We wish we were joking and this was an attempt at clickbait, but no, it’s true. Palmer Luckey, the original founder of Oculus VR has developed a custom VR headset that will actually kill you if you die in-game.
As described in his blog, the headset contains three explosive charges. When an appropriate game-over screen is displayed, the charges fire, instantly destroying the brain of the user.
The headset has been inspired by Swords Art Online, where if the hit points of the player dropped to zero, their brain would be bombarded by extraordinarily powerful microwaves, supposedly killing the user.
Luckily though, Luckey is only halfway to designing the NerveGear headset and he admits that no one will actually be allowed to play with the headset. In fact, Luckey has not even tried to put on the headset himself for fear of a malfunction that could accidentally kill him.
“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,” he says.
Instead, the headset will just be a piece of office art, a thought-provoking reminder of unexplored avenues in game design. However, it’s said in the blog that although it’s the first non-fiction example of a VR headset that can actually kill the user, he doesn’t think it will be the last.
Let’s just hope no one gets their hands on the headset to start off a new crazy TikTok trend.
For more from Insider Gaming, check out today’s news that suggests Ubisoft could soon be moving back to Steam.
