Modder XBL ToothPik has made quite a few tweaks to his copy of Grand Theft Auto V on the Xbox 360. He can accessorize his jet fighters, and who doesn’t like a hot pink military transport helicopter? He developed a gravity gun that functions just like its namesake in Half-Life 2, and a Dead Eye shooting mode that slows down time a la Red Dead Redemption.
His latest GTA V modification is much simpler by comparison. It allows the player to snap into first-person mode—and that changes everything.
First-person-perspective games are naturally some of the most immersive, in the sense that they mimic the perspective by which we view the real world. The current VR craze in gaming, or virtual reality as a concept for the matter, also pins its appeal on mimicking the way we see the real world.
The Grand Theft Auto games are some of the most detailed virtual environments ever created in video games. The city of Los Santos and the State of San Andreas in Grand Theft Auto V are so detailed that they feel like places you can send a postcard from. It’s easy to lose yourself in Los Santos, what with all the craftsmanship in the way the city is built, and all the sights and sounds worth stopping to see and listen to.
So just imagine, when someone finally figures out how to produce VR gaming headsets at a reasonable price point for consumers, what it will be like when someone gets a Grand Theft Auto game to work with one of those headsets?
When that happens, it will probably be time to start wondering whether players running around in a GTA game and shooting people on the street in eerily realistic virtual environments actually is something to start worrying about.