Skip to main content

To promote ‘Border Break,’ Sega is building the world’s largest mecha

PS4®版『BORDER BREAK』 1/1 プラモデル プロジェクト | 1/1 PLASTIC MODEL PROJECT | Vol.01

Guinness is about to get a new world record and it’s not one that you see every day. Video game company Sega has teamed up with the plastic model creators Kotobukiya in order to construct what will be the world’s largest plastic mecha model in the history of mecha models (which is to say, the world). The enormous one-to-one scale plastic model is to be inspired by the upcoming PlayStation 4 edition of Border Break, and will feature parts made of Styrol resin that are intended to dock into one another, Hypebeast reports.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

The individual parts have apparently yet to be assembled but are presently sitting on runners in Shinjuku Station in Tokyo. However, over the course of the coming days and weeks, they will gradually make their way out of the station and actually be combined in order to create this life-size model.

The game that serves as the inspiration for the mecha model, Border Break, is a 10 versus 10 robot team battle that is slated to make its debut on PlayStation next month on August 2. The original version of the game first came out in 2009 as an arcade game, but it has apparently become popular enough (at least in Japan), to not only spawn another edition, but an enormous plastic model, too.

For now, if you find yourself on vacation in Tokyo, you can check out the parts of what will ultimately be the world record-setting model at the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line Shinjuku Station Metro Promenade, where they will remain until July 8. It is not entirely clear when the entire structure will be assembled, though the team will likely want to get a move on if it is aiming to be finished by early next month.

The Border Break team has revved up quite a bit of attention around this new project, and has even offered its fans some pretty neat video footage of how the mecha is being manufactured. In the approximately 90-second video, you can check out everything from the design process to sneak peeks of the game, with the promise of a finished product coming very soon.

Editors' Recommendations

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more