Hideo Kojima outdoes himself once again with an IRL Death Stranding exoskeleton that claims to make your steps 50% more powerful and costs thousands of dollars

(Image credit: The Game Awards)

Finding hills a bit tougher in middle age? No longer bounding up those mountains like you used to? Well folks, Hideo Kojima has done it again! The latest collaboration from Kojima Productions is, unsurprisingly, a world first: a freaking exoskeleton modelled after Sam Porter Bridges' Death Stranding 2: On the Beach outfit.

Exoskeleton maker Dnsys is the partner in this enterprise and worked with Kojima Productions art director Yoji Shinkawa on the design. The exoskeleton is based on an existing Dnsys model but altered to fit the Death Stranding aesthetic, with things like lights that show the battery level dotted on the frame.

"We designed this exoskeleton with the same passion and precision as if it were built for the world of Death Stranding," says Shinkawa. "Every detail was refined to bring the game’s futuristic vision into reality, creating something Sam himself might wear. Wearing it feels as if the world of Death Stranding has come to life, where imagination and reality finally connect."

Then we get to the claims of what this thing does. Forget about your useless old bones because this baby offloads up to 200% of the wearer's body weight from the knees. Erm… 200%? Don't think too hard about the figures because we've got "intelligent gait control" for your clumsy ass, which will improve balance and stop you falling over halfway up Everest.

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Promotional images of the Death Stranding 2 exoskeleton. — (Image credit: Kojima Productions / Dnsys)

Well, I hope we're all feeling suitably bad about our brittle bones and flabby flesh. The exoskeleton has four hours of battery life and a quick-swap battery system, so presumably you could wear it all day and go around, I dunno, delivering shopping to old ladies or something. Death Stranding 3: The Uber Eats Years.

If you too want to "experience game-like mobility in real life" then the Death Stranding exoskeleton goes on-sale on December 2. The price is yet to be announced but the regular dual-leg Dnsys Z1 system that this is based on costs $1,500, so expect to pay a few hundred more in Kojima tax.

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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