How Hell's Kitchen Is Moving Into Virtual Reality

After the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with the astounding inflation rate, you've probably spent an exorbitant amount of time at home watching too much television. Especially if fast-paced cooking shows are your thing, then chances are high you know Gordon Ramsay well for his highly acclaimed show, "Hells Kitchen." While the action-packed program has been around since 2005 with season 21 premiering next month on Fox, that's not the only venture up Ramsay's sleeve for the near future.

While it's true that Ramsay has been busy opening a new fish and chips restaurant chain in Manhattan and in his downtime may have been calling out your cooking creativity via Tiktok, the world-renowned chef has his most recent sights set on bringing "Hell's Kitchen" into the world of virtual reality.

According to Insider Intelligence, virtual gaming is not only growing in popularity but by the end of 2022, it is predicted that over half of the United States will be involved in some sort of digital gaming system. Given that statistic, it makes sense that at the beginning of this year, Microsoft declared its intentions to buy the Activision Blizzard platform behind popular games you might already be familiar with, such as "Candy Crush" and "Call of Duty," for $70 billion (via The New York Times). Those are some pretty high stakes for virtual gaming rights. Now it seems the quick-tempered chef is also convinced that virtual is the way to go and has jumped on board with "Hell's Kitchen."

All of this digital gaming talk may seem quite confusing to some, but in truth when referring to the "metaverse," the word is often synonymous with "cyberspace" (via Wired). And speaking of cyberspace, on Twitter, Gordon Ramsay posted a video announcing "Hell's Kitchen" debut on The Sandbox Game platform.

The Sandbox Game will be partnering with ITV's LAND to bring the popular show to the world of virtual reality and will be the first cooking-related experience on the digital platform (via Medium). While the Sandbox platform can be quite confusing, it is basically a digital landscape on the Ethereum blockchain where users can create and sell their gaming experience with SAND which is the general payment or token system on the platform (per Coin Telegraph).

While the reveal on Twitter received mixed responses, the virtual "Hell's Kitchen" red and blue team members will still be creating their own dishes and challenging one another all the same for the title of Head Chef (via The Sandbox). We may have a good idea of what it's like to be on "Hell's Kitchen" for real-life contestants, but stay tuned for the future of the popular show's metaverse gamers.