is by Tow Ubukata, an award-winning novelist and screenwriter best known for Psycho-Pass 2 and 3. A story about grief and dead souls that won’t let go of the living suits his past work.
The franchise spreads into film and TV
Death Stranding 3 exists only as a concept draft, with no further plans announced, so fans are watching the series’ expansion into other media instead. Isolations is one of three such projects.
Michael Sarnoski (A Quiet Place: Day One) is writing and directing a film for A24, framed as a prequel to the games. A second animated feature, with the working title Death Stranding Mosquito, has Aaron Guzikowski (Raised by Wolves, Prisoners) attached as writer and Hiroshi Miyamoto (Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero) as director. Its first trailer came out in September.
How the series began
With Death Stranding, the Metal Gear Solid creator pushed his arthouse approach to games as far as it would go. The first game is set after a cataclysm has broken the world and thinned the line between the living and the afterlife.
Players take the role of Sam Porter Bridges, played by Norman Reedus. He’s a courier carrying supplies to cut-off colonies of survivors while building a wireless network to reconnect the United States. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach sends Sam and his companions on an expedition to Australia.
Isolations leaves Sam’s delivery routes behind and follows a single girl whose mother is now a crater.