A few days ago, an image (which you can see at the bottom of the post) bounced around the 4Chan message boards and Reddit, showcasing a lady in make-up similar to what we saw on Mads Mikkelsen in the latest trailer of Hideo Kojima's upcoming game Death Stranding.

The lady was alleged to be La La Land protagonist Emma Stone, piggybacking on Kojima-san's appreciation for the actress, and many credulous sites relayed the rumor as potentially credible.

Of course, here at DualShockers we refrained from providing the alleged "leak" any credence. While the involvement of Emma Stone in Death Stranding isn't completely unlikely, as Kojima-san certainly loves to work with actors he personally appreciates, the picture was most probably fake. If the source wasn't enough to identify the picture as a prank, not only the quality is obviously altered to confuse and mislead, but there is really no reason for another potential character of the game to wear exactly the same make-up pattern shown on Mikkelsen.

That said, today we can finally confirm that the alleged "leak" is a fake. The picture comes from a shot portraying Mykie from the Glam&Gore YouTube channel. Today, she posted a detailed make-up tutorial on how she achieved the look, and you can check it out below (it's really awesome, by the way, so props to her).

Mykie herself confirmed that the picture comes from her work in the comments of the video:

"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. To the other comment-Why is that sad? It got a whole community discussing their thoughts on having Emma Stone as part of the game, if parallel universes would be more likely if two characters did have a similar uniform, even the capabilities of the game engine. I'd say that's not sad at all but just shows what a strong fan base Kojima has cultivated already for this game. Discussion, debate and theorizing from a simple picture is amazing to me."

[...]

"Hahah, didn't think we'd fool really anyone enough they'd even recognize it as her or entertain the idea it could be real but hey! Won't complain! It was fun to see people talk about the game more over a picture we posted without context. :)"

So, there you have it: while Emma Stone playing a role in Death Stranding is certainly not impossible, a blurry shot on 4Chan is no confirmation or even indication of that.

Death Stranding is currently in the works for PS4 at Kojima Productions under the direction of Hideo Kojima. No release window has been announced for the moment.