Those who’ve played Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding will notice that a majority of the game requires the player to traverse its large open world mostly on foot. To take things literally, electric engineer and Youtuber Allen Pan has taken the challenge of converting a treadmill into a controller that handles the main characters movement.
To achieve this, Pan has rigged a PlayStation DualShock 4 (DS4) controller to the treadmill and re-tweaked its electronics so it will output certain commands accordingly. Walking on the treadmill registers as holding down the controller’s left analog stick forward, and running simulates triggering the L3 button which initiates the character to run.
Weight balancing, environment interaction and combat controls are still managed by the DS4, so the complete experience will require Pan use the controller and treadmill in tandem. If you’ve watched his video (included below) demonstrating this, you’ll notice that controlling the game with this method is not exactly a leisurely stroll.
Pan’s treadmill method is not really an ideal approach to fully experience Death Stranding, and is probably best reserved for hardcore players who wishes to take it to the extreme. That, or as an unnecessarily excruciating way of getting into shape. Honestly, we would love to see Norman Reedus or Hideo Kojima actually trying this out just for laughs.
