Strike A Pose: Mannequin adapts the hunt for VR multiplayer

Taking the mechanics from Prop Hunt and cleverly adapting them for VR, Mannequin forces players to pose and hide among frozen NPCs in a multiplayer hunt between humans and aliens. Read on for our full hands-on impressions from Gamescom.

Fast Travel Games today revealed Mannequin, their latest multiplayer VR title coming to Quest, SteamVR and PSVR 2 in 2024. The game pits two sides against each other – a group of aliens ( referred to as ‘mannequins’) against a team of human agents. The former will spread across the map and try to blend in among the frozen, time-locked humans, while the latter must hunt down the aliens by catching them between poses or finding the one who plays them. Which gang is actually the disguised mannequin player.

Here’s the official description from Fast Travel:

The world has stopped. Time is frozen. All attempts to contact aliens have failed. Agents have been deployed to neutralize the threat once and for all. Play as alien Mannequins and set up deadly ambushes by posing as humans frozen in time or as human Agents using high-tech devices to Disable Mannequin remotely.

The game has its roots in the community-created Counter Strike mechanics and Garry’s Mod’s Prop Hunt game mode. The concept has since spread to popular multiplayer titles, with alternative game modes featuring the Prop Hunt ruleset now available in titles such as Call of Duty and Fortnite. Those early flat-screen versions saw a group of hunters tracking down a group of players disguised as various environmental props on a given map, hiding in plain sight. Mannequin takes this concept and transforms it for VR, bringing physicality into the mix by asking players to pose like humans instead of props. Using motion controllers, the alien player will have to place themselves in a believable position among a random layout of frozen NPCs on the map.

The game is designed for a total of five players in one match – three alien mannequins and two hunters. However, during our demo, Fast Travel developers mentioned that the team is working on options for other player combinations, such as 1v1, with necessary balance adjustments.

Mannequin players start the round in alien form, which the hunters will easily spot. However, when moving around the map, they can freeze into a pose with the press of a button, transforming themselves into a frozen human and (hopefully) camouflaging themselves among time-locked NPCs other. Using guns and detective tools, human agent players will have to move across and detect aliens, either in their native form or when disguised as mannequins.

A match consists of the best of five rounds, with a round completed when one of the sides completely eliminates the other. There is no respawn – however, dead players can move freely to watch – and there is no health bar: any player, alien or human, will be downed in one shot.

As you might expect, the human agents have guns at their disposal. However, ammo is limited and the rate of fire is quite slow, meaning you’ll have to count your shots. If you mistakenly suspect an NPC to be an alien in disguise and shoot, you will have the opportunity for an opposing alien to rush at you.

The aliens do not use guns to take down the agents but can instead dispose of them with just a touch of the agents’ bodies. While simple on paper, it’s difficult to distance yourself from agents without being detected. This is where additional capabilities come into play.

Both the aliens and the hunters have a number of additional tools at their disposal to help them. For example, aliens can use their dash ability to shoot themselves forward and quickly close the distance to deliver a killing blow to the enemy. It can also be used at any time – even to snap out of your frozen mannequin pose when someone approaches.

The human agents have an EMF Reader that will scan the area to give you approximate information about the aliens’ approximate location, which will help give clues as to which NPCs might be aliens in disguise. Another tool can be thrown out at will, placed in the environment, to detect when aliens move through a specific area. The maps also include optional points that can be captured by either team, called Power Stations, granting them additional abilities and advantages once secured.

Because matches take place over three to five rounds, strategy and teamwork come into play when one team gains an advantage. Increase two rounds? You can coordinate with your team to play more aggressively in the third round, rushing into enemy territory or trying to capture a Power Station early to secure those extra abilities for the round. Integrated voice chat within the game provides a level of coordination with your team, although the game does not currently include any other options (such as a ping system) for those who do not want to chat. story.

After playing through two games, one as an alien and one as a hunter, with a full five-person roster at Gamescom, I came away with a very good impression. While there’s still a lot of polishing left to do, the initial build we played had the fundamentals right: this is a truly engaging multiplayer game that uses the physics of VR to bring great benefit.

What’s especially cool is that the game feels like it’s set up for future generations – whereas the current version only facilitates posing with your arms via motion controllers, you can see how full-body tracking could offer more dynamic capabilities. Once you can position yourself into more dynamic positions – sitting down, crouching, leaning – then Fast Travel will be able to adjust frozen NPC poses to match, definitely adding more depth significant for the experience.

That said, while current technology offers limited posing possibilities, the core concept of the game is one we haven’t seen in VR before. Even if it borrows mechanics from the concept of prop hunting, there’s enough variation and novelty in adapting it for VR to create something that feels fresh and original, hopefully it also has moderate depth.

After all, it looks like Fast Travel Games is on to something with Mannequin. I can’t wait to see where they get it from.

Mannequin is scheduled to release in 2024 for Quest, PC VR, and PSVR 2 headsets.