Death Stranding 2 fans believe the resurrected Higgs is styled after Brandon Lee's The Crow movie.
Higgs might've "died" in the first Death Stranding, but he's back in full force in the latest Death Stranding 2 trailer, which debuted earlier this week, confirming a 2025 release date and a weird dummy. When Higgs took off his mask (which itself was styled after Lindsay Wagner's face), he revealed some white make up underneath, which drew some inspirations to The Joker from fans at first glance.
Now that everyone's had a moment to process the trailer's wacky goings-on, it seems a more apt comparison is that of Brandon Lee's titular character in The Crow. As the tweet below attests to, Lee's character returns from the dead to play guitar and take lives, which is pretty much everything Higgs has going on in the latest Death Stranding 2 trailer.
- Hideo Kojima says he'll "apologize beforehand" for Death Stranding 2 moments with Troy Baker's Higgs which are "so ridiculous" that "you'll probably throw the controller"
- Hideo Kojima is still hung up on his ex, as Death Stranding 2 features a Metal Gear Solid doppelganger the director says is the spitting image of Solid Snake
Seeing a lot of people make Joker comparisons to Higgs Death Stranding when he’s clearly Brandon Lee from the Crow. You know, the character who was murdered and comes back for revenge and plays a sick guitar solo on a roof? pic.twitter.com/8Brwi78kVZFebruary 1, 2024
If you're unfamiliar with The Crow, it was a 1994 movie, which unfortunately became pretty synonymous with Brandon Lee's untimely death. Lee was fatally wounded by a prop gun during filming, with rewrites, stunt doubles, and digital effects completing the rest of the movie in his absence. The film has attained a cult status ever since, partly because of Lee's death.
A dead rocker who plays guitar returns from the dead for revenge, Higgs isn't the Joker, he's The Crow. from r/DeathStranding
This is all to say that yes, Higgs does seem to be inspired by Lee's The Crow character. Considering Hideo Kojima is a massive movie buff, it's not hard to imagine the game director picking out a 30-year-old movie as the inspiration for the return of one of his villains in Death Stranding 2.
Death Stranding 2 is reuniting Kojima with a Metal Gear Solid veteran to partly direct the new game's cutscenes. Yoji Shimomura has had a hand in directing the action of the Bayonetta and Devil May Cry games over the years, which is an exciting prospect for Kojima's new game.
Read on for some insight into what a 64-year-old movie can tell us about Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.
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