The inventor of Oculus, Palmer Luckey, is building a VR headset that kills you (Credit: Getty)
Palmer Luckey, the outspoken creator of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, has got a new idea.
It’s a virtual reality headset tied to a video game that intentionally kills you if you die in the game.
In a blog post detailing the ‘NerveGear’, Luckey explained that the system intentionally ties the real and virtual worlds together and adds the ‘threat of serious consequences [that] can make a game feel real to you and every other person in the game.’
The former Oculus boss said the headset was fitted with ‘explosive charge modules I usually use for a different project’ to fry the brain of its wearer if they don’t happen to be very good at video games.
Luckey says he hasn’t tried the system himself yet, because he’s still working out the kinks.
‘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,’ he wrote.
Luckey created Oculus VR which was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion (Credit: Meta)
‘This isn’t a perfect system, of course. 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. This is why I have not worked up the balls to actually use it myself.’
Such a headset would, of course, bring an increased focus on being good at video games. As well as quite a few murder trials.
Luckey announced the system to commemmorate the events of an anime called Sword Art Online where unlucky players are put into a virtual dungeon and must fight their way out. As you’d imagine, if they die in the game they die in real life.
We’ll probably just stick with Animal Crossing to be honest.
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We’ll just stick with Animal Crossing, thanks.
