VR isn’t for everyone. Financially, the entry point is relatively high; then there’s the potential nausea that comes with it. Plus, all that space required should you have one of those fancier rigs.
The worst part is that if you stop playing for a while, you’ll have to re-discover your “VR legs,” which means another round of nausea, a problem I complained about with Resident Evil 4 VR mode. For some, the nausea never goes away, keeping them from an otherwise innovative platform.
This is a problem NeuroSync is attempting to overcome with the C-Infinity, which advertises itself as a no-nausea device for VR games. According to NeuroSync co-founder Dr. Slobodan Paessler, “playing action games in VR does not have to cause nausea and that true feeling of locomotion in VR is possible in a safe and practical way.”
The project managed to reach its Kickstarter goals in three hours, and while it’s not commercially available yet, the site does have a form to let you know when it’s ready for pre-order. Skeptical? Well, there’s good reason to be. The device has a tall mountain of problems to climb in front of it, and it might need to be a pioneer if it wishes to justify its enormous price tag.
Why the green face?
The problem of VR nausea isn’t a simple one, nor does it stem from a single source. One of the biggest issues is motion sickness. VR has your brain telling you that your body is moving, yet your physical body is still. That causes a mismatch of information and the consequence is that queasiness we call motion sickness. You can experience it in a car sometimes.
Naturally, games with a lot of movement will trigger this a lot more. Some titles have tried to minimize how hard the motion sickness hits by “snap rotation,” which ensures you aren’t moving too fast in the virtual world, or by reducing depth of field.
You should be aware that this is far from an open-and-shut case, with one research paper pointing out that “forty factors shown or believed to influence the occurrence or simulator sickness were identified.” This leaves the C-Infinity with a tall task ahead of it that should keep you on your toes as you delve into its marketing.
On a side note, if you’re feeling nausea during gameplay, stop immediately. The debilitating after-effects are not worth it. You will feel incredibly sick for hours. There are unproven solutions shared among VR players like eating ginger, but nothing beats rest. Your game will still be there, waiting for you, after you take a break.
C-Infinity and Compatibility
Dr. Paessler explains that “years of research and testing led us to this point, and we are beyond excited to share this VR breakthrough with the current community of gamers and future VR gamers and participants.”
Commenting to Destructoid, Scott Robertson explains that the C-Infinity has “been successfully tested with PC/Android/Standalone/PS4 & PS5. Plus ALL top PCVR headsets from leading brands like HTC, Meta (including Quest 1, 2, Pro, and 3), PlayStation VR, Pinax, Valve Index, Pimax Crystal, HTC Vive Pro 2, HP Reverb G2, Varjo XR-3, and more!”
It won’t work with all devices that have been unofficially modded from flatscreen to VR, as they can be unpredictable. However, Robertson lists several that do work, including “Cyberpunk 2077, FarCry 6, Horizon Zero Dawn, Skyrim VR, Doom VFR, Hogwarts Legacy, Elden Ring, Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 7, VR Chat, and 11,000+ more.”
An experience that costs a pretty penny
Despite the confidence, it is evident that NeuroSync has several hurdles to overcome before it can be trusted to do what it advertises. Hypothetically, if it does, the only question left is whether there are any downsides besides the size.
It’s the price tag. At $799, in addition to the price of your headset, it’s a device best left for enthusiasts. I’ve explained the shortcomings of PlayStation’s headset and while the Quest 3 leaves me far more satisfied, $799 is still $799.
Will the C-Infinity ever become mainstream? No, not even VR is managing to do that. But it does claim to provide a solution to the puking problem that plagues the platform.
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