Kojima Works with DNSYS on Functional Exoskeleton

You heard it here first: Kojima Productions is working with DNSYS on real-life, functional exoskeleton. If you’ve played Death Stranding you’ll understand why this makes sense, but it’s still a very left-field announcement. Let’s take a look at these and see if they might be worth flipping.

We’ve covered a lot of weird video game collaborations. Unique vinyl records with hidden messages, digital dice flipping for hundreds of dollars, even a Taco Bell Skateboard; but today’s announcement might take the cake.

Yesterday morning, Kojima put out a cryptic Xeet implying new Death Stranding merch would be on the way. While the product images went over most folks’ heads, a few noticed that it looked very similar to exoskeletons used in Death Stranding 2.

If you’re totally unfamiliar, the game focuses on Sam Porter Bridges during his cross-country, post-apocalyptic career as an Amazon delivery driver. Players will spend hours toting hundreds of pounds of packages over hills, rivers, and mountains interspersed with cameos from Guillermo del Toro and Margaret Qualley.

Kojima’s tweet appeared to be a real-life exoskeleton, but details were extremely scarce at the time. A few eagle-eyed gamers noted this looked very, very similar to the DNSYS Z1 knee-mounted exoskeleton that recently raised over $2 million in Kickstarter funding.

This morning Kojima confirmed the collaboration with a new announcement. Rather than a simple reskin, DNSYS has produced an entirely new and seriously sleek Z1 variant to tie in with the game.

Without knowing the actual retail price or total production, it’s hard to make any predictions on whether these are worth flipping.

DNSYS prices the Z1 at $5,842 HKD, or about $740 USD for a single leg. A pair of Z1 exoskeletons to fit both legs will run you over $900, and that’s the “Early Bird” discounted price. At production, a paired set will likely cost close to $1,200.

The Z1 exoskeleton was primarily developed for people with disabilities or joint issues, offering up to 200% bodyweight pressure reduction, 50% boost on each step, and up to 44 pounds of lifting power. They’ve been reviewed extremely well, and offer renewed mobility for people with diseases like ALS or arthritis.

As far as we can tell, the Death Stranding version looks functionally identical to the standard Z1, just with additional branding. Because of how niche this collaboration is, we don’t expect them to make many units. We doubt it’d be any more than 1,000, and could be limited to somewhere around 100 to 200 units. This level of rarity could make it genuinely collectable and therefore flippable.

As for price, that’s another unknown. Based on the standard Z1 pricing, we’d expect the Death Stranding 2 exoskeleton to retail for around $1,500, although a price closer to $2,000 is possible if they use higher-end materials.

That’s a lot of scratch for something most people will probably leave on a shelf after a few test drives around the neighborhood. Will it find a market? Probably. Will they resell? Possibly.

Either way, our interest is piqued. We’ll be watching this one closely. If you’re interested in snagging a pair, join DNSYS’ giveaway today.

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