Sony patent could give you an alternative reality and sounds super interesting

With the Tardis through space and time. With the PS5, maybe someday we’ll be able to go back in time and undo what happened.

For example, when we make a decision in a game like The Quarry, there is always the question of what would have happened if we had made a different decision. Or what would have happened if, instead of dodging, we’d gone for the final blow in a Souls boss fight? A patent filed by Sony could answer this “what if” thought game for us in the future (via comic book)

Sony patent to show alternative scenarios

That’s what it’s about: On June 28, 2022, a Sony patent published by inventor Jeffrey Stafford. In it, Stafford describes a feature that is intended to enable us to view replays of our gameplay. Far more exciting, however, are the so-called “What if” scenarios, which are intended to show what would have happened if we had made different decisions in the game. So the feature is supposed to show us alternative realities. An excerpt from the patent:

Rewind function 2.0: It is also planned that we can replay the selected alternative reality. For example, if we turned left with our character at an intersection, we experience what would have happened if we had chosen the right path.

Other interesting patents from Sony:

Very interesting, but also very ambitious

On paper, the “what if” feature sounds very interesting and could not only offer us more accessibility in video games in the future, but also save us quite a bit of time.

However, this is only a filed patent that may never be implemented. Reasons for this could be, among other things, that the whole thing sounds extremely ambitious and certainly means a lot of work for developers.

What do you think of playable “what if” scenarios and which games do you think the feature could be used in?