The Five Realms

The doorbell rang, and I leapt out of my chair and ran for the door.

Flinging it open, I found the delivery person staring down at his PDA, clearly not expecting anyone to answer quite that quickly.

He handed me the PDA to sign, then gave me the large box I’d been waiting months for.

I suppressed a squeal, shut the door before he could finish his “Have a nice day,” and hurried back to my computer.

Six months ago, I’d received an email informing me that I’d been accepted into the alpha test of the next big AAA single-player, first-person fantasy game - The Five Realms.

I had to sign dozens of legal documents, waiving more rights than I cared to even think about, and then, at last, I was assigned my alpha test account.

Not only did they send me a physical copy of the game to prevent early leaks, but they also issued me a new, proprietary controller: the Aegis Neural Interface System. It promised to offer a whole new way to interface with the game.

The wait was finally over.

I tore open the box and pulled out the flash drive containing the installation files, along with a second box containing the Aegis.

I popped the flash drive into the USB port and started the installation. Then I fired off emails to my boss and friends, telling them I was sick and wouldn’t be around for the rest of the week.

I didn't want anything to get between me and a whole new world to explore. At least for a few days, anyway.

With that done, I cracked open the Aegis box.

It looked…

…unpolished.

Honestly, it looked jury-rigged.

A fairly standard-looking VR headset was attached to a nylon cap with blunt brass studs mounted on the inside. It looked kind of like an EEG cap. A flimsy plastic housing covered whatever wiring ran through it, and a simple chinstrap helped keep everything in place. Small speakers were built into the sides of the cap.

I frowned.

I had to admit, I was a little let down by the Aegis. I’d hoped they would provide something a little more substantial once the game was released.

Pairing the Aegis via Bluetooth took so long I wondered if the wizard had frozen, but after starting, stopping, and restarting the process, then searching online for help for about five minutes, it finally gave two quick chirps to let me know it had actually completed.

I pulled the Aegis on and took a few seconds to seat it properly.

The brass studs felt cold against my scalp, and the entire thing felt a little front-heavy.

There seemed to be a camera on the front, as I could see my computer and the desk in front of me as though I were looking through weak binoculars. Everything was magnified just enough to be disorienting, but not enough that I had trouble focusing.

I loaded the game, and everything went black.

A flashy logo for Arcadia Interactive filled my vision, followed by a bunch of warnings.

I skipped through all of them to get to the good part.

The screen went black again before a new message appeared.

It got all the way to 79% before the message changed.

I sighed.

Already, my expectations were being worn down. Between the insane pairing time and now the calibration error, I was starting to expect an incredibly buggy experience.

I mean, yeah, it was an alpha test. And it was new hardware. There were bound to be some bugs. But the fact that they didn’t even offer a mouse and keyboard or controller option was kind of crappy.

I extended my hand and hit Retry, which somehow worked even though the calibration had failed.

This time, the calibration went further.

I hit Accept, and everything went dark again.

Words came rushing toward me.

THE FIVE REALMS
An Open-World Neural RPG
Five Realms. One World. No Script.

The words burst into flame and burned away, leaving me in darkness again.

The words flickered into existence for a moment before disappearing.

Greetings, Wayfarer. Who are you?

A floating keyboard appeared in front of me.

I went to lift my hand, but found the in-game hand moved faster than my physical hand. I relaxed my arm and quickly learned I could move the avatar’s hands without actually engaging any of my muscles.

That was pretty damned cool.

Maybe this wouldn’t be a complete letdown after all.