We Live In The Future: Sony Unveiled New Technology That Will Allow PlayStation Players To Smell The Scents Of The Games They Are Playing

Alberto E. Rodriguez. Getty Images.

IGN- Sony has debuted conceptual technology at CES 2025 that would essentially allow gamers to enter the worlds of PlayStation games such as The Last of Us and see, shoot, and even smell the baddies.

Footage of the Future Immersive Entertainment Concept was shared in the video below, and shows a giant cube players enter similar to the multi-person virtual reality experiences currently available. This isn't VR, however, as the cube is instead made of incredibly high definition screens that present the game world around the player.

Looking to boost the immersion further, players are also delivered "engaging audio" and even "scent and atmospherics with interactive PlayStation game content." The players in the video also had imitation weapons and would shoot at the screens as clickers appeared, presumably getting a whiff of rotten fungus and other offenses as they did so.

Congratulations everyone, we did it! Humanity has clearly conquered video games in every way possible now that they have added the ability to smell the games you are playing. I feel like there were probably a billion other things that could've been done to improve video games. But if Sony moved on to Smell-O-Vision, they clearly think everything else is perfect.

Not only that, but PlayStation wheeled out the perfect game for their new technology with The Last Of Us. Who among us didn't wonder what an undead fungus monster smelled like after you popped a cap in his cordycep? Gamers' basements already smelled bad enough with the old food, stale air, and unwashed players in the midst of a COD binge. Why not sprinkle in some fake fungus funk on top? Or maybe you can actually get a whiff of grass while playing a game of Madden, even though people will inevitably complain that the smells haven't changed in years. Bravo, Sony. Bravo!

Actually you know what? I take it all back. I could be snarky about how absurd it would be to smell some of the games we play. But if/when GTA 6 comes out, there will be no better way to imagine yourself in the middle of a fictional Florida than with your scent of smell being used. It's one thing to do hoodrat stuff with your friends. It's quite another to actually get a whiff of the carnage you cause, whether it's the smell of gunpowder as you take down the Triads, the overwhelming odor of gasoline after you blow up a gas station, or the intoxicating fumes of the perfume the hooker you bought to blow off some steam.

So maybe, just maybe Sony has done it again. You couldn't pay me to smell any of the nasty shit from The Last Of Us. But a young Clem would've emptied his piggy bank to get more of the Lara Croft experience than just the polygons she was made of.