This Oculus VR Headset Kills You in Real Life

This Oculus VR Headset Kills You

The VR OG and founder of Oculus turned weapon and defense contractor Palmer Luckey has created a murderous hardware mod for the meta quest pro. Luckey was Inspired by the fictional Nerve Gear headset found in the Japanese Novel slash Anime Sword Art Online in which characters are playing a real life online role playing game where if they die in the virtual game they die in real life. Lucky shared his prototype creation on his blog stating “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. Tusche Palmer Tusche

So how exactly does this Quest pro mod kill you? Well Palmer attached 3 explosive charge modules which are connected to a photo sensor that detects when a specific game over type screen flashes red at a certain frequency and then they explode. With those simple parameters developers can integrate the death mod quite easily and so as palmer put it, When an appropriate game-over screen is displayed, the charges fire, instantly destroying the brain of the user.

Palmer did say he has plans to more properly lockdown the system with an anti tamper mechanism which will make it impossible to remove or destroy the modded headset. 

Palmer ended his blog by saying there are a huge variety of failures that could occur with the mod and kill the user at the wrong time.  This is why I have not worked up the balls to actually use it myself, and also why I am convinced that, like in sword art online, the final triggering should really be tied to a high-intelligence agent that can readily determine if conditions for termination are actually correct. So Zuckerberg? Maybe John Carmack…

At this point states, 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.  And It won’t be the last.

See you in the metaverse.

Are you ready to put your life on the line in the metaverse? Let me know down below and also this is a total joke… I’m pretty sure…. yeah?