The end of last year saw Death Stranding‘s Kojima Productions in one of the weirdest product partnerships we’ve ever encountered. The game featuring that guy from The Boondock Saints paired up with the Dnsys Z1 exoskeleton to boost human movement without requiring internal surgery.
If you had enough cash and you were quick enough, you too could have owned a limited-run Dnsys Z1 exoskeleton augment. Given how fast the first 100 sold out, even at R27,000, you might have a hard time nabbing one when the second batch goes on sale today.
Death Stranding your wallet
The Z1 exoskeleton is an undeniably cool piece of kit, though. Dnsys’s Z1 Exoskeleton Pro is the mechanical base for the product, but buying the ‘cheaper’ version means you lose out on the Kojima branding. If performance is all that matters, the augment will remove 20kg of apparent weight from your frame over a range of 15.5 kilometres.
That’s not nothing, since it only adds a little under 700 grams of weight to your legs in doing so. Cameras in the unit adjust for terrain, and if you’ve got longer to trek, hot-swappable batteries will let you clamber for greater distances. Dnsys is still claiming to “offload up to 200% of your body weight from the knees,” which sounds like a handy thing to have.
If you’re determined to expend as little effort as possible, the Dnsys Z1, Death Stranding version or not, works in tandem with the company’s X1 exoskeleton. That one lives over your hips, features a similar range, and promises to further protect your knees. And your heart rate, by limiting lower-body stress. Right now, those are priced at R15,350. They’re probably easier to buy than Hideo’s Z1 augmentation, too.
