Now this is a unique battle royale. 60 players, a gauntlet of wacky games, and one ultimate winner. It’s one of the simplest battle royales I have ever played, but it’s also one of the most fun.
So I’ll start right off with the gameplay. If you haven’t already seen the numerous streams or videos of this game, it’s a pretty simple concept. You’re slapped down into a game full of 60 players and proceed to run through a bunch of different games to whittle that number down to just 1. Unlike other battle royales, there is no “buildup”. You don’t spend a bunch of time searching for loot only to die after doing that for twenty minutes. In Fall Guys, you are on the exact same playing field as every other player. The only thing holding you back is any potential RNG by the map and the other players running alongside you.
It’s a refreshing battle royale in this way. You’re always in the action and there’s no time spent waiting around. Of course, your success is largely dependent on how every other player acts. You can easily do an almost perfect run only to then get stampeded on by 20 other players trying to reach the goal, tripping you over and over until you’re eliminated. There’s a lot of mobbing, a lot of tripping over other players, and even players attempting to grief you via grabbing. It sounds unfortunate and I’m sure many complain about this aspect of the game, but honestly, that’s what makes the experience work so well. It’s what separates each match from one another and makes the game more than just “who has perfected the map the most”. I quite liked this setup and it’s large part of why the experience never got old for me.
However, something I can see bringing down the game with time is the lack of content. There’s a decent amount of game types as it is, but I wouldn’t say that it’s enough to carry the game for maybe more than a couple months. The fact that the main menu says “season 1” leads me to believe that more games are going to be added with time, but that’s something that the devs really need to get on top of if they want to keep the game alive.
That is on top of the fluctuating quality of those different games though. There are some really standout ones, like Slime Climb and Tip Toe, but then you get ones like Perfect Match, which is a just a simple memory game that I have only ever seen eliminate maybe two or three players max. Favorites are definitely going to differ from person to person (especially with regards to team games, which I at least thought were decent), but there are some games that are obviously not up to par with others.
And I should mention the technical issues. Over the past several days I have been playing the game with friends and have gone through numerous disconnects, server issues, and other connection issues preventing us from playing as a full lobby. It usually takes two or three cycles before we’re able to all actually connect to the same game.
This isn’t just me either, as this is evident in the massive amount of people that leave at the beginning of the first match, many of which I imagine are running into the same issue. Of course, a lot of this has to due with the sheer volume of people playing during launch week, but it’s still something that needs to be noted. Other than that, the experience has been relatively bug-free, with the sole bug I ran into being the time I fell through the game map and wouldn’t respawn.
Before I close out the review though, I gotta talk about the game’s aesthetic. For the kind of casual, yet crazy gameplay it offers, the graphics and overall art direction are a perfect match. Its simple, its colorful, and there’s a good amount of customization to be had by way of the different outfits and colors you can equip. Sure, it’s unfortunate that microtransactions are present, but at least it’s just cosmetics and you can still earn the same currency by just playing the game.
Overall, I’d say Fall Guys is worthy of recommendation. It’s a simple concept, but it’s one that’s executed well and I’ve had a good time playing it with friends since its release. The devs really have a good base to build on here too. So long as they keep the game updated with new content, this is definitely going to be a party game I’ll keep coming back to. Perhaps this may even evolve into its little esport, we’ll have to wait and see.
You can buy Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout on Steam here.
I was provided a review copy of the game in order to write this review. Read more about how I do my game reviews here.
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