Big Walk Review: What Critics & Players Are Saying

Big Walk earned a 9 out of 10 "Amazing" score in IGN's review, praised as "a cleverly designed cooperative puzzle adventure that utilizes communication in a unique way." The review frames the whole game as one where the puzzle is communication itself, and where the joy comes from building your own language with friends in a vast, mysterious open world.

A Cooperative Puzzle Adventure

Big Walk is a cooperative puzzle adventure that heavily relies on sharing experiences and communicating with each other. Its true strength lies in prompting players to decipher the ingenious puzzle rules scattered throughout the open world in ways only they and their partners can understand. With its various mechanisms and constraints, the game feels unlike any other multiplayer title.

There is no option for solo play, and up to 12 people can participate. The game offers settings for groups of 2, 3, or 4-plus players, and the puzzles are slightly adjusted according to how many people are in the session. That means the same island can feel different depending on your crew size.

The Characters and the World

The player characters are endearing and goofy, a stark contrast to the lush scenery. They basically consist of three colored spheres stacked on top of each other, with bulging eyes, stick-like arms, and twig-like legs attached. When they speak in the game, their noses move like mouths.

You begin in a small playground-like place the reviewer calls "home," where you can climb on colorful block-shaped structures and switch on lights. Instructions are posted on the wall as posters, but no objective is presented. You fiddle with buttons, ring cowbells, watch your own shadows, and experiment mainly using arm gestures, before walking into a real world with vegetation and crashing waves.

Communication Is the Core Mechanic

The defining system is proximity voice chat. The only means of communication beyond swinging your arms or typing messages is close-range voice chat, which means the voices of people on the other side of walls sound muffled, and voices echo in vast tunnels. If someone is too far away, their voice can no longer reach you.

Big Walk makes clever use of this inherent constraint. Without it, the reviewer argues, this would be a completely different game. The group begins to create its own language, and each element of the map is cleverly designed to encourage building something together, like a way of communicating only the group understands.

One standout puzzle involved a friend being locked in a soundproof room and having to relay a short melody he heard inside, which the others then used to find the stereo playing the corresponding tune. In another, three players had to split up and press buttons simultaneously on three platforms far apart, perfectly timing their movements. With only two walkie-talkies for three people, the group used laser pointers to show countdowns and sent silent messages with arm movements, gradually creating a "body language code."

The Puzzles

The puzzles are scattered all over the map, and many are incorporated into huge, brightly colored buildings. The review mentions a green mansion that looks like something out of a horror movie, an orange Colosseum, and a blue sound stage.

Some puzzles are relatively easy, such as throwing an orb into a basketball hoop several times, or playing a game of telephone to identify a specific arrangement of shapes or the order in which to press buttons. Others test action skills, requiring you to jump between platforms, move precisely, or throw objects to a target. A particularly fun one had one person navigate an obstacle course while blindfolded by a strange, gigantic golden head that blocked their vision, while the remaining members shouted instructions on where to go.

Crucially, these challenges do not get progressively harder as you advance. You are free to discover puzzles in any order, and you can start with any of them. None are unfairly difficult, because Big Walk always provides the tools you need to overcome a challenge, so you never suddenly hit an impossibly high wall.

Progression and the "Beans"

Each time you complete a puzzle, you receive another red "bean" as a reward. You must carefully carry it back to the "bean tower" and place it there. Collecting the required number of beans for a tower earns you a special key, which you can use to unlock new and useful things, such as a stationary train or a chairlift that crosses the island. This progression reinforces the idea that Big Walk is a world you discover for yourself.

The reviewer's group ran around happily for nearly 20 hours across several sessions, with a core group of three and others joining or leaving occasionally. Joining or leaving midway is easy, and you can even participate for just a little while, though the save data is tied to the player who initially hosted the game.

The Day-Night Cycle

The world has a day-night cycle; daytime is filled with sunlight, while nighttime is pitch black. At night, a different form of communication emerges. The reviewer's friend dropped the only flashlight off a cliff, and earlier the walkie-talkie had been kicked off the same cliff. Searching for those tools in the dark became a memorable scramble.

In other games, losing items or falling into holes might be stressful, but that is not the case here. The movement controls are sometimes shaky and you can get stuck in small places, yet the more everything goes wrong, the more memorable the experience becomes.

The Moments Between Puzzles

Much of the fun lies in the moments between puzzles. The reviewer recalls wandering off into nature with a friend, both notorious for a terrible sense of direction, getting incredibly lost for almost an hour, tumbling down a hill, and finally following a distant flare's green light to reunite with the third player. That kind of spontaneous, unscripted memory is presented as the real heart of the game.

The review closes on a thematic note: games often make players feel like superheroes at the center of the world, but in Big Walk the superpower is human connection and words. This world does not revolve around "me." It revolves around "us."

Overall Verdict

IGN's overall assessment calls Big Walk "brimming with beautifully spontaneous moments" as you uncover answers to cleverly crafted puzzles and adventure from one to the next in its vast open world. Whether you are tumbling down a mountain at night searching for dropped tools, using a distant flare to locate a friend, or creating your own language to name things in the world, all of it is part of the magic that sets Big Walk apart from other cooperative games. The pure sense of accomplishment from freeing the next red bean and placing it atop the next giant bean tower is equally special.

For players who value time with friends over traditional objectives, Big Walk is a rewarding, unique experience that earns its Amazing rating.