Meet the Characters - The Taskmaster

He’s mighty, he’s tall, and he’s dressed to impress - meet The Taskmaster! The titular titan is played by legendary comedian Greg Davies in both the TV show and Taskmaster VR, but how did we approach bringing his familiar face, voice and general gravitas into the virtual world?

First - a quick 101 on the role of The Taskmaster. The Taskmaster is the arbiter of your efforts to complete tasks and will reward you with points based on both the success of your attempts and…well, his own subjective whims and fancies. Think of him as the king and you as the court jester! Questioning his approach or the scoreboard won’t get you very far - that’s why he has an assistant for you to query and poke at with justifications for your unhinged actions instead.



Any fan of the show will know Greg Davies, beloved in the global comedy circuit for his no nonsense personality. He’s tall in stature and confident in voice, something we wanted to ensure came across in the game. VR is great for realising scale - most contestants will find that Greg is imposing enough while just sitting on his throne, let alone when standing up - and we wanted to ensure that we reflected (and slightly exaggerated) this!

Initially, our focus was on identifying who The Taskmaster truly is. Rather than honing in on Greg Davies the actor, we took inspiration from the persona he embodies in the Taskmaster TV show. We meticulously studied his appearance, personality and mannerisms - helped out in no small part by our voiceover and facial capture sessions, which gave us the opportunity to get up close and personal with the man himself!



We designed his height, shape, and overall silhouette to evoke a sense of intimidation and awe - but we also wanted to make sure that there's a slightly heroic edge to him! The Taskmaster is fully capable of benevolence after all - he isn’t the villain! Greg is slightly taller in Taskmaster VR than in real life - and its a lot of fun to stand on stage and have him towering over you!

At every stage of development, if was important to keep the design of Alex Horne in mind as well - they needed to complement each other. After all, they’re like a comedy Batman and Robin - contrasting characters that nevertheless feel like two parts of a whole.

One of the most important parts of Taskmaster is interacting with the hosts - you spend a lot of time up close and personal with them, so we needed to make sure that their facial expressions, animations and body language were as immersive as the hardware restrictions would allow! Greg’s thoughts and presence are often communicated through looks alone, so it was crucial to get this right.



We created loads of sculpted iterations of Greg's face, exploring how best to strike a balance between our bright, stylised aesthetic, capturing his character and providing the technical wotsits required for facial animation. Once we found the desired balance, we further refined it by determining which features to enhance or soften, including considerations like ageing and typical facial expressions reflecting his mood. We decided to emphasise the character's constant air of contempt towards contestants - the game is set in the fictional world of Taskmaster remember - while allowing for moments of elation, amusement, or anger.



Finally, once we had our character models in a good place, we consulted with Greg and Alex themselves! After workshopping, we ended up leaning more towards their current appearances than their depictions in earlier seasons - however, we did maintain a slight contrast by not making Alex's hair quite as grey as requested, in order to ensure a visual distinction from Greg!

Think you’re ready to impress? Take on his challenges (and some of Alex’s too) and task your heart out to win the best prize of all - a gold(ish) trophy modelled after his very own face.

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