There’s a sport that you just’ve seemingly by no means heard of, but it’s by far some of the widespread VR video games ever made. What’s ostensibly a easy sport of multiplayer tag for pre-adolescent kids can also be, I’ve not too long ago found, a wild hotbed of ludicrous in-universe conspiracies fuelling a real perception amongst its gamers that the sport is by some means haunted. Gorilla Tag is without doubt one of the strangest video games I’ve encountered in a really very long time. This can be a story that entails a microcosm of the meme-based web, and by some means the very first tune ever sung by a pc.
For Christmas 2024, we lastly succumbed and purchased our 10-year-old son a Meta Quest 3S. As a VR skeptic (I predict Meta will quit on it in 2026, focusing solely on AR from that time) I’ve at all times held off, however then was damaged down by peer-pressure-by-proxy—my son’s shut associates are all gaming collectively after college through the machines—and the sudden affordability of Meta’s newest mannequin. The children’ sport of selection is Gorilla Tag. Individuals, this will get bizarre, quick.
Gorilla Tag is a web based multiplayer sport of VR tag the place everybody performs as a gorilla. (The clues are all there within the title.) In a really genius resolution, the gorillas have solely arms, no legs, making sense of motion in a manner so many VR video games don’t: you frantically propel your self round along with your arms, whether or not grabbing and yanking on the floor in entrance of you, or climbing by hauling your self upward. In its hottest mode, Contagion, if you get tagged you grow to be a “lava monkey” (there isn’t a distinction between monkeys and apes right here, sorry naturalists), and might then tag others. Final one tagged is the winner. That’s the way it begins, and just about sums up the way it was supposed, at the least, to be performed. However then you definately begin listening to in regards to the ghosts…
The sport itself seems like a 3D Minecraft world the place these brightly coloured gorillas, severed on the torso, all lope in regards to the numerous blocky biomes in an effort to show one another to lava. Alongside the best way, there are enjoyable little wintry particulars within the sport simply now, like the power to scoop up and throw snowballs at each other, and many little easter eggs for gamers to introduce to at least one one other like veterans welcoming within the new recruits.
Gorilla Tag was formally launched in late 2022 for Meta Quest, then SteamVR in early 2023, and most not too long ago PSVR2 on the finish of 2024. Principally the work of 1 individual—Kerestell Smith (often known as Lemming), later joined by a small workforce—the free sport crossed $100 million in income final yr, and achieved this with no paid promoting or writer backing, simply pure word-of-mouth mania. Being free to play (and genuinely so, with solely cosmetics costing cash) means it’s usually on the high of the “hottest” lists for VR platforms, and so it’s a sport children usually discover after they first begin poking round. That’s, in the event that they haven’t begged for digital actuality goggles particularly to have the ability to play this sport.
At first, what we as dad and mom skilled was the hilarious sight of our son cartwheeling his arms round as he pantingly tried to flee from taggers, in what is totally an outstanding work-out on high of a foolish sport. Nonetheless, what we completely weren’t prepared for was open chat with full strangers. Fortunately, the Quest enables you to hear what he’s listening to, and we rapidly developed stringent guidelines that as quickly as there was intensive cursing or any trace of racism or different bigotry, he wanted to vary server. (His personal method, endearingly, was to consider he might persuade different pre-teen kids to not be racists with heartfelt encouragement.) It was deeply demoralizing to listen to the n-word so incessantly, from squeaky pre-adolescent voices.
After all, along with enjoying Gorilla Tag, our son was additionally compelled to observe YouTube movies about Gorilla Tag, starting with guides on “pinch climbing” and snowball-based exploits to propel oneself throughout the map, however the algorithm virtually instantly directed him towards movies in regards to the ghosts. Oh, so many ghosts.
So let’s be very clear about one thing: Gorilla Tag just isn’t some type of Poppy’s Playtime-adjacent horror sport being marketed to kids. It’s, from high to backside, utterly innocuous (past the foul mouths on the youngsters enjoying). It’s maybe due to this entire innocence, and absolutely the lack of any inside narrative, that the sport is so ripe for conspiratorial invention, a clean canvas on which rumors could be created, unfold amongst its gamers, after which amplified by YouTube. And the way. In response to one fan-made Wiki, there are over 1,000 named ghosts believed to be inside the sport, every with distinctive traits and causes to be frightened of them. They usually simply aren’t actual.
Nonetheless, to listen to my 10-year-old enjoying, you’d suppose he’d by some means gotten maintain of essentially the most terrifying piece of creepypasta.
“I SAW IT!” I’ll hear him bellow. “GUYS! I SAW IT! Look over there! His head’s on backward!” That is inevitably adopted by my yelling proper again to cease scaring youthful children who could be enjoying (and word I can use my cellphone to see precisely what he’s seeing within the headset), with the ulterior motive of reassuring him it’s not a “ghost” with out making him really feel patronized. With so many younger children enjoying, and most of them so very new (it’s not precisely a sport possessing sufficient selection or inventiveness to interact long-time play for many), any older beauty they’ve not seen earlier than is straight away parsed as impossibly unique and virtually positively proof of supernatural content material. Not to mention in the event that they see a participant glitch, lag, or instantly vanish when their web drops. “GHOST!”
Because it occurs, Gorilla Tag does in truth have one ghost: Lucy. The skeletal gorilla was added to the sport in Halloween 2022 as a joke, in response to the furore amongst gamers who had been satisfied the sport was by some means possessed. Lucy seems if gamers stand round at a sure place in every of the sport’s areas for an unspecified size of time. She then picks a participant at random and runs towards them, grabbing them, and lifting them into the air. And, in fact, this provides gas to each different conspiracy.
My son was informed, in no unsure phrases by a number of random gamers, that Lucy solely appeared if a participant put their hand right into a cauldron that simply occurs to be close to that map’s spawn level. He then went on to right away unfold this misinformation to others. There have been many various theories as to what or who managed Lucy, with a seemingly fervent perception that it was the position of a “moderator” who would be a part of random video games and punish gamers for imagined infractions. It’s this, it appears, that creates the widespread perception that so-called “mods” will seem in video games as ghosts or malevolent creatures and ban gamers for as a lot as a yr. “My pal bought banned for 2 weeks by PBBV!” a participant insisted to our boy, naming some of the widespread (however solely non-existent) ghosts believed to be within the sport.
PBBV, it’s mentioned, emits audio that repeats “PBBV let’s go PBBV,” however—and god bless ‘em, it’s good they’re sticking with the classics—for those who reverse this audio it as an alternative says, “PBBV is watching, PBBV is right here.” That is all absolute gibberish, but it surely’s gibberish that will get handed between gamers as extreme fact, backed up by so, so many trolls who be a part of video games and simply blast the related tunes and phrases by means of their microphones. This latter side is made far simpler by a number of Spotify playlists that provide all of the “ghost trolling songs” anybody might ever must scare a bunch of different middle-school children.
Key amongst these is a (non-existent) ghost known as Daisy09. She is pink, it’s believed, however can change colours as she walks, and all of the whereas emits the tune “Daisy Bell” as carried out by an IBM 7094.
The 1892 ditty about sharing a bicycle went on to grow to be the very first tune sung by a pc. In 1961, physicists John L. Kelly Jr. and Carol Lockbaum of Bell Labs in New Jersey programmed a computer-synthesized voice to sing “Daisy Bell,” accompanied by pc music pioneer Max Mathews. It was an incredible achievement. And yup, it sounds spooky as hell right now.
“I HEARD IT!” screams the boy, emphatically explaining to us that Daisy09 is actual, as a result of he heard the tune within the sport, however wasn’t capable of finding the ghost earlier than it disappeared. And yeah, I’m the type of spoilsport who can’t let that lie, and defined it was just a few goof enjoying the tune into their mic, and he remained very skeptical of my skepticism. Within the two weeks which have handed since, he’s lengthy moved on from such silly, youthful naivety, now fast to clarify to others in-game that it’s only a troll and so they shouldn’t fear, earlier than yelping in horror as a result of he thinks he simply noticed Echo (cyan, performs the tune “Run Rabbit”) or J3VU (a hacker, by the mythology, who can change the colour of different gamers’ gorillas through his huge moderator menu).
Gorilla Tag turns into essentially the most fascinating microcosm of web habits as carried out by kids. Memes are rife, disbelief is suspended, and rumor guidelines above actuality. Children desperately wish to be seen as those within the know, transferring from mark to troll to mark once more on the most astonishing tempo, fervently believing whereas being far too cool to be seen doing so. Hierarchy develops in any given foyer at lightning tempo, essentially the most assured child within the room rising to the highest, main the others on a “ghost hunt,” the others all instantly handing them authority and tagging alongside in terror.
It’s nonetheless attainable for my son, and each different child, to have a enjoyable time simply enjoying Gorilla Tag correctly. The core tag mechanic is enjoyable, and with the power to climb, ranges are thrilling chase sequences throughout three axes. As not too long ago as final night time, after a bollocking for spreading nonsense about seeing ghosts to different gamers, he had an excellent time simply enjoying the sport as supposed. Albeit utilizing a brand new exploit to succeed in an out-of-bounds space with the sport’s newest replace to snowballs.
(There’s one function the sport very a lot must replace: it’s at the moment not attainable to create non-public, passworded lobbies to play in with associates when enjoying on a toddler’s account, so so as to give children a safer, managed sport with out strangers in a position to be a part of, you must have them logged in as an grownup, which means all the opposite parental controls are misplaced. I notice that unsupervised entry to non-public lobbies is a complete different very critical situation, but when entry required a dad or mum’s approval, that’d simply be solved. It’s a giant oversight.)
I really like and hate stuff like this in video games. These bizarre communities that develop amongst full strangers, related just for minutes by no means to play collectively once more, however spreading myths, rumors and lies like they’re in a single large, interconnected college yard. That the non-existent ghosts even have names everybody agrees on is miraculous, given the chaotic nature of how the sport is performed. It’s an interesting phenomenon, and one which brings me huge concern as I attempt to regulate the nonsense that’s being spoken into my son’s ears and shield his creativeness, whereas letting him benefit from the thrill of the worry within the second.
Gorilla Tag has led to satisfaction, terror, bemusing arguments, and a lot laughter for our child, in addition to offering him with essentially the most extraordinary each day exercise. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster for us as dad and mom, too, remotely navigating the horrors of on-line multiplayer and giving us a chilling preview to the upcoming years of serving to defend a teenage boy from far darker, crueller conspiracies. However maybe what captures all of it greater than the rest is absolutely the weirdness of listening to a 10-year-old in 2025 strolling round his home murmuring, “Daisy, Daisy, give me your reply do…”
