A makeup artist tricked people into thinking Emma Stone is in Death Stranding

Like most Hideo Kojima joints, Death Stranding is steeped in mystery. But evidence for one of the game’s biggest mysteries — involving Oscar-winning actor Emma Stone — has just been debunked, fanning the flames on months of speculation about whether Kojima’s favorite actress would be in the game.

There’s been reason to believe that Emma Stone could join the currently all-male celebrity cast of Death Stranding for some time now. Kojima is a noted La La Land devotee, and he’s obsessed with Stone in particular; when asked back in February about whether Stone was in the game, Death Stranding co-star Mads Mikkelsen replied that it was “a lovely rumor.”

This week saw what seemed to be more evidence that, yes, Emma Stone would make her return to video games — she was previously in Sleeping Dogs — with Death Stranding. An image that looked a heck of a lot like the actress circulated online over the weekend, released as part of a supposed larger E3 2017 leak.

It really does look like Emma Stone, right? And that makeup fits right into Kojima’s aesthetic, looking exactly like the weird black goo on Mads Mikkelsen’s face in his debut trailer. Still, most commenters saw right through it immediately. The low-quality pic from a questionable source didn’t inspire confidence.

Yet the months of rumors and hopes and wishes that she would join the game had others hopeful that this was real. Alas, it wasn’t to be — it was all just an elaborate fake, with YouTube-famous makeup team Glam and Gore behind it all.

Yesterday, Glam and Gore’s Mykie uploaded a detailed tutorial on how to create your own Death Stranding-inspired makeup look. The 10-minute video covers a bunch of ground, from a Hideo Kojima explainer to breaking down why Mykie of Glam and Gore was so drawn to this game.

“You guys already know that I love using unconventional ways to engage with my audience for new pieces of content,” she explains. In 2015, she fooled tons of outlets with original looks based on the cast of Suicide Squad, with her photos being taken as official instead of fan-made.

Kojima is “a master of this sort of thing,” Mykie adds, pointing to how Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain was revealed as a clear example. They’re cut from the same cloth, basically, and this stunt played out in pure Kojima fashion.

“Hahah we didn't call it emma stone or a leak, others did & we didn't add any context, but yes that's a picture from this shoot,” the team wrote in the comments on the video when asked if they were responsible for the “Emma Stone leak.”

Glam and Gore/YouTube

So it turns out that a big Kojima fan is the mystery blonde, not Emma Stone ... although, hey, that doesn’t mean the dreamers can’t keep on dreaming. If not a Death Stranding appearance, maybe a La Li Lu Le Lo Land is in the cards as a future Kojima/Stone collaboration.

Plus, looks like Mykie’s tutorial is already helping aspiring makeup artists and Kojima fans, based on Reddit. Ryan Gosling and Leo DiCaprio are among the other celebs who have since been given the Death Stranding makeover:

Reddit

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