When it comes to the world of gaming it sucks to lose, no matter if you played badly or you had to do an impossible task, losing is never a nice feeling, but luckily we know that at the end of the day it’s just a game and we get to walk away safely with our health intact and only our pride a bit bruised.
Some extremists might have a different opinion as the man who created Oculus rift is testing out a terrifying VR headset invention that could kill you in real life if you die in the video game. An invention that we hope will never see the light of day, but the concept and methodical thinking might not be so wrong after all…
The VR headset that kills
The evil genius behind the killer headset is Palmer Luckey, who intends to connect three explosive charges to the VR headset that are ready to pull the kill switch if you player dies in the virtual game.
How you may ask?
Well, the specific science has not been made clear yet, but Luckey did mention that the explosive charge modules are placed directly in front of the frontal lobe of the VR headset that on immediate impact would explode the head of the player if they hit zero points and loses the game.
The gruesome thought of killing people in real life is thinking of Final Destination’s horrific accidents happening in real life, which truly is a terrifying feeling to have. “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.
Luckey challenges the idea of having real-life consequences or impact on your virtual actions to lower the boundaries of what should be considered real life and what should be considered virtual reality. The killer VR Headset is definitely an extreme take on bridging the two worlds, but as more and more tech companies experiment with technology to make digital realities feel more real, we hate to admit that Luckey might be on to something…
“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.”
Luckey unveiled the design of the VR headset on November 6 to commemorate the anime novel Sword Art Online (SAO). As stated by Luckey, SAO made gamers intrigued by raising the stakes in the virtual world, in short players would wear NeveGear headsets and have to escape a 100-floor dungeon to prevail. And if players die in the game, they die in real life. Sounds more like a Squid Game that will leave you with PTSD than a reward!
"This might be a game, but it is not something you play."
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) November 6, 2022
To commemorate the Sword Art Online Incident of November 6th 2022, I made the OQPNVG, the first virtual reality device capable of killing the user – if you die in the game, you die in real life.https://t.co/F3nkP5EU61
Why risk your life?
Risking your life is never an option, nor a solution to integrate two different realities, but luckily for us, the kill switch inventor is only halfway through his process. Luckey mentioned that the system is still faulty and that the execution is nowhere near ready for personal testing (not that he would live through it if successful).
“I have plans for an anti-tamper mechanism that, like the NerveGear, will make it impossible to remove or destroy the headset. Even so, there are a huge variety of failures that could occur and kill the user at the wrong time.”
He continued: “This is why I have not worked up the courage to actually use it myself, and also why I am convinced that, like in SAO, the final triggering should really be tied to a high-intelligence agent that can readily determine if conditions for termination are actually correct.”
It does in fact make you wonder about the boundaries people are willing to explore to feel emerged into a different reality. With the beginning of the metaverse taking shape and creating a cult frenzy of virtual reality seekers flocking to join the digital sphere, we can’t help but think what the future would hold if there’s an ongoing evolvement of combining two separate worlds. But at this point, Luckey pointed out that the headset is merely a piece of ‘office art’, serving as a ‘thought-provoking reminder of unexplored avenues in game design’.
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