What Makes Gorilla Tag Great VR Design?
You’ve seen the headlines: Gorilla Tag crosses 10M players and $100M in revenue. What can we learn from its success?
In January 2020, LemmingVR began developing Gorilla Tag as an exploration of virtual reality (VR) locomotion alternatives beyond the traditional joystick or teleportation methods. This exploration culminated in the crown jewel of VR movement: Gorilla Locomotion.
After multiple iterations, gameplay changes, and locomotion improvements, Gorilla Tag was launched in February 2021, attracting 21,000 users in its first week. From there, the rest is history.
The rise of Gorilla Tag could be attributed to a combination of factors: perfect timing, an engaged community, and building in public… Regardless of the reasons, it stands out as a masterclass in VR design and development. Here are three standout features from one of VR’s unexpected “killer apps”:
Maximum Immersion
In VR, immersion is often assumed to be achieved by merely putting on a headset and viewing the virtual world. However, true immersion requires thoughtful design to fully engage and absorb players in captivating virtual environments.
Gorilla Tag achieves this through diegetic design, seamlessly integrating all user interfaces (UI) into the game world. No pesky laser pointers or floating panels that disrupt your flow. Once you open the game, there’s no transition or UI to “enter” the world; you’re immediately in it. A “third place” is created and the game ensures this spell is never broken.
Unavoidable UI elements like joining a room or changing settings are still part of the game world. They’re presented through a computer terminal loaded with Gorilla OS. The initial tutorial also follows this pattern, throwing you directly into the game and letting the players figure out how to move and survive (like a newborn Monke).
Diegetic design is even more evident when joining a game room; you simply exit the tree house to automatically join one. It truly feels as if you are joining other monkes hanging out below. This seamless integration of intention into game mechanics, rather than traditional UIs, is brilliant.
Evidently, this approach to design requires extra time and effort than using traditional floating panels, but when this philosophy is applied consistently, the result is a game world that will draw you in.
Physical Locomotion
Standard VR locomotion systems, inherited from console or desktop button-pressing paradigms like pushing a joystick to move or pressing a button to teleport, feel disconnected and unnatural. In VR, where full immersion is the goal, these methods create a limited connection between your thumbs and the game world, rather than your entire body.
In contrast, hand-based locomotion systems such as Climbing, Arm Swinging, and Gorilla Locomotion, establish a direct connection between your body movements and the game world (there’s no button mediator). This enhances immersion, as players no longer just ‘see’ they’re in the game world but also ‘feel’ with their bodies to control movement.
This mechanic allows players to creatively interact with the game world, rather than merely viewing it as a backdrop or prop. This approach makes the entire environment feel alive — you can climb it, sprint through it, explore it, and discover tricks within it.
Hand-based locomotion also enables the development of mastery, distinguishing beginners from experienced players. This not only makes the game engaging and challenging but also encourages continuous improvement and the development of new skills.
“The movement is easy to learn, and hard to master.”
Additionally, avatars are perfectly synchronized with locomotion and tracked body parts: head and hands, connected through inverse kinematics. What about the legs? They are neither tracked nor practically used, so off they go.
This locomotion type has quickly been adopted by other games (Yeeps: Hide and Seek), and has been graciously open-sourced by Another Axiom (check out the source code here).
Community-Driven Multiplayer
When you drop down the tree stump into the gazebo and find players hanging out, talking, teasing each other, roleplaying, helping each other learn locomotion tricks, and inventing new gameplay — you realize that Gorilla Tag is not just a game, but a playground. And maybe… that’s the reason it became so popular with younger generations.
Seamless room joining, combined with default-enabled voice chat (like in real life), puts players in a position where social interactions are just waiting to happen. Add to the formula facial inexpressive gorilla avatars that act as masks, reducing self-consciousness and lowering inhibitions that lead to more spontaneous behaviour.
“The stakes are low, so feel free to just chat or make up your own games.”
Community-created mods have introduced custom maps and game modes, transforming Gorilla Tag into a tool for content creation for other platforms like TikTok and YouTube (watch some movies here).
These three features — immersion, locomotion, and multiplayer — make Gorilla Tag a standout example of VR-first design, meaning it starts from the ground up with VR in mind, rather than inheriting concepts from 2D platforms. Its success is a testament to the dedication and hard work invested in its development and the vast potential of VR!
To hear more from the creators themselves, watch this panel on best practices or this “documentary” on Gorilla Tag’s development history.
