Modern video games look and sound more realistic than they ever have. But there’s one sense developers have yet to exploit – smell. Imagine playing as Mario, pirouetting through the Mushroom Kingdom as a waft of a Fire Flower power-up hits you. Or dropping into a hallway in the Last of Us crawling with Clickers – the deadly, stalking enemies mutated by an extinction-level fungal pandemic.
Gamers like James are currently being used to answer a question – can smelling a game make it more immersive, and make you better at playing it? That’s what researchers demoing experimental tech at Warwick University’s Festival of Innovation are hoping to find out. They’ve developed a custom-made headset that delivers tiny doses of smell pumped through a tube and dispersed via a fan in front of the player.
Developed in conjunction with Hollywood Gaming, it uses bottles of essential oils to replicate a range of different aromas. BBC Newsbeat played arcade classic Daytona Racing on the demo rig. When we tried it out the sickly smell of petrol wafted in front of our noses while racing around the track. Hit the brakes, and you’re suddenly getting a blast of plasticky rubber. You also get the faint scent of “new car smell” while you’re playing.
As anyone who’s ever had a wet dog in their house will know, it’s not easy to get rid of a smell once it’s there. According to the researchers behind the project, the real challenge is quickly switching between scents as a game progresses. That can be especially tricky if you’re facing a sudden transition between two contrasting scenes such as a flashback from a post-apocalyptic scene to a pre-doomsday memory.
Big gaming companies are already sniffing out new ways to make games more immersive. At this year’s CES tech showcase in Las Vegas, Sony showed off its Future Immersive Entertainment Concept – a room with screens on every surface creating a 360-degree view. The PlayStation maker said the experience included smells being pumped in to match the game being played.
Last year also saw the launch of the GameScent, a box designed to sit next to gaming PCs or consoles and release bursts of smell. Its makers claim it uses AI to work out what smells to release and when to unleash them – including a metallic gunfire aroma, or flowers in a forest. It’s been marketed as a consumer product, but is still pretty niche tech.
But what’s the verdict from gamers? When Newsbeat speaks to some of the volunteers from the esports course at North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College, the reaction is generally positive. Esports lecturer Shoubna Naika-Taylor says it does make games seem more realistic. “I think it’s interesting and really immersive, and would work with a lot of games,” she says. “It’s a really cool piece of technology.”
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