With the advent of VR gaming, video games are getting so damn immersive it’s no wonder why so many tech-thriller TV shows and movies often lump the device in with dark dystopian futures overflowing with potential social issues. Seriously, they’re getting so ultra-realistic that I’m sure an ethical debate will inevitably have to be had at some point in the future about their long-term use, but I digress. That all being said, what if you wanted to go that one step further beyond VR?
Well, the creator behind the Oculus Rift VR headset Palmer Luckey has recently designed a brand new headset. The catch? If you die in the video game, you die in the real world. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that Charlie Brooker is hastily making notes of this right now in anticipation for his next season of Black Mirror!
Interestingly, the new headset is a sort of ode to Sword Art Online, which is a Japanese light novel franchise that was adapted into its own video game series back in 2013, with Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment. In a recent blog post, Palmer Luckey wrote in-depth about his newest conceptualisation, which he compared to the NerveGear – the name given to the helmet worn by players in Sword Art Online.
You want NerveGear, the incredible device that perfectly recreates reality using a direct neural interface that is also capable of killing the user. The idea of tying your real life to your virtual avatar has always fascinated me – you instantly raise the stakes to the maximum level and force people to fundamentally rethink how they interact with the virtual world and the players inside it. Pumped up graphics might make a game look more real, but only the threat of serious consequences can make a game feel real to you and every other person in the game. This is an area of videogame mechanics that has never been explored, despite the long history of real-world sports revolving around similar stakes.
The good news is that we are halfway to making a true NerveGear. The bad news is that so far, I have only figured out the half that kills you. The perfect-VR half of the equation is still many years out.
So, there you have it, folks. It sounds like Luckey is very interested in creating a NerveGear VR unit that could potentially “kill the user”. Frankly, it’s not something I’d personally be into, but different strokes, and all that!
But what say you, though? Tell us, would you be down for a VR headset that could harm you in real life? And would you be okay playing a game that could actually kill you? Let us know in the usual place down below.
About the author
