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See a player get so scared playing VR horror demo her virtual hands shake

A viral video shows a woman getting scared out of her skull by a horrific-looking shooter on the HTC Vive.

Danny Gallagher
CNET freelancer Danny Gallagher has contributed to Cracked.com, Mental Floss, Maxim, Break.com, Mandatory, Jackbox Games, Geeks Who Drink and many, many other publications in his never-ending quest to bring the world's productivity to a screeching halt. He lives and works in Dallas. Email Danny.
Danny Gallagher

If you're a fan of horror video games, you haven't lived until you've died a grisly virtual death.

Horror games work best in a totally immersive environment, and virtual-reality headsets like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive wrap environments around players. So you literally have to look over your shoulder to check your surroundings before something evil has a chance to pounce on you.

Valve's first-person, horror survival shooter The Brookhaven Experiment for the HTC Vive puts players in a dark, grisly environment where they must fend off an onslaught of hideous monsters using a virtual gun they control with their own hands. Renate from the YouTube channel Karl&RenateVR took the game for a spin for a video posted on her channel on Thursday, and it gave her such a scare that she couldn't push herself to play past the first level.

The video splits the screen between what Renate sees in the virtual game and what she looks like in the real world. She looks and sounds absolutely terrified in both videos. She screams throughout the game, and you can actually see the virtual gun she's holding shaking along with her hands. Let's hope that future updates of the headset don't offer features like a virtual bladder.