A game designer has created a new virtual reality experience in which players who perish in the game also die in real life.
The device, known as NerveGear, sees players trapped inside a castle by a mad scientist which can only be escaped through completion.
However when players die in the game three explosive charges installed near the monitor fire and “obliterate” their brain, killing them in real life instantly.
The game was created by Palmer Luckey, who created the Oculus device which was sold to Facebook for £2billion.
It is not currently available on the market, however the creator believes it is just “a matter of time”.
The blog reads: “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 video game mechanics which has never been explored, despite the long history of real-world sports revolving around similar stakes.
“The good news is 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.”
The explosive charge modules are designed to explode when the screen turns red at a specific frequency, destroying the brain of the user.
NerveGear is from the popular manga-series Sword Art Online which melts brains with microwaves if they fail to escape the game.
It appears the creator is now attempting to take it to the next level.
Luckey added: “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.
“At this point, it is just a piece of office art, a thought-provoking reminder of unexplored avenues in game design.
“It is also, as far as I know, the first non-fiction example of a VR device that can actually kill the user.
“It won’t be the last.”
