Ever since its announcement at E3 2016, there have been many rumors and speculation surrounding Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding and its potential release date. While we still don't have a concrete release date from Kojima or anyone at Sony, one of the game's voice actors has teased on Twitter that the wait for Death Stranding is almost over.

Troy Baker, the highly prolific video game voice actor, tweeted a picture of Final Fantasy 13's Snow Villiers, a character he presumably recorded voice lines for in 2009 (Final Fantasy 13 launched in Japan in 2009, but released elsewhere in 2010) next to his character from Death Stranding with the caption "#2009vs2019 ...?" As can be expected, the tweet has helped fuel continued speculation that Death Stranding will finally launch at some point later this year.

Troy Baker's tease on Twitter isn't the first time we've had clues that Death Stranding could very well release in 2019. Hideo Kojima previously said that the game would release "before" the year the anime Akira is set - which is 2019 - meaning that it may have been originally meant for release in 2018, but slipped to this year. More recently, Kojima spoke to Famitsu saying, "Is 2019 the Year of the Whale? Please look forward to Death Stranding!"

Prior to Kojima's Famitsu comments, Walmart Canada listed Death Stranding for release on June 30, 2019. While that is likely a placeholder date, it could be an indication that retailers expect Death Stranding to launch by that time.

However, the fact that we still haven't seen a lot about Death Stranding could be evidence to the contrary, and may indicate that the game is farther out than expected. Some have even guessed that Death Stranding will instead launch as a cross-generation title for both PS4 and PS5, and since the PS5 isn't even announced yet, that could mean it won't launch until 2020 or later.

While it's certainly possible that Death Stranding will launch in 2020 or beyond, the evidence continues to mount in favor of a 2019 release. Fans of Kojima's work will just have to stay tuned for an official release date announcement.

Death Stranding is in development for PS4.