Game intel
Baby Steps
Play as Nate, an unemployed failson with nothing going for him, until one day he discovers a power he never knew he had… putting one foot in front of the other…
Baby Steps just landed on PC and PlayStation 5 for $19.99, and it immediately pinged my radar for one reason: pedigree. Bennett Foddy (QWOP, Getting Over It), Gabe Cuzzillo (Ape Out), and Maxi Boch aren’t the types to chase trends-they build tight, mischievous experiments that stick in your muscle memory. Calling it a “literal walking simulator” undersells it; this is walking turned into a full-on skill check. You place each foot, shift your weight, and pray your face doesn’t greet the dirt. It’s slapstick, it’s precise, and it’s exactly the kind of friction modern games too often sand down.
On the surface, Baby Steps sounds simple: you play as Nate, an unemployed guy who discovers the power of putting one foot in front of the other while climbing a foggy mountain. The twist is the control scheme. You don’t push a stick forward and glide—you literally lift, swing, and plant each foot, shifting weight to keep balance. Terrain pushes back, rocks roll, mud steals momentum, and a misty wilderness hides paths that look inviting until gravity cashes your check.
This isn’t a waypoint-choked checklist. The world leans on environmental cues—think campsite smoke plumes and landmark silhouettes—rather than a minimap barking orders. Checkpoints exist, but they don’t defang the experience; you’ll still feel the sting (and comedy) of a bad step. Devolver’s pitch mentions a dynamic soundtrack built from a deep bank of loops and motifs, which meshes with the game’s rhythm-first philosophy: when you find your gait, the audio locks in and turns traversal into a groove.
The tone matters, too. The dialogue is improvised, which is a blessing in a genre that often stumbles into self-seriousness. Baby Steps treats failure like a punchline, not a punishment. The devs know you’re going to eat dirt, so the world reacts with warmth and wit. It’s the difference between rage-quitting and grinning while you line up another try.
Physics-clumsy games have become streamer catnip—Jump King, Only Up!, Getting Over It—but Baby Steps feels less like meme fodder and more like a designer’s thesis: what if walking, the most basic verb in games, demanded mastery? If that clicks for you, this will be catnip. If you bounced off Foddy’s previous work because it felt antagonistic, Baby Steps aims softer. The comedy lands, the checkpoints are humane, and the world invites exploration instead of yelling “git gud.”
On PS5, DualSense haptics add texture to the act of moving—little rumbles that sell weight shifts and slips. On PC, a controller is strongly recommended; keyboard inputs work, but analog nuance makes a huge difference. And yes, there are those delightful Devolver-isms: mud that cakes your onesie as a visual diary of mistakes, secrets to discover (there’s talk of a cheeky first-person “hat”), and a soundtrack that reacts enough to make you feel like you’re composing your own stumble-jam.
What I’m watching closely is pacing. The no-fast-travel ethos fits the concept, but it can slide into tedium if the route-finding isn’t snappy or the checkpointing is stingy. The humor needs to carry a lot of weight—quips can flatten fast if you’re replaying the same slope. The dev trio’s track record gives me confidence; Foddy’s failure-as-design philosophy and Cuzzillo’s audio-gameplay fusion usually keep friction purposeful, not petty.
We’ve seen “walking as gameplay” pitched before—Kojima’s Death Stranding turned terrain management into zen couriering—but Baby Steps narrows the focus and turns micro-movements into the whole show. It’s closer to the intimate cruelty of QWOP and the meditative perseverance of Getting Over It, reframed as a gentler, funnier pilgrimage. The result is a niche that’s surprisingly roomy: speedrunners will route perfect footfalls, variety streamers will farm belly-laughs, and curious players will discover that forward momentum, when it isn’t free, feels fantastic.
If your idea of a good time is mastering awkward systems until they feel elegant, Baby Steps is an easy recommendation at $19.99. If you want frictionless power fantasies, this will test your patience. Either way, it’s refreshing to see a 2025 release that picks one idea and commits. No battle pass, no filler collectibles, no cynical checklist—just the ancient struggle against gravity, refined into a toybox of pratfalls and proud little victories.
Baby Steps turns walking into a precise, hilarious physics challenge, backed by a reactive soundtrack and designer pedigree you can feel in every wobble. It’s focused, fair, and gloriously stubborn—perfect for players who love turning clumsiness into craft.
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