Oculus founder claims he made a VR headset that actually kills you if you die in a game

The founder of virtual reality (VR) firm Oculus claims he has designed a new headset that can kill you in real life if you die in a game.

Palmer Luckey said the device was inspired by Sword Art Online, the Japanese novel series-turned-anime in which players are trapped in an online role-playing game where death in the game means death in the real world because of the killer “NerveGear” headset they wear.

Luckey launched Oculus in 2012, before selling it to Facebook for $2 billion (€1.99 billion) in 2014. 

During his tenure at the helm, he created the Oculus Rift and other VR tech that now underpins Meta’s big bet on the metaverse - an alternative world where you can work, play and meet people without leaving your home.

“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,” Luckey wrote in a now-viral blog post.

“Only the threat of serious consequences can make a game feel real to you and every other person in the game”.

Luckey, who left Oculus in 2017 and founded Anduril Industries, a high-tech military contractor, went on to detail that he was working on a real-life version of the NerveGear and was “halfway” there.

“The bad news is that so far, I have only figured out the half that kills you,” he wrote. “The perfect-VR half of the equation is still many years out”.

Luckey explained the device is connected to “three explosive charge modules” that are tied to a “narrow-band photosensor that can detect when the screen flashes red at a specific frequency”.

“When an appropriate game-over screen is displayed, the charges fire, instantly