One of gaming’s most popular buzzwords is “immersion.” Games with cohesive elements that fit the story setting are hailed as “immersive,” while games with glaring historical inaccuracies or bug-ridden segments are known to “break immersion.” People like immersion because it feels like you have left our world and entered the world of the video game—which is the main reason we play video games, or read books, or watch movies—to escape.

With the emergence of virtual reality (VR) in the gaming industry, video games are taking the next step in immersion. Virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive turn the screen into an environment, encompassing most of the player’s field of view. They also feature head-tracking technology, meaning moving your head in real life will move your in-game view accordingly. Controllers reminiscent of the Nintendo Wii nun chucks allow players to interact with the game world.

So how have developers taken advantage of this new medium? The Lab, Valve’s free compilation of experiments made to test the HTC Vive, includes games where players can repair Portal robots, play with a robotic dog, defend a castle with a bow and arrows, explore a vast mountain range, and launch Portal cores at collapsing towers of blocks. Star Trek: Bridge Crew lets you play with your friends as the crew of the Starship Enterprise, issuing orders and managing ship resources. Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades is a painstakingly accurate weapons and ordnance simulator, offering a plethora of weapons, explosives, and places to test them. The VR aspect allows players to handle the weapons just as they would real ones—moving the controllers to look down scopes and toss grenades.

In Rec Room, you can join your friends to play paintball, charades, and co-op adventures. Or you could just hang out in the lounge and play pool. And, just like The Lab, it’s free. Pavlov VR is basically Counter-Strike but in VR. The VR environment permits players to fully control their actions: quickly peeking corners, laying down to be stealthy, and blind firing from behind cover. Google’s Tilt Brush is a 3D painting simulation in which you can create and inspect your artwork in a three-dimensional space.

The best part about VR is that it feels real. Before trying it, I was skeptical. Surely taping the screen to my face would only hurt my eyes? However, when I put on the headset, grabbed the controllers, and launched the demo, I immediately left the mall’s Best Buy. A virtual Tyrannosaurus Rex turned a corner and lumbered toward, over, and away from me, all while I held (unconsciously) as still as a statue. A rock climbing demo left me sweating and shaking, and adrenaline shot through my body each time I fell. Looking over a city from the top of a skyscraper, my knees buckled and I felt dizzy. Through all of these demos, I knew it was fake: I could hear the din of the mall through my headphones, and the sights in front of me were still visibly pixelated. However, my body didn’t know that. My body thought I was there, and it acted accordingly.

There are two main obstacles to widespread VR use. First, it is expensive. The Oculus Rift is $500 for the headset and controllers. The HTC Vive recently saw a price drop, but it is still $600. The second obstacle is hardware requirement. VR is heavily taxing on a computer and requires much beefier hardware than your laptop, which creates a higher price barrier. But VR is a new frontier. As the technology evolves, it will inevitably become cheaper, which will allow more people to experience it, which will cause the industry to grow. If we’re lucky, in a few years we won’t have to see the real world ever again. And if anybody has $600 to spare, I'd love to get in touch.