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Just because his talk show is over doesn’t mean that Conan O’Brien has had to abandon all of his regular segments. While the Masturbating Bear is unlikely to make a return appearance any time soon, Conan did just make another “Clueless Gamer” video.
“Clueless Gamer,” a staple of TBS’ Conan show, found novice video game user O’Brien routinely teaming up with enthusiastic gamer Aaron Bleyaert (and sometimes a celebrity guest) to try out famous titles ranging from Grand Theft Auto V, to Mario Kart 8, to the shitty E.T. Atari game that was buried in an unmarked mass grave in New Mexico.
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For the newest installment, Conan and Bleyaert played a director’s cut of Death Stranding, made by famed video game creator Hideo Kojima. What sets Death Stranding apart from other games that have been featured on the show is that O’Brien is actually in the game. Back in 2019, Conan was invited to meet Kojima while he was visiting Tokyo, right when Kojima Productions was finishing work on the highly-anticipated Death Stranding. The host then had his face scanned and digitized so that he could have a cameo role in it.
Sure enough, O’Brien was in the game, playing a character named the “Wandering MC.” He shows up as a hologram wearing an otter hat and basically performs several minutes of awkward monologue jokes.
Now Conan has finally played the game, and was jokingly deflated to witness himself firing off lame dad jokes in a multimillion dollar video game. “I flew to Tokyo,” O’Brien deadpanned. “I took an 18 hour flight… I bombed. Why did they make me so unfunny and needy? I thought they were gonna make me a little better looking.”
“I thought it was accurate,” Bleyaert responded.
“It was accurate. I didn’t want accurate,” O’Brien fired back.
Conan was playing up his disappointment for the cameras; he’s obviously seen his cameo before. Although it’s possible that the experience of encountering himself while actually playing through the game was entirely different.
At the end of the “Clueless Gamer” video, Conan phoned Hideo Kojima, and asked if he could have a role in another game: “Maybe where I’m a bit more of a hero? Not somebody who just tells, sort of otter jokes. Like a guy who’s kind of the focus of the game. Kind of a sexy guy?” (He also pointed out that this could lead to his own video game franchise, a TV series and theme-park rides.)
Kojima responded that he would like Conan to come back and visit their studio so he can scan him again with “better scanning technology” for his new game, which presumably means that Conan will appear in Death Stranding 2. Although it’s unclear whether or not he’ll be playing the same character or a digital beefcake like he requested.
Perhaps once they’ve scanned him again, Conan can take a load off and let his CGI self host the Oscars next March.