During the recent Oculus Connect 5 event indie developer White Elk Studios announced a new virtual reality (VR) videogame that offers asymmetrical gameplay by the name of Covert. This title sees two players have to work together to pull off heist with one of the team being a thief in VR with the other playing the role of the hacker who assists their team member via a smartphone or tablet. During the event VRFocus’ own Nina Salomons and Kevin Joyce were able to get hands-on with the title and see how the asymmetrical gameplay held up.
The video footage showcases the gameplay of the hacker player which takes place on the mobile device. The players in VR is shown on the map with the camera following them ensuring that the hacker is always able to keep track of their movements. Because each player has different information available to them, they need to work together and communicate carefully in order to successful complete a heist.
As shown in the below video, the hacker is able to disable elements such as lasers and lights in the environment which allow the thief player to move on. When it comes to get around guards however, a bit of team work is needed. The hacker can point out objects and areas that are of help to the thief who can then interest with them to distract the guards. Likewise, the hacker can see a guards field-of-view where as the thief cannot. By double tapping on the screen the hacker can place a marker within the environment to help product additional information and situational awareness.
Other gameplay elements, which can be seen later on in the video, see the thief player needing to interact with a keypad to read off some information to the hacker who is then able to cross check the information and provide the correct code to allow them to get in. The same can be seen when they are breaking into the vault in which the two players need to work together in order to crack the code and score the loot.
Covert is set to launch on Oculus Go and Samsung Gear VR later this year along with the mobile device counterpart releasing at the same time. You can see the full hands-on video below and for all the latest on all things VR in the future, keep reading VRFocus.