One of the main storyline elements of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided revolves around a human population that has quickly accepted augmentations as a normal part of life in the form of bionic body parts.
That might sound like science fiction, but one robotics company, Open Bionics, has created a bionic arm based on the one worn by Mankind Divided's main protagonist, Adam Jensen.
Mankind Divided takes place in 2029, two years after events from the previous game, Human Revolution, after the "Aug Incident," which involved augmented humans becoming suddenly violent. It turns out that a rogue member of the Illuminati secretly implanted tech in augmentations that allows for their manipulation to discredit their use. The Illuminati tries to hide the truth as humanity begins turning against those who retain their bionic parts.
Players take on the role of Adam, who has an augmented arm: his job is to capture a terrorist cell of augmented people, but also to reveal the truth that the Illuminati would hide.
Open Bionics created an artificial bionic arm based on the one worn by Adam in the game in an effort to bring part of the world of Deus Ex to reality. A remote control operates the arm, which also has a Razer Stargazer camera, Intel RealSense and motion-tracking technology.
"Our friends kept telling us to make something with Open Bionics in real life," Eidos Montreal community manager Sacha Ramtohul told VentureBeat. "We got together last year to start on it. Open Bionics is still working on the technology."
However, this is more than creating something from a video game for the fun of it. The idea is to use these kinds of augmentations for people who really need them. Unlike in the game, though, the bionic arm doesn't grant special powers, but it could someday give movement and mobility back to someone missing a limb.
Another important aspect of the arm is that it uses 3D printing: the concept is to offer blueprints for the arm to the public for free so that anyone can print it and use it for themselves, as well as to customize the arm for whatever purposes they have in mind.
For those wanting to see the arm and take it out for a test drive, it should appear at E3 in 2017.
The future is now, but let's hope that it doesn't include augmented limbs going crazy and attacking people.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided releases for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on Aug. 23.
