On November 8th, the founder of Oculus, Palmer Luckey, announced he has created a virtual reality headset that can kill you.

Sound familiar? You may recall a certain anime series Sword Art Online (SAO), in which the premise is uncannily similar to Luckey’s intentions. That’s because it was made in honor of SAO!

I’ll start by saying this is in no way something to celebrate considering the idea of something many people use for fun these days being able to kill somebody. And it also concerns me that Luckey confirmed his intentions to make the headset irremovable.

The headset OQPNG (Oculus Quest Panoramic Night Vision Goggles) has three explosive devices that if a player were to die in a game, would explode.

However, it does spark my personal interest in how it could push full-body virtual reality a few steps closer if Luckey, or maybe someone that hasn’t made a death headset worked more on that aspect of the series.

We have 4K VR right now, which is great, however, if you know SAO, the coolest factor is not being able to really die to the game. It is the fact that you are basically inside another world of living consciousness when you play. Both scenarios do seem to bring in a new “reality” to gaming though.

It is also worth mentioning Luckey himself has not put on his explosive creation, due to the fact that plenty of different malfunctions could happen to lead to the explosives detonating at the wrong time, definitely something he should be concerned about.

It seems like this is still an ongoing project, therefore I would consider keeping up on the topic, just so you don’t end up buying the last game you’ll ever play.

I think what we all should take from this is that this next era of gaming is going to be killer and I’d think twice before opting in on any beta testing.