Death Stranding Isolations names its full staff and shows a first teaser, a year after Kojima Productions announced the Disney+ anime
Takayuki Sano directs the hand-drawn 2D series at E&H Production, with Tow Ubukata writing and Ilya Kuvshinov's original character designs. It streams worldwide on Disney+ in 2027; cast and an exact date are still to come.
A lone figure stands at the lip of an enormous crater. Elsewhere, a blonde girl wakes up in a messy room with a visor over her eyes that reads "SLEEP." Those two images are all the first look at Death Stranding Isolations gives away before it cuts to the title card and a simple promise: "2027 Coming Soon."
The 44-second promo went up on Friday, October 30, through Disney+ Japan, while Kojima Productions' official X account used the same moment to publish a teaser visual and the rest of the production team. Disney+ will carry the show worldwide, and only there, at some point in 2027. Nobody has been cast yet, there is no firm date, and Isolations remains a provisional name.
A side story to Sam's journey
Rather than retell Hideo Kojima's game, the show borrows its setting and its time frame: the years when Sam Bridges is crossing the continent. Its focus is on several other people, each living cut off from the rest in North America while that trek is under way. Kojima oversees it as executive producer.
Kojima Productions first unveiled the project at a Disney+ showcase in Hong Kong in November 2025, naming three people at the time: director Takayuki Sano, original character designer Ilya Kuvshinov and animation studio E&H Production. The studio is drawing every frame by hand in 2D, a departure from the visual style of the games.
The rest of the team
Friday's reveal filled in everyone else. Tow Ubukata, whose credits include RWBY: Hyousetsu Teikoku, handles series composition and writes the scripts. Kuvshinov, who drew the characters for Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, supplied the original designs, and Sayaka Koiso of Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 is credited for character design. Sano most recently worked as assistant director on the 2026 Magic Knight Rayearth anime.
The look of the series rests with art director and color-script artist Yann Le Gall (Ramen Akaneko) and color designer Ami Kutsuna (The God of High School). Tomohiko Kan, CG director on Undead Girl Murder Farce, runs the 3D department; Ju-mi Lee (Ninja Kamui) is director of photography; Keisuke Yanagi, editor of the 2024 Ranma 1/2, cuts the episodes; and Shuuhei Abe of Isekai Nonbiri Nouka directs the sound.
Two anime from one game
Isolations is not the only animated Death Stranding in the works. A separate feature film, tentatively titled Death Stranding Mosquito, is being made at ABC Animation Studio.
The game behind both first came out on PlayStation 4 in November 2019, published by Sony Interactive Entertainment on PlayStation and by 505 Games elsewhere. A Windows version arrived in July 2020 and a PlayStation 5 edition in September 2021, followed by versions for iOS, iPadOS and macOS in January 2024, and for Amazon Luna and Xbox Series X|S in November 2024. It had sold 5 million copies worldwide by July 2021, and by April 2025 more than 20 million players had picked it up.
The next step for the anime is a cast announcement and a firm date on Disney+.
