Human Fall Flat VR Review: Moreish Marionette Mayhem

Human Fall Flat VR challenges you to tackle hilarious physics puzzles with your friends on Quest and Steam. Read on for our full review.

Before jumping into multiplayer for Human Fall Flat VR, I’m sure I’ve never uttered the phrase, “You need to stop twerking on the cube.” Yet, within a few hours of exploring the physics puzzler's wacky worlds, this kind of quizzical banter is normalized entirely, and somewhat necessary to complete the tricky trials before me. Silly sandbox mayhem is the backbone of this straightforward VR port, which, despite its humble veneer, cleverly translates the series' signature style of physical comedy for a more immersive platform.

In Human Fall Flat VR, you embody a nameless, wiggly physics body whose singular task is to navigate floating island obstacle courses with physical interactions — grabbing and pulling levers, mantling up the cliffside, and so on. To complement the wobbly gameplay, the game’s levels are interactive playgrounds full of disruptive, bric-a-brac like hidden doors, smashable glass panes, and melting ice cubes, doodads that stand in the way of your success. You must engage your inner chaos merchant to drag, jump, and swing yourself towards the finish line to graduate to later levels with more significant challenges. A forgiving checkpoint system thankfully saves incremental progress throughout each level, so flying off the map doesn’t feel quite so painful.

Human Fall Flat VR is largely similar to its flatscreen precursor with the same base levels, but directly linking the arms of its jello avatars to yours creates a far more physical experience. Alongside dedicated buttons to lean forward, and another to hilariously go completely limp, you must waggle your arms up and down and pull the triggers to grab objects like a digital puppeteer. This creates a comical yet strangely intuitive process that soon becomes natural. It’s easy to buy into Human Fall Flat VR’s control scheme, which ensures I feel heady waves of nervous energy while attempting Tarzan-like jumps across ravines to reach the next objective.

This tactile emotion-led atmosphere is, in essence, the main driving force in Human Fall Flat VR, as there isn’t an overarching story to hook onto as you push deeper into the game. Construction site debris and winter wonderland scenery (like snow-capped trees and stalactites) do well to ground levels with a specific theme. However, if you’re looking for something mysterious and gripping, like the optional lore found in PowerWash Simulator VR, you won’t find that here.

Even so, the contextually appropriate puzzles offered enough brain-teasing tension to rub up against, so my mind was occupied despite a lack of narrative. At its core, Human Fall Flat VR is more about the clippable chaos of watching your friends try to snowboard or operate heavy machinery. It excels in simplicity, and there’s a moreish joy to throwing your physics body around, head empty.

The only downside to Human Fall Flat VR’s intense movement-focused gameplay are bouts of motion sickness. Thankfully, these issues are mitigated with a great range of comfort options that you can toggle to your own preference. On a few occasions, some hectic dives between level-progressing barriers leave me struggling. I'm pleased that I can quickly hop into the settings mid-level, tweak my visual cues, and alleviate the nauseous feeling. From adding a digital nose to customizable vignette options, it’s clear the developers seek to maintain the free-roaming and lawless spirit of the original game while considering players who may not be comfortable with smooth locomotion.

To amp up the chaos, you can also play Human Fall Flat VR with up to four players in online co-op. While each maze-like level offers ample challenge when attempted solo, adding a friend-shaped sounding board leads to absurd solutions that often end with spectacular failures. While playing with a friend, I confidently suggested they jump and grab onto my avatar to swing across an icy ravine together. It defied logic to keep trying, but our determination only made it more hilarious. Ultimately, my co-op buddy bravely sacrificed themselves in a T-Pose, only to be dropped right next to me in the following area. 

When my teammate and I aren’t stacking cubes or swinging on chainlink rope, we also take time to indulge in interpretive dance breaks and invent games like full-body Rock Paper Scissors using our avatars as the gestures. Much like how VRChat enables you to feel present with friends through your headset, I was surprised by how much Human Fall Flat VR provides a digital playground for us to hang out, catch up, and joke around as if we were in the same place.

I’d be remiss not to mention the character customization, too, which lets you transform your plain white blob from drab to fab with a range of accessories like hats and sunglasses, though there’s plenty of room to conjure knockoff pop culture cosplay. Curating your look not only amplifies the already palpable silliness that permeates each level but also helps to differentiate your character from your friends so you know who to laugh at when they fall to their doom. 

Human Fall Flat VR - Final Verdict

Human Fall Flat VR successfully harnesses the wacky physics platforming essence of the original game, amplifying its chaotic drama with an immersive but approachable control scheme that feels natural to engage with in VR. While it doesn't deviate far from its flatscreen roots, bounding around these thematic worlds, especially with a few buddies in tow, is a moreish expedition well worth your time.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.