Congenital Amputee Gamer Rickey “BlinkVII” Levels Up With Two Different Bionic Arms

When 26-year-old gaming streamer Rickey, known online as “BlinkVII,” joins a lobby, most players would never guess he was born without hands. For years, he didn’t tell anyone. “I always kept it a secret,” he said. “I didn’t want to talk about it. I was shy back then.” It wasn’t until close friends realized the level of skill he had developed that they encouraged him to share more openly. “I told them, ‘Oh, I don’t have any hands.’ I had no reason to say it before, but they were like, ‘Dude, you should tell people.’”

Ricky was born with amniotic band syndrome, so he has shortened forearms on both sides, but doesn’t let that difference hold him back. “We knew people would look at you differently,” they told him, “but we’re going to switch the game up so you exceed their expectations even more than ‘normal’ people.”

That mindset shaped the way Ricky approached everything from handwriting to academics. By age nine, he had handwriting most adults would envy. “It was almost perfect,” he said. “If I found my old journals, you probably wouldn’t think it was me.” He excelled in math and science and earned a place at a competitive STEM-focused magnet school, adapting to every challenge with the same determination. Prosthetics weren’t part of his life at the time. “Even as a kid, I felt like I did better without it,” he said of early body-powered devices. “They weren’t that advanced.”

Gaming became the arena where he pushed himself the hardest. What began as casual trickshot videos quickly turned into something bigger. Friends urged him to take his gameplay more seriously. “People told me, ‘You play so well, you should post it,’” he said. He did, and soon his followers grew. Today, he has more than 200,000 subscribers on YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and other social media platforms. The momentum eventually caught the attention of FaZe Censor, the gamer tag of Doug Censor Martin, a well-known professional Call of Duty player, fitness personality, and longtime content creator for FaZe Clan, one of the biggest esports organizations in the world. Faze reached out while Ricky was still in high school. “I freaked out,” he said. “He told me my clips were going crazy and they wanted to interview me.”

Support from FaZe and improvements to his gaming setup helped accelerate the growth of his streaming career. By the time Fortnite exploded in popularity, Ricky’s videos were pulling millions of views and establishing him as one of the most talented adaptive gamers online. His visibility expanded further when Microsoft invited him to test and review the Xbox Adaptive Controller. “They asked me to try it and just be honest,” he said. “The video did way better than I expected.”

Despite building a gaming career without prosthetics, everything shifted when his girlfriend showed him a TikTok video of the Hero Arm. “She asked why I didn’t have prosthetics,” he said. “I told her I never needed them. But I’d never seen anything like the Hero Arm.” The expressive, robotic design grabbed his attention immediately. After reaching out through the Open Bionics website, Ricky began working with an upper-limb clinician and was fitted with a Hero Arm. This year, he added a Hero PRO on the opposite side—making him one of the few congenital amputee gamers in the world who dual-wields modern bionic arms.

“As soon as I saw the PRO, I knew I wanted it,” he said on a recent podcast. Although he doesn’t use either device for gaming just yet, he’s optimistic about the direction things are heading. “They’re not complex enough for gaming movements, not yet at least,” he said. “But Open Bionics is probably cooking up something.”

Outside of gaming, the arms have already changed the way he interacts with the world. He noticed the improvements immediately with his Hero PRO. “The response time is way faster. Opening and closing feels better,” he said. “Visually it looks way more put together. It reminds me of Anakin Skywalker’s arm.”

Daily tasks have become easier too. At six feet tall, Ricky often gets asked to grab items off high shelves. “I can get it, but it would be way easier with one arm instead of using both,” he said. “Reaching stuff on a higher shelf, even brushing your teeth—it’s just easier.”

The waterproofing is the feature he talks about most. “Now the Hero PRO is waterproof,” he said. “I can literally wash my back with it. That was really cool.” The additional reach also helps balance the length difference between his two arms. “Having that extra length goes a long way,” he said. “Kids riding bikes, holding things longer—it’s useful for a lot of people.”

He enjoys explaining how the technology works, demonstrating the myoelectric sensors inside the custom-fitted Hero Arm socket. “When you flex like you’re closing your hand, the muscles fire and the hand closes,” he said. He rotated the wrist to show another capability. “It goes 360 degrees. You click it and twist into whatever position you need. The newer Hero PRO is even more advanced, with wrist flexion.”

As a professional editor and motion designer for FaZe Clan, he’s already brainstorming designs for custom 3D-printed covers with friends who build skins for some of his favorite games. “It would be sick to replicate a Valorant-style skin,” he said.

What matters most to him, though, is the sense of possibility these devices bring. “This made my day 100 times better,” he said. “I’m excited for what’s next.”

For anyone wondering whether a bionic arm could help reach your goals, book a free virtual consultation with an Open Bionics upper-limb specialist. No pressure. No cost. Just real answers, and a chance to explore what’s possible.