After you’ve spent a long time in the games industry like I have, trade shows tend to become predictable affairs. I’ve attended many E3s, a couple of Gamescoms, and even a Tokyo Game Show, and they’re all pretty much the same: a glut of games on show floors and behind-closed-doors to play and write about.

“ …this SMI camera, as I was about to find out, was going to let me control Infamous: Second Son with my eyes.

Loading

“ I obliterated these foes with Delsin’s smoke powers by shooting at them while looking at them.

What makes GDC – Game Developers Conference – so different is that it emphasizes technology just as much as it does games. Walking around the show floor introduces you to a ton of new ideas just getting off the ground, other technologies just getting their footing, and some – like Oculus and Sony’s Project Morpheus – that are getting closer and closer to primetime.Having beaten Second Son this past weekend, I wasn’t looking to play the game in demo form, but there was something special about this particular setup. Affixed to the PlayStation 4 was an SMI camera. And this SMI camera, as I was about to find out, was going to let me control Infamous: Second Son with my eyes.After calibrating the camera by sitting somewhat close to it and looking at a few dots on the screen, I was thrust into Infamous: Second Son’s version of Seattle. But I was still trying to control the game like I would normally. I even remarked to the guy from Sony I was with that I wanted to invert my controls. He told me not to bother. Instead, he instructed me to control the in-game camera with my eyes.So there I was, playing a third-person sandbox game while controlling camera movement with my eyes when the Sony representative decided to up the ante. He directed me towards a group of enemies – the DUP, Second Son’s anti-Conduit police force – and told me to aim at them with my eyes. I obliterated these foes with Delsin’s smoke powers by shooting at them while looking at them. At this point, I hadn’t even touched the DualShock 4’s right analog stick for several minutes.And just like that, Yoshida and Marks were ready for the interview, and I left this unique setup behind, wondering if what I just saw wasn’t just as cool as the admittedly-awesome Project Morpheus. Will this technology ever see the light of day? Who knows. The PlayStation Camera isn’t capable of doing this, and SMI cameras aren’t cheap. But it was still cool to experience firsthand, and made me wonder what else gaming’s future has in store.

Colin Moriarty is IGN’s Senior Editor. You can follow him on Twitter.