What A Gaming Pill Appears to be like Like When Kojima Productions Controls The Design

Gaming laptop computer collaborations have skilled folks to count on a sticker job. Print a personality on an current lid, swap one accent colour, and name it a particular version. Buyers have seen that components so many instances that the majority don’t look twice anymore. The Asus ROG Flow Z13-KJP, constructed with Kojima Productions, skips it completely.

Price: TBD
Where to Buy: ASUS

Hideo Kojima’s studio spent years treating bodily merchandise as artistic extensions, not licensed merchandise. Products carrying the Kojima identify, from Anicorn watches to branded collectibles, shipped with the identical consideration to floor texture and materials distinction that the studio places into its sport worlds. When Asus approached a couple of collaboration, the undertaking landed at a second when gaming {hardware} design had flatlined. CES 2026 flooring had been filled with new chips and brighter screens, but nearly nothing on show had a bodily id value remembering. That hole gave the Z13-KJP room to face out with out elevating its voice. No launch date or worth has surfaced, which provides the entire thing an odd pressure, like an idea piece ready to change into an actual product.

Under that reworked shell, the {hardware} matches the usual ROG Flow Z13 from earlier in 2025. Specs aren’t the draw right here. What issues is how far the Kojima collaboration reshapes what a gaming laptop-tablet appears and looks like in your palms.

What It Is

Inside the Z13-KJP sits AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395, packing 16 CPU cores and 40 GPU compute items on one dense slab of silicon. CPU and GPU share a single 128GB pool of quick LPDDR5X reminiscence as an alternative of retaining separate swimming pools the best way most laptops do. It’s the biggest shared reminiscence pool in any transportable system this measurement, and it modifications how the machine handles strain.

AMD’s Radeon 8060S pulls graphics from that very same pool, sidestepping the pace penalties of separate reminiscence buses. Storage is a 1TB SSD with a built-in NPU rated at 50 TOPS for on-device AI.

The 13.4-inch touchscreen runs at 2,560 by 1,600 pixels with a 180Hz refresh charge, pushing colours that look brilliant and correct even underneath harsh indoor mild. A removable keyboard clicks into place and turns the pill right into a extra conventional laptop computer whenever you want one. That flexibility has at all times been the Z13’s strongest trick, and the KJP version retains each little bit of it.

Everything shifts on the skin. Asus and Kojima Productions reworked each seen floor utilizing the studio’s personal design language. Panel traces observe the segmented armor patterns from Ludens, the armored astronaut mascot that’s represented the studio because it opened. Carbon fiber and machined aluminum alternate throughout the lid.

Run your fingers over the floor and you may really feel precisely the place one materials ends and the opposite begins. There’s no vinyl wrap or printed graphic anyplace on this machine. The textures are machined straight into the chassis, not utilized after the actual fact. That type of bodily dedication makes the Z13-KJP really feel nearer to a hand-crafted object than one thing that rolled off a manufacturing unit line.

Asus rebuilt the removable keyboard to match the brand new look, retaining the identical structure and key really feel whereas wrapping the deck in matching supplies. A customized carrying case comes included, and the collaboration extends to an identical ROG Delta II-KJP headset, a Keris II Origin-KJP mouse, and an XXL mouse mat with gold Kojima Productions branding.

Visual consistency throughout 4 separate merchandise reveals Asus and Kojima handled this as a full product line, not a fast commemorative job. That type of packaging ambition is uncommon in gaming {hardware}.

Up shut, you’ll spot small etchings alongside the hinge and textured grip areas on the pill’s edges. Subtle materials callouts run throughout the again panel, every positioned to reward gradual inspection. Flip it over and the Kojima Productions emblem catches mild in another way at each angle, a neat trick flat printing can’t match. Those micro particulars add up quick. Most gaming particular editions disintegrate underneath that type of scrutiny. This one holds up.

Who Should Skip This

If specs drive the acquisition, the usual ROG Flow Z13 is the smarter purchase. Same chip, identical display, identical keyboard, probably at a noticeably lower cost. Asus hasn’t launched pricing for the KJP version, so there’s no method to calculate what the Kojima identify really prices. Buyers who need the Z13’s energy proper now can order the common model right this moment.

Asus hasn’t confirmed whether or not the Z13-KJP will likely be a restricted run or a normal product. The bundled headset and carrying case add one other unknown: will they ship collectively, or will Asus promote them individually? Until these particulars land, the Z13-KJP sits in a grey zone between introduced and obtainable. Hold the usual Z13 in a single hand and the KJP version within the different. Internally, they’re the identical machine. The distinction is completely in what’s wrapped round them.

Who This Is For

The Z13-KJP is smart for somebody who cares about Kojima Productions as a artistic studio, not solely because the crew behind Death Stranding. Collectors who maintain gaming {hardware} subsequent to artwork books and restricted figures will discover this pill suits proper in on a shelf. Creatives who journey mild would possibly respect pairing AMD’s processing energy with a chassis that appears prefer it got here from a design gallery as an alternative of an electronics warehouse. That crossover between show piece and work device is tough to seek out on this market.

Most merchandise decide one lane. They’re both constructed for efficiency or constructed to look good on a desk, and those that attempt each often compromise on the facet that issues extra. The Z13-KJP layers one id on high of one other, stacking Kojima’s visible language onto {hardware} that already had actual enamel. Tilt the lid underneath overhead mild and the panel traces catch shadows at completely different depths. That degree of floor element wouldn’t exist on the usual model. Pick it up and the load feels the identical, however the texture underneath your fingers tells a special story. Whether that story issues is determined by how a lot you worth design as its personal type of efficiency.

Gaming {hardware} hasn’t absolutely adopted the limited-drop mannequin that streetwear manufacturers have leaned on for years, although CES 2026 confirmed extra manufacturers experimenting with design-led collaborations than any current present. If you’ve been following TG’s CES 2026 protection, you’ve seen the sample firsthand: rows of equivalent silver and black chassis damaged up by the uncommon product that really appears completely different sitting on a desk. The ASUS ROG Flow Z13-KJP Kojima 2-in-1 Gaming Laptop is the clearest take a look at of whether or not that type of materials distinction strikes product in a approach uncooked specs alone can’t.

Price: TBD
Where to Buy: ASUS

The pill lands in a wierd area, half transportable workstation and half collector’s object formed by one in all gaming’s most acknowledged artistic groups. How a lot Asus provides to the value will resolve whether or not this reaches a wider viewers or stays a chunk for devoted followers. Hold the usual Z13 and the KJP facet by facet: identical weight, identical heat from the processor, identical display brightness. Close your eyes and also you wouldn’t know which one you’re holding. Open them, and for the suitable purchaser, that distinction is your entire level.