Sony's new Last of Us survival experience has 'smell dispensers' for maximum immersion

Sony's new Future Immersive Entertainment technology is just a concept design, but it could pave the way for next-gen arcade gaming.

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Always keen on experimenting and designing, Sony has put together a unique sensory experience set in the worlds of the mega-hit Last of Us video game series. It's called a Future Immersive Entertainment concept, and it essentially combines a ton of different technologies to give players a super-immersive gameplay experience sans headset or console. All you need is a new prototype R&D controller specially made by Sony.

Sony has packed in high-end OLED display tech alongside booming audio to bring the grisly world of The Last of Us to life, but that's not enough: Sony wants you to feel like you're actually there. That's why the experience, which is essentially a stage with screens in a semicircle wall on one side, is packed with scent dispensers that change up smells based on what's happening. As a 90s kid who grew up when Universal Studios was new, I can only imagine the scents involved.

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"What we built here is a Future Immersive Entertainment concept and we've partnered with Naughty Dog to give you the opportunity to enter the world of The Last of Us. It's an underground subway system and you're getting to explore this dark, immersive environment," said VP of interactive technology Guy Wilday in a recent Sony video.

"We're using Sony 360 degree audio, if you're hearing sounds coming from behind you, coming from above you, coming from in front of you, it just gives you that deeper sense of immersion within the environment.

"And then we're adding smell and atmospherics on top of that. We have some new scent dispensers that have a number of different scents within them, and we can trigger those at different parts of of the experience.

"Under-floor haptics added to that, giving you thumps and bumps as content happens."

It's important to remember that this technology is in concept phases, and the controllers themselves are prototypes.