Virtual Reality of Video Games and Visionary Experience

Modern popular video games such as “Ghost of Tsushima” (2024), “Kingdom Come: Deliverance” (2018) or “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” (2015) have evolved into huge virtual worlds with thousands of constantly changing bright details in millions of colors and interactive surround sound. This immersion in the virtual reality of video games reveals a number of specific features inherent in the visionary experience. These identified features are inherent in the mediumistic and artistic modifications of the visionary experience, but, at the same time, are represented in the digital space of the virtual reality of video games. This suggests the emergence of a new modification of visionary experience, caused by the development of information technologies, which can be called "digital" or “virtual” visionary experience. In terms of methodology, the study uses a comparative approach, a theoretical model of visionary experience, based on the philosophical essays of A. Huxley, transpersonal psychology of S. Grof and neopositivist researchers, theoretical models of virtual reality, cultural-typological approach and the principle of historicism, the dichotomy of ludology and narratology (G. Frasca, J. Juul), a non-reductionist approach (I. Bogost), the concept of “involvement” (E. Goffman). The findings of the paper can be useful for modern philosophical, cultural, educational and game studies.