HBO’s new Red Dead Redemption LARP Westworld has been teasing us with mysteries for weeks. Among them: why doesn’t everyone who pays all this money to visit Westworld just play video games instead?
Warning: this post contains a gif with a lady’s nipple in it.
It stands to reason that if technology has become advanced enough to allow people to 3D-print believable androids, video games have probably gotten amazing. On this week’s episode, we got our tantalizing first taste of what those future-games might be like.
In a scene near the start of the episode, the two android butchers we met a couple episodes back are having a chat over the freshly murdered body of Maeve the Madam. Felix, the thoughtful one who seems like he’s about to become an actual character, is still fretting over how they let Maeve wake up and walk around the facility. His dickhead coworker Sylvester has more important things on his mind.
Sylvester informs Felix that it’s break time. “I’ve got a ham sandwich and a nubile redhead loaded up in the VR tank, awaiting instruction,” he says, before leaving the room.
Sadly, Sylvester’s ham-fueled liaison takes place offscreen. This is still crucial new information. We now know that not only does VR exist in the world of Westworld, but there are TANKS that you use for… VR… sex??
This raises all sorts of questions. What are these tanks? Do you get in them? Are there maybe no tanks and Sylvester was just using a turn of phrase, like when we say, “I’ve got one in the tank”? (I hope not?) Is the ham sandwich real, or is it also in VR? How does this VR porn work, and is it better or worse than fucking a robot?
I trust that these questions will be answered on subsequent episodes of Westworld. In the meantime, much like with the identity of the Man in Black and the location of the Maze, we can only guess the truth.