8 Insane Inventions Ripped Straight From Video Games

There are few technologies in video games cooler than the stealth camouflage from Metal Gear Solid. 

Unlocked at the end of your first playthrough if you submit to Revolver Ocelot's torture, the stealth camo renders the player invisible to all regular enemies throughout the game, bending light in a way that gives Solid Snake a faint green outline.

If it seems like totally fanciful fake tech, the fundamentals are solid enough that a company developed a prototype of it - way back in 2003 even, just five years after Metal Gear Solid was released.

Susumu Tachi, a professor at Tokyo University, developed a so-called "invisibility cloak," which works by projecting footage from a camera placed on the back of the cloak onto the front of it, rendering the clothing basically see-through.

Since then more elaborate versions have been developed - in 2019 Canadian company Hyperstealth Technology filed a patent for a "quantum stealth" cloak, which quite impressively bends light around a subject wearing the material.

Hyperstealth claims that the tech can successfully cloak not only soldiers but also heavy artillery, the battlefield applications of which speak for themselves.