Gorilla Tag is a new multiplayer VR title available for free on Early Access on Steam and via SideQuest for Oculus Quest. And it does exactly what it says on the package – it’s etiquette, but everyone is a gorilla.
The game has seen an increase in popularity in recent weeks, with a Steam news update from the game’s only developer establishing the player base of more than 40,000 people. It is free to play with two maps and two game modes – one is the basic tag with up to 3 players, the other is the infection tag with 4 or more.
Visually, the game is a little extravagant and polygonal, but it doesn’t matter because it’s all about the movement system. Moving on Gorilla Tag is very simple in concept, but it has a high skill limit – as the description on Steam says, “no buttons, no sticks, no teleportation”. It is about channeling the inner monkey and using your arms to grab the surfaces and propel yourself forward.
It has tips on the Echo VR’s locomotion system, but unlike Echo, you will work with full gravity and little sustainable grip. It’s all about pushing yourself forward the minute you touch a surface. If you try to cling to a surface instead of using it to push forward, you will fall to the floor. In concept, it is almost identical to the way real gorillas move using their arms. However, in Gorilla Tag, all gorillas are cut from the waist down, without legs.
Voice chat is enabled by default, so players often chat with each other in the middle of the game or communicate with each other to find the latest unmarked gorillas. As a whole, the game is as simple as possible, but it is a solid foundation to build on. The developer states on the Steam page that he intends to add more content and improve the game as it progresses, while also maintaining a free-to-play model with potential for cosmetic DLC in the future.
Gorilla Tag is available for free on Steam for PC VR and via SideQuest for sideloading on Oculus Quest, with support for multiplatform play.