Despite dispatching a group of skeleton soldiers wielding automatic weapons to do his bidding in the Death Stranding trailer featuring film director Guillermo del Toro and actor Mads Mikkelsen, the Danish thespian has now insisted that his character is not intrinsically a villain. Mikkelsen revealed as much while addressing a packed out crowd during a question and answer session at this year's Saudi Arabia Comic-Con.

As seen in the video below, a fan provides a preamble to his question about what Mads Mikkelsen's feelings are in regards to video games being the new frontier in storytelling, by saying that he "thinks" that the actor could be Death Stranding's villain. Interestingly enough, though, after answering the fan's query to say that he believes video games' use as a device for storytelling is "fantastic," Mikkelsen takes it upon himself to correct the audience member, by insinuating that his character does not necessarily fit into the framework of what a standard antagonist is, saying, "No, I'm not a villain. I am a character in there that you can kind of decide what he is, but he's not a villain."

Taking this into consideration, Mikkelsen's interpretation of his character in Death Stranding will surely evoke curiosity in fans, for not only is the actor now synonymous with one of the most infamous villains in the history of fiction after playing Hannibal Lecter, but also his demeanor in the Death Stranding game trailer in which he's featured seems to exude a combination of both wry malice and smoldering intensity. However, none of that necessarily means he's the primary antagonist, as he could very well end up being represented as a dark anti-hero, or even an occasional ally to Norman Reedus' protagonist.

Of course, it's also entirely possible that Mikkelsen is actually unsure about the role in which his character will take in Death Stranding due to the often convoluted nature of the plots in Hideo Kojima's games. After all, the actor just recently revealed that the narrative for the forthcoming title is so elaborate that he doesn't fully understand its story.

Taking all of this into consideration, should Mikkelsen be totally accurate in his assessment of his character in Death Stranding, it could mean that players may be able to make intricate moral decisions that end up affecting the nature of the title's narrative and gameplay in a way that aligns the protagonist with characters of more questionable motives. Nevertheless, since Death Stranding just recently entered "full swing" development, the precious few pieces of concrete information currently available for the game offer little in the way of clarity. Hopefully, though, Kojima will start to open up more about the forthcoming title as the year progresses.

Death Stranding is currently in production for PlayStation 4.