The Future of Gaming in Virtual Reality

Standing next to id Software’s John Carmack, I almost lost my balance and fell over during the first few seconds of playing Doom 3 on a prototype Rift virtual reality headset, an ugly wad of electronics attached to an elastic ski goggle band.

While wearing the headset I still had to press buttons on an Xbox 360 controller to switch weapons, move forward and fire, but aiming and looking were accomplished simply by turning my head. It was surreal and surprisingly responsive. After the initial disorientation and dizziness dissipated, I was entirely immersed within the world, with the game’s visuals wrapping around my entire field of view.

The Rift is the best headset of its kind Carmack has ever seen. After id Software shipped Rage, Carmack decided to check up on the status of virtual reality, something he hadn’t looked at since the early 1990s. “We did a bunch of deals with people way back with Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake and they were all loser deals with companies that went bankrupt. That was not the right time,” he said. He assumed there’d been a lot of progress in the meantime. He bought a few headsets and was disappointed.