Panoptic is one of the most interesting VR games I came across. It’s currently in early access, and even in its current state, it’s a game with one of the most unique concepts I’ve seen in recent years. I love the idea of two people playing one with the VR headset and another person with a regular PC. The reason is that there are many players with the HTC Vive headset that can’t really play with their friends because they either don’t own two headsets, I don’t recall any game that supports two headsets, and second, many of their friends don’t own a VR headset - so this way you can actually play with your friends.
Panoptic reminds me the game Evolve, where a few people hunt a monster which is played by a real player. In this game, however, there are just two guys, one the ‘predator’ who plays as the Overseer, and the second player who plays as the small and rebel citizen who need to avoid beeing detected and reach a specific point on the map where the orb is.
I really love the map design, because it really compliments the hide-and-seek type of gameplay. The rebel non-VR player who play as the citizen can hide among other citizens because their external look is the same. Soe if you are just walking like the other citizens, you probably won’t be detected by the VR player. One wrong move and the Overseer can detect you. The Overseer gameplay mechanics is really simple, he just needs to observe the surrounding, locate you and shoot you down. He needs to do it before you reach the orb.
When he gazes at your direction, he also lights the area with a beam of light. Some areas have shadowed by default, to make it harder for the Overseer to locate you, and these are excellent places to hide from him.
The game visuals are really nice, including the light effects and character design, the game really look different than any other game that I’ve seen.
I think it would be even better, the same as Evolve, to have more than one players as the pray. From what I’ve read on the game’s page on Steam, the developer is also considering adding online multiplayer and more game modes, so we might even see more than two players playing the game online, with one person being the Overseer, the oppressive overseer.
You can try out the demo for free via Steam. I am so happy having a game like Panopticbeing developer for VR. This is exactly the type of game that I want to play in VR and games that are really fun to play with friends and family members.
Check out out Panoptic preview and download the demo version from Steam here.
Here’s a video by JoshDub YouTube user that I think, really demonstrates how fun the game is when playing with a friend locally, one with the Vive headset and the other player playing without a VR headset on the PC - take a look!