One of Gaming’s Strangest Sci-Fi Worlds Officially Comes to Disney+ in 2027

Hannah covers horror, sci-fi, and games at Collider, where she writes news and features, reviews new releases, and interviews the people who make them. She’s helping build out Collider‘s gaming coverage, with Pokémon as one of her specialties. If she isn’t writing about a monster, she’s probably watching one on a tape from her VHS collection.

Hideo Kojima‘s Death Stranding makes connecting with other people an enormous undertaking. Its ruined world gives isolation a practical purpose, even as its characters depend on one another to survive. That tension leaves plenty to explore beyond Sam’s deliveries, and the franchise’s upcoming animated series is taking an interest in someone who would prefer to be left alone.

There is a compelling question in what happens after somebody has supposedly put the world back together. Rebuilding the connections between communities does not mean everyone wants to participate, or that the consequences will be welcome. Death Stranding’s expansion beyond games offers an opportunity to follow the people whose lives continue outside the protagonist’s mission.

Kojima Productions has released a new teaser for Death Stranding Isolations, alongside story details and the announcement that author Tow Ubukata is handling series composition and the screenplay. The animated series is scheduled to stream on Disney+ or other Disney services in 2027. The studio shared the update during its anniversary celebration at Azabudai Hills Gallery in Tokyo.

Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.

Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.

• He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
• Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
• The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
• You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.

Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.

• But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
• Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
• Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
• You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.

Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.

• You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
• The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
• Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
• Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.

Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.

• The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
• You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
• That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
• It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.

Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.

• You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
• Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
• Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
• Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.

What Is ‘Death Stranding Isolations’ About?

Isolations tells a new story set in North America immediately after Sam reconnects the continent through the Chiral Network. Its synopsis introduces a girl who has grown to prefer solitude following the catastrophe that shattered the world. Chance encounters force her beyond that isolation, while other characters pursue lives that differ from the path taken by Sam and his Bridges companions.

The synopsis opens with “My mom became a crater.” It is a devastating introduction to a world where contact between the living and the dead can cause catastrophic explosions. The ensemble also includes an older man with an unusual way of connecting people, a female soldier caught in recurring violence, and an angry boy struggling with his circumstances. Together, they give the new series several perspectives on what reconnecting America actually means.

Takayuki Sano directs, with E&H production creating traditional, hand-drawn 2D animation and Ilya Kuvshinov providing the original character designs. Kojima serves as executive producer. Discussing the responsibility of working within Kojima’s world, Sano said, “One of the unique abilities of entertainment is its power to enhance the spirituality of those who consume it, and I think this is something that Mr. Kojima’s works have always achieved.” The series joins an expanding slate that includes the animated movie Death Stranding Mosquito and A24’s live-action adaptation. Isolations has its own characters and story, giving viewers another way into the setting while exploring the consequences of events familiar to players.

Death Stranding Isolations premieres on Disney+ in 2027.

Death Stranding Isolations