Even Shit Games Stay Shit
Virtual Machine was nothing short of a revolution.
Just as the smartphone Jobs unveiled reshaped the world, Virtual Machine utterly transformed everything.
Programmers screamed in horror at the nightmare miracle of tripled salaries paired with five times the workload.
The media industry racked their brains for ways to exploit Virtual Machine in film and drama production, while using virtual reality for all sorts of R&D became commonplace.
The PC sector received a terminal diagnosis.
Entry-level Virtual Machines were still priced awkwardly high, delaying the death certificate, but PC-related businesses were firmly classified as sunset industries.
Microsoft, having poured effort into the AI essential for virtual reality, found itself in an unenviable limbo—a punchline that had long lost its edge.
Meanwhile, the gaming world exploded.
"Kiyooooot!!"
"NerveGear! NerveGear! NerveGear!"
"Full-dive virtual reality is finally here... I could die happy now..."
"This is it. The real deal. The machine that's gonna change the world!"
From players to developers, everyone lost their minds facing the new era.
Soon, gamers everywhere would finally taste the virtual reality games they'd thirsted for over long years!
No one doubted it.
But reality had other plans.
"Too much work... so much work...!"
"Let me go home... please, just let me go home...!"
"Pleaseletmego homeplease sendmehomeIhaveabearlike wifeandfoxlikekidsathomepleasesendmehome!"
"You code monkeys talk too damn much. Quit whining and write another line!"
"Gyaak!! Gyaaaaak!!!"
Virtual reality games were a breed apart from their predecessors.
They demanded far more implementation details than PC or console titles, with exponentially more elements to finesse. And since the work environment itself was unfamiliar, trial and error abounded.
The upshot? Hiring in gaming got easier, but new hires quickly realized they were little more than slaves hauling stones for a pyramid.
"Progress is crawling. At this rate, the projected launch..."
"Damn it. Plug in and it's instant jackpot, but we can't touch it? Just snagging the first title would net us a fortune...!"
In the end, no game company nailed that inaugural virtual reality title. The unprepared simply hit their limits.
The firm that claimed first-mover honors? Lockheed Martin.
America's largest defense contractor.
◇ ◈ ◈
It didn't take long, rummaging through internet communities, before I unearthed the era's ultimate shit game.
Its name? V-BAT. Astonishingly, this beast held the crown as the first virtual reality game title ever.
Originally cooked up for military training, it flopped on procurement and got repackaged as a game on the spot.
In virtual reality's infancy, it was the only game in town—everyone played it. A legendary title.
Of course, it's deader than dead now.
The reasons? Obvious without a search.
'They slapped together a recruit training sim and chucked it out the door. No way it'd have any gamer-friendly conveniences.'
Just skimming the reviews reeked of pure shit-tier vibes.
Gamers on the brink of death from explosions, lost limbs, and miscarried rage had filled the reviews with their dying curses. What a wailing wall.
But that's exactly why it piqued my interest.
No conveniences meant pure, unfiltered realism—no hand-holding. Perfect for sharpening my vacation-dulled senses.
Plus, it being a gun game was a nice bonus. No guns in that other world, so it'd be a fresh thrill.
Sure, it'd been ages since I last fired one, but...
'Does knowing how to shoot even matter?'
'Of course not. Who do you think I am?'
I smashed the buy button, then hit start the instant the title screen loaded.
A channel list popped up.
Hardly any channels anyway, so I picked one at random.
Then—
Connection established.
My vision flipped in an instant.
A city of stone buildings reduced to grotesque skeletal steel frames, like exposed corpse bones, sprawled before me.
A pungent stench of gunpowder and blood assaulted my nostrils at once.
Dull vibrations from massive objects crushing the earth rumbled from all sides, my eardrums pounding like a racing heart.
Then the explosions boomed—boom, boom, boom again.
I stood smack in the middle of the battlefield.
1942/10/09
Stalingrad
You are Soviet forces.
The moment I registered the floating text, an ominous chill raced up my spine, prickling every nerve.
I kicked off the ground, hurling myself sideways behind a substantial pile of rubble that could shield my body.
But the dread lingered...
—Kaboom!
The world flashed white.
Bot Kill
Survival Time: 7 seconds
Respawn in: 1 minute
As if replaying in quarter-view, the system showed my death from multiple angles. I let out a hollow chuckle, watching my demise.
Something whistled from the sky—massive explosion.
"Hah, well now. What a batshit insane game."
Seven seconds in, I'd eaten a direct hit from German artillery. And get this—the gunner was a bot, not even a player.
Unfair didn't begin to cover it.
'...No wonder people ragequit.'
But that's precisely why...
'This'll be fun.'
My eyes gleamed as I glared at the battlefield screen.
Blood surged hot through my veins.
◇ ◈ ◈
"Huh? Player count just went up by one?"
Steve, a V-BAT old-timer, tilted his head at the death info screen. The channel had jumped from 33 to 34 in the last hour. He pulled up one of the game's scant conveniences: the User List.
His eyes widened.
"What the? A newbie nickname?"
Among the 33 vets, a total stranger.
'A newbie... in this game?'
V-BAT, shit game of shit games, bred no newbies. Its infamy had spread worldwide.
As the first VR game, nearly every gamer had dipped a toe in. And 99.9% fled screaming from the tongue-scorching pain.
Word spread like wildfire about its bullshit, zeroing out fresh meat. Ratings converged on zero; reviews were nuked long ago.
Yet here comes someone to bite the bullet?
"Hah, a newbie. Hah hah."
Steve chuckled, stretching casually.
Death log showed about 14 wipes—right around when even the dimmest bulb clocks the pure bullshit design.
Time to hustle.
'Gotta savor that fresh newbie blood, right?'
Before they ragequit.
'I'll be the one to kill 'em...!'
He had to bag the noob and teabag the corpse!
Steve, a V-BAT OG among OGs, clenched his fist, blood boiling.
And—
2 seconds
1 second
Re-entering battlefield.
Battlefield loaded—Steve checked his gear first.
V-BAT didn't start you with fixed weapons like old FPS games. You inherited random gear from a battlefield bot.
Every spawn was a crapshoot. Worst case, you started unarmed.
Noobs cursed and quit; vets sighed "Tough luck" and suicided for a reset.
That was the game.
'...Lady Luck's smiling today.'
Sometimes you hit the jackpot.
Kar98k with sniper scope. Bandages wrapped to muffle it—starting bot must've been a sniper.
Spawned in a half-collapsed building, too.
'Perfect for nightmare fuel on a newbie!'
Steve grinned, scanning the field.
'Where you at?'
Soviet troops milled in the distance. He ignored user-smooth movers—fellow vets, no profit there.
Then—something darted fast afar.
His eyes narrowed.
'A girl?'
An Asian girl, at that.
His gaze sharpened.
'That's the one.'
Soviet bots included Asians and women, but never Asian and female. No girl bots period.
Player confirmed.
And zero female players in this game.
Who knew how an Asian girl stumbled into this turd—scammed, maybe streaming.
Didn't matter.
'Noob sins demand sweet punishment!'
Irrelevant to Steve.
He squeezed the trigger to shred the newbie.
But—
She dodged the bullet.
"Huh?"
Steve's eyes bugged out.
What? Aimed true...
'Wind drift? Hah, bad luck.'
Recalculate wind, re-aim...
Peering through the scope, he saw her: tattered Soviet uniform, stained and ragged, staring right at him.
He sucked in a breath. Ice water down his spine.
How'd a newbie pinpoint his position from gunshot alone? Only rotten hardcore vets could.
No time to wonder.
"Where'd she go?"
She vanished from view.
Steve swept the area. Then spotted her—charging straight at him.
"What the hell?"
Ducking walls and rebar to evade fire, shredding bot interlopers with SMG bursts, closing relentlessly. Steve barked a laugh.
"Well, damn."
Thought she was a noob. Turns out, a monster.
"...But I ain't going down easy."
Prime time to flex as a vet. Steve cleared his teabag fantasies, stood, and moved.
'Flashy in some other game, huh? This is V-BAT. Nothing like your kiddie stuff.'
He leaped from a blind spot, ducked behind rubble, eyed the entrance. Plan: headshot as she entered his old perch.
'Point-blank? No miss—'
SMG rounds swarmed him.
—Rat-tat-tat!
SeongWon Kill: squo0914
The kill log flashed.
Every channel vet clocked Seongwon's arrival.