The Last Worker brings a satirical narrative adventure to Quest, PSVR 2 and PC VR, mixing strong humor with tense stealth action. Jointly developed for flatscreen platforms and VR, here’s our full review:
We’ve seen countless takes on sci-fi dystopian futures over the years and in The Last Worker, they all seem to be happening simultaneously. Healthcare only exists for the rich, you live where you work, there’s heavy environmental pollution, while automation runs rampant. Truly unimaginable. A textbook example of a mega-corporation gone mad but despite this familiar premise, strong writing keeps it fresh.
Playing the world-weary Kurt, every Jüngle employee except you was fired and replaced by robots, making him the last human worker. After living in isolation for many years with his robot companion, Skew, he’s approached by an activist group to take down Jüngle for good. It’s an over the top premise that could only happen in fiction and The Last Worker plays to these situational absurdities well, punching up against late stage capitalism and its grubby excesses through entertaining satire.
A quick tutorial eases you into Kurt’s daily shifts, which involves delivering as many packages as possible within a time limit through his hoverpod, exploring an imposing warehouse and grabbing them with a gravity gun-style ‘JüngleGun’. Each package has labels detailing its size and weight which requires checking and if everything looks good, send it away. If the information doesn’t match or there’s packaging damage, take it to recycling.
Just don’t be too hasty. Incorrect handling penalizes you and once the shift’s over, The Last Worker assesses your work, firing Kurt if you scored terribly. I worried this might become repetitive but fortunately, these segments aren’t that frequent and Kurt’s cynical commentary over items like “Baby’s First VR Goggles” helped. Crucially, these shifts usually have sub-objectives relating to the plot, like throwing rats onto robots to cause breakdowns, which often directs you somewhere else.
Kurt’s journey takes him into many restricted zones, often needing to dodge patrol bots. Stealth in a pod isn’t especially conventional and aside from some brief narrative moments, Kurt never leaves this vehicle.
Thankfully, it’s surprisingly quiet and Jüngle’s massive warehouse provides convenient cover to sneak about. Advancing requires studying movement patterns and finding gaps, sometimes requiring very precise timing. Getting caught forces a restart, though generous checkpoints ease those frustrations.
Stealth sections feel tense and by placing us directly inside this world, playing in VR feels more atmospheric than flatscreen thanks to its increased immersion. Later levels provide additional tools like an EMP gun for destroying smaller robots, which keeps the action varied.
Kurt also picks up a scanner for solving puzzles, matching shapes shown in a 3×3 grid on his gun to unlock doors. Sometimes that’s paired with a second puzzle that needs completing in a time limit, making this somewhat frantic.
The gameplay isn’t particularly groundbreaking but there’s a fun sense of accomplishment that comes with escaping patrol robots, though storytelling is where this truly shines. Thanks to a good script, The Last Worker highlights the lack of humanity often seen when companies pursue unsustainable levels of growth, looking at the cost behind such ambitions. Strong cast performances only build upon this further, while the hand painted art style adds significant character to an otherwise bleak setting.
The Last Worker Review – Comfort
The Last Worker mostly sticks with artificial smooth locomotion for movement, while the limited number of segments outside the pod see Kurt moving by pushing a walking stick. The pod turning speed can be changed, but there’s movement vignettes for additional comfort, alongside adjustable haptic feedback strength for the headset and controllers. Anyone playing on PC or PS5 can seamlessly swap between the VR and flatscreen modes, and the latter option uses FPS-style controls.
On PSVR 2, The Last Worker reprojects its 60 frames-per-second gameplay to 120Hz, as previously confirmed by Wolf & Wood’s creative director. This didn’t cause any noticeable problems for me, though some may find this uncomfortable. For more details on reprojection, check out our PSVR 2 tech analysis.
After a seven hour campaign, The Last Worker concludes with three potential endings, which I won’t spoil here. Everything follows a set course until this divergence point, so don’t worry about making ‘wrong’ decisions like it’s Mass Effect or a Telltale game. Better still, you can jump back to this point at will through a chapter select menu once you’ve hit credits. Two decisions shape this pivotal moment.
I can’t explain why without spoilers but I wasn’t completely sold on this ending. The build up within this final chapter feels a little odd, and even the ‘good’ ending leaves some unanswered questions. However, this approach also fits the narrow scope of Kurt’s story; you only see this world through his eyes and from what other people tell you. So despite wanting to explore the implications of his actions further, it still works from a narrative perspective, leaving me with mixed feelings.
The Last Worker Review – Final Verdict
The Last Worker is an entertaining title that doesn’t overstay its welcome. By taking aim at late stage capitalism, this over-the-top journey offers a fine narrative and great satirical humor, coupled with tense but enjoyable stealth missions. While I wanted more from the ending, this doesn’t greatly detract from the wider experience. It’s well-paced, fun, and comes recommended for anyone after a new adventure.
UploadVR focuses on a label system for reviews, rather than a numeric score. Our reviews fall into one of four categories: Essential, Recommended, Avoid and reviews that we leave unlabeled. You can read more about our review guidelines here.
The Last Worker brings a narrative adventure to Quest, PSVR 2 and PC VR on March 30, and we spoke with Wolf & Wood founder Ryan Bousfield to learn more.
Oiffy and Wolf & Wood’s dystopian adventure sees you playing Kurt (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), the last human factory worker at mega-corporation Jüngle, led by its ruthless rainbow-haired CEO. Joined by his robot companion Stew (Jason Isaacs), you’re tasked with helping dismantle Kurt’s employer from within to end rising automation. The cast is rounded out by David Hewlett, Zelda Williams, Clare-Hope Ashitey and Tommie Earl Jenkins. I recently attended The Last Worker’s preview event and went hands-on with the PSVR 2 version.
Thanks to a fault with Skew’s programming, your journey begins with an erroneous first-day tutorial, despite Kurt clearly being a seasoned veteran. Once you’ve cleared this, narrative segments are broken up by Kurt’s day-to-day factory life, you’re tasked with ensuring packages are correctly processed, delivering as many packages as possible within the time limit through his hoverpod. That involves finding them across imposing warehouses, grabbing them with a gravity gun-style ‘JüngleGun’, and assessing whether they’re fine or shipping or need recycling. Every package details its size and weight, the latter being assessed once placed onto your pod. If the information doesn’t match the packaging labels or it seems damaged, send it to recycling.
Warehouse work isn’t the most exciting premise for a video game but The Last Worker makes this monotonous surprisingly enjoyable, incentivizing you to do better through a ranking system. If you fail, you’re fired and even if you pass, your boss can’t resist providing “encouraging” feedback, which leans well into the game’s strong satirical humor. Unlocking that gold PlayStation trophy for top marks on my third try was particularly satisfying. The opening chapter does a great job illustrating Kurt’s situation, while the handpainted art style adds character to these depressing halls. I’m intrigued to see how writer/director Jörg Tittel handles this story and it didn’t take long before I was invested.
I didn’t get a chance to try the stealth sections but I left the preview feeling positive after finishing chapter 1. Following a lengthy hands-on session, I sat down with creative director Ryan Bousfield to learn more:
UploadVR: First off, thank you for talking with me. To start at the beginning, how did development and gameplay come together for The Last Worker?
Bousfield: So, Jörg Tittel had the idea way before meeting Wolf & Wood. It’s something that we were looking to get made and we did some tests, working with Mick McMahon (Judge Dredd, 2000AD) on character ideas. It’s something that he had in the background for many years. I was put in contact with [Jörg Tittel] through a friend who said, “We’ve been looking at making this game but something’s come up, we don’t have the capacity.”
Because Wolf & Wood have a background in narrative, he said “would you be interested in talking to him and just seeing what you think?” So, I chatted to Jörg; we sorted the pitch for The Last Worker and created an outline idea of this near-future dystopia that’s also colorful, bright and weird. The idea of having these robots flying around this giant facility with you as the last human in that set up.
It sounded interesting and weird, something leftfield. That’s what we like making at Wolf & Wood. We’ve done horrors with Hotel R’n’R, smashing up hotel rooms for the devil. None of it’s just shooting and killing things; it’s always been something like scaring people. We’ve always leaned more towards narrative. From there, we got into some really nice ideas, I thought “let’s try and get a publisher on board” and, a year later, we connected with Wired Productions.
I think everybody involved is taking a chance on it, it’s quite an unusual pitch. But at heart, it’s a narrative game where we weave together different types of gameplay as you’re working through it. We were trying to move gameplay along, so you can keep players on their toes. None of it is massively taxing, stealth areas have a very quick turnaround on checkpoints. So, even if you fail the set up, you’re not dead; you get fired, and there’s responses from Josef Jüngle, the CEO.
UploadVR: I’ve seen that first-hand while playing. I scored an F [during a warehouse mission], got fired, and on my second attempt, I scored a B. He then told me “you could B better.”
Bousfield: It’s that sort of light, almost adventure game-esque humor. We’re aiming for that nice pacing with everything that keeps you moving, you always feel a sense of progression. As we push the character, we push the player into more dicey situations where you get a sense of danger. We’ve been calling it stealth-lite, where you’re not looking and mapping out your route in minute detail. You can get an idea of the situation, then you can fly in, try a path and if something turns around, you can reverse and get out of the way.
UploadVR: Even in the stealth sections, are you still in the vehicle?
Bousfield: Yeah, and we’ve got full 6 degrees of freedom. In VR, you can obviously take yourself out of the space and pot around a bit. That gives us some interesting situations for stealth scenarios as well, there’s not many games where you’re in flying pods. It’s a new, unique challenge to this. We can’t just go to the rulebook of flying stealth.
UploadVR: It’s definitely not what you’d normally think of, hiding behind the boxes with the pod. Or like Solid Snake hiding in the box.
Bousfield: Considering it’s a game where you’re in a warehouse full of boxes, we don’t actually do that. There were definitely ideas about some stages but, yeah. We have flatter areas where you’re moving around avoiding boxes in a more traditional pattern… Each one is like a little vignette of a segment rather than a big open world.
UploadVR: You’ve also been developing C-Smash VRS alongside this, how has it been managing two projects of this scale side by side?
Bousfield: We just had to really work at it, we all pulled together and managed our time as best as possible. Wolf & Wood is only a seven person team, there’s people involved in both projects such as musicians, concept artists. It’s been a lot from that side, but as one’s kind of coming to an end, we’ve got the full version to do after that. I think we misjudged the timing a little bit with both landing so close together, but it does take years to do projects scale. So it’s very difficult to judge this stuff ahead of time. It’d be lovely to have a nice clean calendar but the nature of these opportunities that present themselves. There are some things that we don’t want to say no to.
UploadVR: Because you’ve got The Last Worker running on every major platform, was it always designed with VR first? Or was it flat and you then adapted into VR?
Bousfield: It’s been developed in tandem. During the course of development, we knew that the VR version would be the initial challenge with getting a player onto a vehicle and moving them around in a giant space. So we went there first and then into the flat version, which initially had these tank controls because that’s how you essentially move the pods. We tried doing that in flat but it didn’t translate, it didn’t feel snappy.
UploadVR: What did you do to get around that?
Bousfield: We went back to more traditional FPS control. The Pod, for the most part, it’s an extension of you. In first person, you don’t think about controlling the feet, you’re controlling the head and everything else follows. We refined that to get the snappy first person control, which really does translate well onto controllers. I think it feels good on Switch especially, which has the gyro controls. It has been crazy looking at all the different versions, control schemes and everything else we’ve got to consider. But at the core, it’s the same game. It should look and feel very similar across all platforms.
UploadVR: Thinking specifically with VR. You’ve got it running on Quest 2, Quest Pro, PSVR 2 and PC VR. Are there any big differences between how it runs on these headsets?
Bousfield: The biggest difference is the performance power you have. With controls and designing for all the different headsets now, they’re very in sync. When you look at the Quest 2 controllers compared to PSVR 2, they’re not that different compared to [Vive Wands]. From a design perspective, I do like that these controllers are becoming the standard. VR itself is not very standard anyway. You can do so much in the headset. You have to consider things like, what if somebody looks under a table? That’s something I didn’t need to worry about previously. Now it’s like, what if somebody puts their head in the corner? What if somebody tries to play lying down?
UploadVR: If people can, they will try.
Bousfield: Exactly. So it’s great that the hardware companies have kind of agreed to a design standard, which is great for us as developers. The biggest challenge is, how do you get something that looks good on PS5 and PSVR 2 running on a device that just doesn’t have the same GPU power?
UploadVR: Is that where the stylized art comes in?
Bousfield: Definitely. That’s a big thing from a technical standpoint, everything is handpainted. We have that real-time lighting and shading on characters to give us a sense of depth. But the details, scuffs, all the marks, the hairs and beards, they’re all hand drawn in. That helps it looks really nice and embodies this chunky style, like when you see Kurt’s sausage fingers. That helps it excel across all different platforms, giving continuity between high-end and where we’ve got to optimize more.
UploadVR: As a quick technical question with PSVR 2 since it’s been a hot topic, what is the refresh rate and framerate for The Last Worker?
Bousfield: So, we’re currently running 60Hz with reprojection to 120Hz in PSVR 2. That said, we’re looking at all options and this may change.
UploadVR: Regarding the Switch version, did you ever look at using Nintendo Labo and the cardboard VR for it?
Bousfield: Ah yes, very early in the conceptualisation of The Last Worker, Labo was something we chatted about but it was one of many ideas floating around. A cardboard representation of the JüngleGun does still sound like fun – given that the game is, on one level, about dispatching cardboard boxes!
UploadVR: Finally, you’ve got such a strong cast that we don’t normally see in VR games, how did that come about?
Bousfield: So, Jörg’s background is in comics, films. He’s got contacts, so he hit them up, showed them a prototype. He sent me a video of [Jason Isaacs] at his house, testing it out one of the very early builds. We were frightened about showing it so early. When we were in lockdown [with COVID-19], it sounded like we could make the schedule work. You had people working from the kitchen, or with [Ólafur Darri Ólafsson], a studio in Iceland.
The Last Worker arrives on March 30 for the Meta Quest platform, PSVR 2 and PC VR for $19.99. A flatscreen release is also planned for PC, PS5, Switch and Xbox Series X|S.
The Last Worker, an anti-capitalist VR narrative adventure, arrives this month on Quest, PSVR 2 and PC VR.
Jointly developed by Oiffy and Wolf & Wood, The Last Worker is a dystopian adventure packing an all-star cast that includes Zelda Williams and Tommie Earl Jenkins. Playing as world-weary factory worker Kurt (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), you’re asked to help dismantle his employer from within, and Kurt’s joined by his robotic companion Stew (Jason Isaacs). Promising a “unique” blend of work simulation and stealth strategic gameplay, you can watch the release date trailer below:
“Just as the pandemic has made us all dependent on home deliveries, it took us a whole pandemic to deliver this game,” said director Jörg Tittel in a separate statement. “We’ve often felt like Kurt, overworked, lonely and tired, with Skew reminding us that there will be fun and light at the end of this fulfillment center.”
We briefly tried the Quest version during our The Last Worker preview in 2021. While it was early days, we came away optimistic:
The game has an assured confidence to its storytelling and a high level of production that feels rare in VR right now. For starters, it straight up looks better than most games I’ve played on Oculus Quest … even if that’s down to its handpainted art direction. It allows the teams to get far more out of the visuals than we’re used to seeing on Quest, from the exaggerated wrinkles lining Kurt’s forehead to the tiny details decorating his craft and making it feel like a real, lived-in vehicle.
The Last Worker arrives on March 30 for the Meta Quest platform, PSVR 2 and PC VR for $19.99. A flatscreen release is also planned for PC, PS5, Switch and Xbox Series X|S,
We’ve got another look at promising upcoming VR adventure, The Last Worker, complete with new cast news.
Zelda Williams and Tommie Earl Jenkins are the latest actors to be confirmed for the project, which is coming to Quest 2 alongside traditional consoles and PC. Williams, known for her role in The Legend of Korra, also stars in the latest trailer for the game, which you can see below.
New The Last Worker Trailer
We also get a look at some of the game’s puzzling mechanics as well as what might lie a little deeper inside the mysterious Jungle warehouse. Williams and Jenkins, meanwhile, join an already-packed cast list for the game that includes Jason Isaacs, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Clare-Hope Ashitey and David Hewlett. In The Last Worker, players are cast as a world-weary worker for a massive mega corporation. After playing a brief snippet of the game last year we took interest in its gorgeous art style and ominous story, which is written by director Jörg Tittel and developed by Hotel R’n’R studio, Wolf & Wood.
Finally, anyone heading to PAX East in Boston this weekend will have a chance to try the game for themselves. Look for it at the Wired Productions booth, #14030.
Currently, the game’s scheduled to release this year on Quest 2. Hopefully we’ll have more news about specific release dates on a launch on other VR headsets in the near future. Are you looking forward to The Last Worker? Let us know in the comments below.
The Last Worker soll noch in diesem Jahr für die Meta Quest und PC VR erscheinen. Entwickelt wird das Spiel von Oiffy und Wolf & Wood.
The Last Worker für Quest und PC VR
Bei The Last Worker handelt es sich um ein Spiel, welches seinen Fokus auf die Story legen will. So schlüpft ihr in die Rolle von Kurt, welcher in einer Fabrik arbeiten muss, die von gefährlichen Robotern geleitet wird. Wie im Trailer zu sehen ist, könnt ihr eure Arbeiten mit einer Gravity-Gun erledigen, was den Aufenthalt aber nicht angenehmer gestalten wird.
Aktuell gibt es noch kein Datum für die Veröffentlichung auf Meta Quest und PC VR. Wir werden euch informieren, sobald weitere Details vorliegen. Auf Steam könnt ihr das Spiel bereits auf eure Wunschliste setzen. Unseren Langzeittest zur Meta Quest findet ihr hier.
A new trailer for VR narrative game The Last Worker debuted, giving us a closer look at some of the characters, story and gameplay.
The Last Worker, developed by Oiffy and Wolf & Wood, is set for release on Quest, SteamVR and flatscreen devices later this year. It’s a dystopian narrative VR game where you play as Kurt, a factory worker joined by his robotic companion stew, voiced by Jason Isaacs.
We got our first teaser last year, but it didn’t reveal a whole lot. This new trailer introduces us to the ‘Jüngle Fulfillment Centre’ and gives a closer look at some more gameplay.
The game has an assured confidence to its storytelling and a high level of production that feels rare in VR right now. For starters, it straight up looks better than most games I’ve played on Oculus Quest … even if that’s down to its handpainted art direction. It allows the teams to get far more out of the visuals than we’re used to seeing on Quest, from the exaggerated wrinkles lining Kurt’s forehead to the tiny details decorating his craft and making it feel like a real, lived-in vehicle.
Thankfully, this new trailer released today does give us a bit of a closer look at what to expect from the gameplay. You can see Kurt using a gravity gun-like device to pick up items and move them around, it looks like some environmental puzzles are on the cards.
A joint project between Wired Productions, Writer/Director Jörg Tittel’s production company Oiffy and Wolf & Wood (The Exorcist: Legion VR, Hotel R’n’R), The Last Worker first appeared during the Venice Film Festival last year. Today, the developers have released a brand new trailer giving you a better look inside the fictional e-commence giant that is Jüngle.
Very much a critique of corporations like Amazon, The Last Worker is set inside the Jüngle Fulfillment Centre (JFC-1), a huge sprawling complex the size of Manhatten that’s completely automated; apart from one man. Of course, all this automation has been at the expense of people’s jobs – and possibly their lives.
The new trailer is delivered like a customer tour, with CEO Josef Jüngle claiming he has nothing to hide and so much to offer as you peek inside the 650 million square foot JFC-1. Rows of boxes as far as the eye can see disappear into the distance and in the middle of it all is you, the last human being to wander these seemingly endless halls of products.
The Last Worker features quite the selection of talent. From Wolf & Wood’s expertise to the hand-crafted art style of comics legend Mick McMahon as well as the voice talents of Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Jason Isaacs, Clare-Hope Ashitey and David Hewlett. This is a narrative adventure coming to multiple platforms focused on “humanity’s struggle in an increasingly automated world.”
“The Last Worker is a true labour of love and I’m lucky to be working with the best creative talent money can’t buy,” said Writer, Director and Producer Jörg Tittel in a statement. “With people likethese, one can’t help but deliver the goods, but should we fail, I hope Mr. Jüngle can give me a job?”
As The Last Worker, you’ll have to solve puzzles, defend yourself against rogue robots and a whole lot more if you wish to make it out of JFC-1 in one piece.
“We have all become attached to the characters in The Last Worker. Seeing them transition from Mick McMahon’s sketches and then brought to life by such amazing actors has been a fantastic process to be a part of.” Said Ryan Bousfield, Creative Director of Wolf & Wood. “I’m extremely proud of the innovative approach taken by our team to create a rich and exciting world that is as immersive on screen as it is in VR. We’re looking forward to showing you the first elements of gameplay.”
The Last Worker is scheduled to arrive at some point this year, supporting Meta Quest 2, SteamVR, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. For further updates on the project, keep reading gmw3.
This upcoming narrative-driven VR game proves it’s one to watch out for at the Venice Film Festival. Read on for our The Last Worker preview!
The Last Worker stands apart from everything else in competition for this year’s Venice VR efforts. Unlike the many short films and experiences it’s battling against, this is just a taster of a wider narrative – more of an E3 demo than a finished whole. I don’t envy the judges that have to weigh this slice up against heavy hitters like the Tilda Swinton-narrated Goliath but, for what it’s worth, I think The Last Worker would get my vote.
The Last Worker Preview: Trailer
Precious little has been shared about this joint effort from Oiffy and Wolf & Wood outside of an ominous trailer and yesterday’s reveal of a voice cast that includes Jason Isaacs. And, while it’s still hard to pin down exactly what The Last Worker is, the demo peels back just a few layers of the overall package. You’re Kurt (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), a world-weary, long-serving worker for the Jungle corporation, which is an enormous and largely autonomous delivery outfit (and no, the real-life inspiration isn’t exactly ambiguous). When we open, it doesn’t look like things are going too well for our hero. To be specific, he’s rampaging through what looks like a warehouse in a giant mech, swatting drones and punching through walls. Not your average day at the office, then.
It’s a real record scratch “Yup, that’s me” moment before we’re whisked off to another segment that seems to form the bulk of the game. Here, Kurt meets a faulty Jungle companion bot, Skew (Isaacs), that insists on taking him through the first-day tutorial to operate the hovering craft he commandeers, even though it’s clear Kurt has been on the job a little too long.
That’s a whirlwind overview, but there’s a lot of elements within these 10 minutes that make The Last Worker one to watch in 2022. The game has an assured confidence to its storytelling and a high level of production that feels rare in VR right now. For starters, it straight up looks better than most games I’ve played on Oculus Quest (it’s coming to SteamVR and flatscreen too), even if that’s down to its handpainted art direction. It allows the teams to get far more out of the visuals than we’re used to seeing on Quest, from the exaggerated wrinkles lining Kurt’s forehead to the tiny details decorating his craft and making it feel like a real, lived-in vehicle.
It helps, too, that the game’s design is incredibly immersive. Controlling the craft from a seated perspective can be a little nausea-inducing (I had to turn the comfort settings to moderate), but helped me move through the environment convincingly, and the lonely halls of the Jungle depot provide great moments of awe-inspiring scale. Mostly, though, I’m interested to see where writer/director Jörg Tittel takes the game’s story. We’re only given hints, but The Last Worker seems to have the makings of something memorable, unafraid to switch up perspectives and deliver narrative sequences in new and unexpected ways that are unique to VR and all from inside a world I’m genuinely curious to explore.
I’m more cautious as to how The Last Worker will work as a game, though. The opening action segment, in which a weaponized mech mimics your arm movements, definitely works well but overstays its welcome after a few minutes. The second segment, meanwhile, doesn’t give much of a sense of what you’ll ‘do’ in the game. Controlling the crafts feels immersive and convincing, but will most of the game simply be about following Skew? Or are there more elements to it?
A lot of strands to follow, then, making it tough to say anything too definitive about The Last Worker as it stands. But the game’s decisive focus on narrative and immersion, mixed with top-notch production have me hopeful that the developers have something special on their hands. We’ll have to wait until next year to find out for sure.
The Last Worker arrives in 2022 for Oculus Quest, PC VR and flatscreen devices. What did you make of our The Last Worker preview? Let us know in the comments below!
Promising narrative-driven VR game The Last Worker just revealed its cast, including Jason Isaacs.
The game, which is currently showing at this year’s Venice Film Festival, will feature four main characters that are fully voiced. Protagonist Kurt is voiced by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, whilst Isaacs portrays his robotic companion, Skew. Clare-Hope Ashitey, meanwhile, voices the mysterious HoverBird, while David Hewlett plays what’s looking like the game’s antagonist, Josef.
Check out the cast announcement below, which goes behind the scenes of the game with writer and director, Jörg Tittel. The game itself is being developed in a collaboration between Oiffy and Hotel R’n’R and The Exorcist developer, Wolf & Wood.
There’s still a lot to learn about The Last Worker, though we did have a chance to go hands-on with the project ourselves at Venice. We’ll be delivering first impressions of the experience over the weekend, so keep an eye out. For now, you can check out the first teaser trailer below, which doesn’t tell you much but does give you a taste of the game’s visual style.
The Last Worker launches in 2022 on both the Oculus Quest and SteamVR, though it’s also coming to flatscreen consoles and PCs too. Let us know your thoughts on the game below!
The Last Worker, an upcoming game with VR support to be released in 2022, has been selected for the 78th Venice International Film Festival, which runs next month.
Developed by Wired Productions and Wolf & Wood (the studio behind The Exorcist VR and Hotel R’n’R), The Last Worker is the only video game nominated in the VR Expanded category and will be available to the jury and accredited festival guests via the Quest platform. It is set to feature an “all-star cast,” to be announced early next month.
Here’s a description of the game to go alongside the announce trailer (embedded above):
Releasing on all platforms in 2022, The Last Worker is a narrative adventure centered around our struggle in an increasingly automated and dehumanizing world. Set in a lonely, oppressive but strangely beautiful environment, The Last Worker is a unique blend of first-person narrative, work simulation and stealth strategy game play. Combining a hand-crafted art style with uniquely immersive gameplay mechanics in an epic setting, the game delivers an emotional, thought provoking and comedic story with rich characters performed by an all-star cast.
Unlike many other VR entries in film festivals, The Last Worker sounds like it leans far more into the active video game elements as opposed to a more passive immersive media style of experience. Not only will it release for the Oculus Quest platform and on SteamVR, but it will also be available for PC and console, including PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch.
“To be part of such a prestigious festival is very cool for our small team,” said Ryan Bousfield, Creative Director of Wold & Wood. “The hand-crafted style of The Last Worker really reflects the level of thinking and artistry each individual has poured in to create this multifaceted world. The invitation to compete in Venice is obviously a little nerve-wracking but also incredibly exciting for us and I’m really proud of all the work the team has created to get here.”
The Last Worker will premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in September, before releasing on Oculus Quest and SteamVR in 2022.
