Virtual Reality of Video Games and Visionary Experience

Modern video games like "Ghost of Tsushima," "Kingdom Come: Deliverance," and "The Witcher 3" create vast virtual worlds with bright, changing details and interactive sound. These immersive digital environments share specific features with visionary experiences found in mediumistic and artistic contexts. The authors argue that a new form of visionary experience, termed "digital" or "virtual" visionary experience, has emerged due to advances in information technology. The study employs a comparative approach and draws on philosophical essays by Aldous Huxley, transpersonal psychology by Stanislav Grof, and theoretical models of virtual reality, among other frameworks. The findings may inform philosophy, cultural studies, education, and game studies.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Modern popular video games such as “Ghost of Tsushima” (2024), “Kingdom Come: Deliverance” (2018) or “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” (2015) have evolved into huge virtual worlds with thousands of constantly changing bright details in millions of colors and interactive surround sound. This immersion in the virtual reality of video games reveals a number of specific features inherent in the visionary experience. These identified features are inherent in the mediumistic and artistic modifications of the visionary experience, but, at the same time, are represented in the digital space of the virtual reality of video games. This suggests the emergence of a new modification of visionary experience, caused by the development of information technologies, which can be called "digital" or “virtual” visionary experience. In terms of methodology, the study uses a comparative approach, a theoretical model of visionary experience, based on the philosophical essays of A. Huxley, transpersonal psychology of S. Grof and neopositivist researchers, theoretical models of virtual reality, cultural-typological approach and the principle of historicism, the dichotomy of ludology and narratology (G. Frasca, J. Juul), a non-reductionist approach (I. Bogost), the concept of “involvement” (E. Goffman). The findings of the paper can be useful for modern philosophical, cultural, educational and game studies.