Westworld is one of HBO’s biggest hits in recent years, and the Western/sci-fi hybrid had a lot of elements that attracted viewers. One major draw was the plausibility of it, as many people imagine that in the future there will be humanoid robots that serve a range of functions.
In Westworld, these robots are used as entertainment in a theme park setting. There’s a chance that something similar could be made in the future, either in a real world setting or in virtual reality.
People Love Immersing in Westerns
The Western genre had its heyday between 1940 and 1960, perhaps because the people of those times were still able to remember the less civilised times in the USA. After the 1960s, the films were made less frequently, but they have bounced back in recent times.
This could be because nostalgia is so huge in modern entertainment like casino games. For example, people could turn to Betfair live casino options like Hi-Lo Western Live because they want to feel like they’ve stepped back in time to a saloon in the old west. Sticky Bandits Roulette Live is another Western option in the casino market, highlighting how popular the genre is.
Modern entertainment aims to immerse viewers and players in the Wild West, emphasising how different a time it was to what exists now. Titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 gave people a taste of what the American Frontier was like around the turn of the 20th century, and series like Deadwood did a good job of that too. There would most likely be a huge audience out there eager to try out a Westworld-style theme park in real life.
Westworld Imagines a Wild West-style Adult Theme Park
The concept of Westworld is that affluent people can pay to enter a Western-inspired theme park, packed full of robots that go about their everyday existence within. It allows them to feel immersed in that world, imagining what it would have been like to live in those times. They are able to visit dusty saloons or even pursue complex moral storylines.
The fact that there are no real-world consequences means that people who visit Westworld can enjoy themselves without having to worry. It’s a concept that could potentially happen outside of fiction, as progress in the field of robotics has come along rapidly in recent years. Companies like Tesla have made massive leaps forward, and there are now robots that can perform human functions in factories. It won’t be long before realistic robots with human emotions exist.
Aside from using robots in a theme park setting, there’s also the chance that developers could create VR offerings similar to Westworld. This would most likely be easier and more affordable, but it wouldn’t be as immersive as a real world landscape.
Westworld could end up being a prescient work of fiction, as technology is moving swiftly towards being capable of replicating its idea for a Wild West-style theme park. There’s a good chance that something like this could happen in the future.