If you’re a gamer, you know that the industry has evolved a whole lot since taking its first steps in the 1980s. Video games nowadays are bigger and bolder than their predecessors. Play a Call of Duty game, for example, and you’ll be immersed in a war simulation that looks straight ripped out of a big-budget Hollywood movie.
Other games have gone a step further to simulate real life. The Sims is the most notable example. It gives you the power of God as you create full families and help them live their lives by doing everything you do. Your sims can go to the movies or shops, or just lazy out all day and watch TV.
The industry is hoping to someday take this a step further, giving players a fully interactive life experience.
Can Real Life be Simulated?
Regardless of the ethical dilemma regarding this question, many experts are adamant that real life can be simulated. It already is – just take online casino games for example. They’ve largely replaced their table counterparts, allowing players to enjoy roulette, slots, or other games in a virtual environment. VR casinos are just around the corner, and live dealer games fully replicate the Vegas experience.
It’s similar in video games. The Sims and Second Life offer a fully-immersive real-life sim where people could live the lives they’ve always wanted. The video game industry is evolving at an unprecedented rate, with story immersion being in the center of it. Compare games from the 2000s with games nowadays. A video game today is much more immersive than its older counterparts, offering a real-life experience like never before.
Games such as Second Life and The Sims expand on that by offering a full-scale real-life simulation. You can spend hours in both playing the role of God. Many have deemed it unethical, yet the popularity of both games tells us something else. Millions of players are ready and able to enter a fully interactive life experience, and we’re sure it’ll come sooner rather than later.
The Rise of VR
An important stepping stone into achieving a fully interactive life experience will be the development of VR technology. VR ports of popular games such as Batman Arkham Asylum or the fully-VR developed Half-Life: Alyx show that a fully immersive life experience is possible. What’s stopping developers from eventually taking the next Sims chapter to VR? Nothing.
Sims 4 is more than a decade old, with no news about the upcoming chapter. The next game in the series may not be VR, but the games that follow it may offer a fully-immersive life sim. Of course, there are still many technological and ethical kinks to work out, but everything’s pointing in that direction.
The Blade Runner future people have been dreaming of may not be here now, but it’s well on track for 2049. Video games are evolving fast, and we think it’s just a matter of time before the first fully-immersive life sim projects are announced.
