How Real-Life Sensations in Virtual Reality Could Deepen the Experience

Your experiences in virtual reality could soon get much more lifelike.

Palmer Luckey, sometimes credited with creating modern virtual reality, claims to have built a VR headset that will kill the user if they die in the game they’re playing. It’s part of a growing number of gadgets intended to extend the VR experience into the physical realm.

"VR systems are already full of feedback, but they’re largely limited to audio and visual channels," Danny Parks, the vice president of technology of the VR firm Trigger XR, told Lifewire in an email interview. "You can move your head and see your perspective change or press a button and hear a new sound."

VR gear manufacturers constantly strive to make the virtual experience more realistic, but some might say that Luckey is taking things too far with his latest project.

Luckey gained fame for selling VR headset manufacturer Oculus, a company he sold to Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion.