It’s an old trope successful a batch of dumb sci-fi movies that impact virtual reality: you dice successful the game, you dice successful existent life. In said movies, characters get trapped successful a video crippled and indispensable play for their lives. If their avatar perishes, truthful bash they.

Well, it appears that idiosyncratic has really willed this trope into reality. That is, idiosyncratic created a VR headset that virtually kills you if you suffer a video game. Fun, right?

The creator is not conscionable immoderate ol’ someone, but Palmer Luckey, the 30-year-old virtual world wunderkind, defence contractor, Trump-funder, and co-founder of Oculus, the VR steadfast Facebook bought successful 2014 for a chill $3 billion.

Luckey dropped a blog post connected Sunday, explaining his weird caller headset—which helium claims is mostly a “piece of bureau art” for now—and included a representation of it arsenic well.

For reference, it looks similar this:

Yes, this happening volition really extremity your life. More specifically, it is rigged with bombs truthful that your caput volition explode.

In his blog post, Luckey explains however his lethal caller contraption is expected to work:

I utilized 3 of the explosive complaint modules I usually usage for a antithetic project, tying them to a narrow-band photosensor that tin observe erstwhile the surface flashes reddish astatine a circumstantial frequency, making game-over integration connected the portion of the developer precise easy. When an due game-over surface is displayed, the charges fire, instantly destroying the encephalon of the user.

Jesus.

In different words, Luckey has fundamentally brought to beingness the crippled of the nerdy anime web comic from the mid-2000s, Sword Art Online. Indeed, Luckey says this comic was the large inspiration down his project. In the comic, characters don a happening called “NerveGear,” which is an “incredible instrumentality that perfectly recreates world utilizing a nonstop neural interface that is besides susceptible of sidesplitting the user.” They are past dropped into a matrix-like satellite by a huffy idiosyncratic and forced to endure a “death game” wherever the stakes of the gameplay are pegged to their ain mortality. To Luckey, this is an breathtaking idea:

The thought of tying your existent beingness to your virtual avatar has ever fascinated maine – you instantly rise the stakes to the maximum level and unit radical to fundamentally rethink however they interact with the virtual satellite and the players wrong it. Pumped up graphics mightiness marque a crippled look much real, but lone the menace of superior consequences tin marque a crippled consciousness existent to you and each different idiosyncratic successful the game.

Righttttt...well, that’s surely an absorbing idea, though immoderate mightiness reason that the pleasance of gaming really derives from being capable to acquisition death-defying scenarios and not person your caput explode. Some radical mightiness reason that.

Anyway, whether its a bully thought oregon not, Luckey seems to person plans to marque his amusive caller chapeau adjacent much horrifying than it presently is by adding “anti-tamper” tech to it:

This isn’t a cleanable system, of course. I person plans for an anti-tamper mechanics that, similar the NerveGear, volition marque it intolerable to region oregon destruct the headset.

So the eventual extremity present is to make a murder-helmet that you virtually can’t instrumentality off. Once it’s been clamped to your noggin the lone 2 scenarios successful which you’ll beryllium capable to region it are A) the 1 wherever you triumph the crippled oregon B) the 1 wherever your decapitated corpse is dragged retired of a heap of gore-strewn rubble by immoderate unfortunate psyche happens to stumble by. This is astir apt wherefore Luckey hasn’t really utilized the happening himself yet. He says:

... determination are a immense assortment of failures that could hap and termination the idiosyncratic astatine the incorrect time. This is wherefore I person not worked up the balls to really usage it myself, and besides wherefore I americium convinced that, similar successful SAO, the last triggering should truly beryllium tied to a high-intelligence cause that tin readily find if conditions for termination are really correct.

...At this point, it is conscionable a portion of bureau art, a thought-provoking reminder of unexplored avenues successful crippled design.

Some volition doubtlessly find this an breathtaking thought portion others (actually, let’s beryllium honest, astir people) volition astir apt beryllium dissuaded from information aft speechmaking the operation “kill the idiosyncratic astatine the incorrect time.” I, unfortunately, autumn successful the second camp, though a grim cocktail of curiosity and schadenfreude are decidedly going to support maine monitoring this project’s advancement for the foreseeable future.