VirtualRealities: TRACKED: Shoot to Survive

Take on the threats of the B.C. wilds in an action packed adventure.

Take on the Canadian wilderness as you fight to survive.

Released Nov. 13 by Incuvo (Green Hell VR, Bulletstorm VR) TRACKED: Shoot to Survive puts you in the shoes of Alex, a young man who must use lessons from his past to outlast the dangers of the wilds.

You and your sister Sam are on your way to your father’s cabin, prepared to spend time and scatter his ashes. As you approach land – your cabin homebase on the horizon– your plane is violently shot out of the air. After crash landing, you awaken with Sam nowhere in sight and start your journey to make it safely to the cabin. This journey serves as your tutorial for the game, as you’ll learn the mechanics of the game as you sneak, heal and fight your first round of enemies.

Once you make it to the cabin, you’ll learn things like crafting items, upgrading your workbenches and cooking – all necessary skills if you plan on making it through the game.

For those who have played the virtual reality (VR) version of Green Hell, you’ll find yourself experiencing a lot of déjà vu. The game plays very similarly in terms of mechanics – whether it’s the notebook on your chest, the backpack storage system, or even the crafting system – you’ll perform a lot of the same actions between the two games. TRACKED, however, takes things one step further.

“As the team that brought Green Hell to VR, we learned invaluable lessons about what makes virtual reality survival so compelling. We saw firsthand how much players appreciated the deep immersion and physical interaction. With TRACKED, we wanted to take that foundation and evolve it into a new kind of experience,” said a representative from Incuvo. “We see TRACKED as a spiritual successor to the ideas we explored in Green Hell VR, but with a fundamental shift in focus. We’ve taken the hardcore wilderness survival mechanics that players loved and fused them with a robust, action shooter element. The primary challenge is no longer just nature; it’s an armed, human enemy. This allowed us to build upon our expertise in VR interaction by creating highly realistic weapon handling and tense, tactical combat scenarios that simply weren’t the focus of Green Hell.

Since we’ve already started talking about it, let’s jump right into the mechanics of the game, because there’s a lot to discuss. It should be noted that as of Nov. 21, a patch to improve the game and fix many launch issues was released. While this is good for the overall performance, there are still some hiccups that remain.

The game tries hard to have in-game actions feel as natural as possible; and to an extent they do. You’ll grab, shoot, and perform most actions as if you were doing them in real life.

“For us, realism in VR is the key to immersion. We wanted every action to feel deliberate and physical, especially when it comes to the tools you use to survive. With firearms, we’ve gone to great lengths to simulate their real-life operation. You don’t just press a button to reload. You physically drop the empty magazine, grab a fresh one from your pouch, load it and slap it in, and rack the slide or pull the charging handle to chamber a round. Every weapon has its own unique manual of arms that you have to learn. Player need to understand the way every single weapon works, so he can use it effectively in the heat of the gunfight.”

As mentioned earlier, you have a notebook to help guide you through the game. This contains your map, objectives, notes you encounter, a list of all the lessons you learn, and crafting guide. This is one of the most important things you’ll have at your disposal throughout the game.

Once the book is open – via grabbing it from your chest – you’ll be able to navigate the sections by tapping the tabs on the side. You may encounter instances where you’ll try tapping on one tab and instead get another – because it’s so easy to accidentally touch others. Once you’re inside a section this is where it becomes more difficult, as there are arrows you need to tap to “scroll through the page.”

This is a very laborious process and it might be better if a proper scrolling option was available.

Another thing which needs to be fixed is the backpack system.

On a basic level it works well; drop items behind your shoulder to add it to the bag, reach over the left to take the bag off, reach over the right and grab your weapon – though if you’re using the bow, it adds an extra step having to switch it over to your dominant hand for shooting. The issue does not lay within the parameters of basic use, instead falling squarely on removing items and storing them in the cabin.

It’s not that the system is broken, but more the tedium as you’ll need to remove items one by one and toss them into the storage chest in the crafting area. This, again, is something that can see you lose an entire day – or night if you prefer to stay there and avoid the wolves – as it takes forever to empty out a full bag.

Perhaps just adding the ability to select the number of items you’re taking out would help, because in its current state it’s a slog.

Now before we jump over to graphics, let’s talk about some of the finer details of gameplay.

Your health, hunger, and thirst are all available to view on your watch. Depending on your difficulty settings, you’ll need to pay attention to this and care for yourself, lest you have to restart to a save point because you’re too thirsty.

As you progress through the game, you’ll encounter more and more animals which you’ll need to hunt to survive. Once you’ve taken down your prey the game employs an odd “pull it apart” mechanic, rather than having more realistic skinning used in other games.

Speaking of taking down your prey, you’ll get access to a bow early into the game. You’ll find arrows scattered throughout the area, but you can always carve a stick into a makeshift one if necessary. Using the bow, however, doesn’t feel great. Some games do archery very well, with the whole process feeling as smooth as it would if you had a real one in your hands. Here it just feels off, almost as if you’re trying to shoot without being able to feel your arms.

Aiming also feels off – whether you’re trying to shoot in a realistic fashion and accounting for the arc of the arrow or shooting by pointing at your target – and you’ll miss a lot of shots. Even when you get the compound bow later in the game, it doesn’t seem to help overall.

Oh, it should also be pointed out that you really need to pay attention to the time. You’ll see five minutes tick by on your watch for every five seconds in real life; this means you have about 10 minutes of daylight to work with. Considering there are a ton of dangers at night, and early on you won’t have any means of light to help guide you, you’ll want to properly manage a lot of things wisely.

Finally, let’s talk about graphics before calling it a day.

For those who played the other most recent releases by Invuvo – Green Hell VR or Bulletstorm VR – at launch, you’ll have a good idea of what it looks like in headset. There are moments when things have a nice sheen to them – roaming through the woods does have its charm here – but mostly the game looks like it was made for early VR headsets.

Many times, you’ll notice that items will pop in once you get closer – even textures on a log will appear as you’re about a foot away from the spot. At one point during the night, one might have a mild heart attack as it looks like a giant creature is appearing over the top of some trees; however, it’ll probably just be a mountain that only appears when you look from the right angle.

Overall, TRACKED: Shoot to Survive, is a game that has a good core premise, but still needs some work to bring it to a good place. Once things are fully patched up – and a graphics boost can be implemented, VR players should fully be able to experience what it is that Incuvo strived for with this game.

“The game is built on a dual threat. You must master the art of wilderness survival – hunting, crafting, preparing for every scenario. But the greater threat comes from an organized group of hostiles operating in the area. This forces you to switch from survivor to hunter, using a variety of realistically handled weapons, from a silent bow to powerful firearms, to defend yourself and uncover the mystery of what’s really happening in the forest. During the game, players can find, repair and upgrade weapons to better overcome the danger.”

TRACKED: Shoot to Survive, was reviewed on the Quest 3 after receiving a key.