August has already been busy, but Big Walk is the one I keep circling back to. Not because it is loud. It is almost aggressively not loud. House House, the Melbourne studio behind Untitled Goose Game, has followed one of the most GIF-able indie hits of the last decade with a co-op adventure about getting lost, naming strange objects with friends, and trying to explain what you can see when nobody else can hear you properly.
That sounds slight until you read the reviews. On OpenCritic, Big Walk is currently at 88 from top critics, with 24 reviews counted, 11 top-critic reviews, a 90 median score, and about 92 percent of critics recommending it. That puts it in OpenCritic's Mighty tier. The score range is not tiny, though. Eurogamer and TheGamer landed at the top end with perfect scores, IGN and GameSpot came in at 9/10, Press Start gave it 8.5/10, while Nintendo Life and Screen Rant were closer to 8/10. Nobody in that group seems cool on the idea. The disagreement is mostly about friction: whether the messiness, technical rough edges, and required communication feel like part of the spell or something that occasionally gets in the way.
For Perthro readers, this is exactly the kind of game worth logging properly. Not because everyone needs another box checked in the backlog, but because Big Walk sounds like one of those multiplayer things where the real memory is not a mission name or a completion percentage. It is the dumb word your group invents for an object, the hour you lose trying to find each other in the dark, or the one puzzle you solve by accident because somebody points with the wrong arm.
Big Walk review scores: where critics landed
The headline number is simple enough: Big Walk is one of the best-reviewed new games of the week. OpenCritic lists it at 88, with the strongest notices coming from Eurogamer, TheGamer, IGN, and GameSpot. Steam lists the game as developed by House House and published by Panic, with a 4 August 2026 release on PC. OpenCritic also tracks a Switch 2 version through Nintendo Life's review coverage, where the game scored well but took knocks for performance.
Eurogamer's Chris Schilling gave Big Walk a 5/5 and called it "a funny, exciting, and deeply rewarding multiplayer adventure" from the Untitled Goose Game team. That review is the most openly moved by the game. Schilling writes about proximity chat, darkness, stray objects, little social rituals, and a finale that seems to hit harder because the game has spent hours teaching your group to understand each other without overexplaining itself.
IGN's Nicole Carpenter gave it 9/10 and framed the whole thing around language. Her review says Big Walk is "a co-op-only puzzle adventure that relies heavily on shared experience, shared language." That is the cleanest description I found. Big Walk is not just a puzzle game with voice chat. It is a game where the puzzle is often how to make your group understand what only you can see.
GameSpot's Mark Delaney also scored it 9/10. OpenCritic's excerpt from that review says Big Walk takes basic game ideas, obstacles and rewards, then shapes them into "something singularly rewarding, supremely mysterious, and totally unforgettable." The wording is big, but the point lines up with everyone else: the mechanics are simple on paper, but they produce stories that feel authored by your group.
Nintendo Life's Alex Olney was still very positive at 8/10, but that review is the main useful caution. Olney calls the design "nothing short of outstanding" and says the communication and puzzle work make it one of the most rewarding games he has played. Then he draws a line around the Switch 2 version: 30fps, visual cutbacks, pop-in, low-resolution shadows, and lighting issues. His conclusion is not that the port ruins the game. It is that, if you have another platform available, you may want to use it.
That spread tells the real story. Critics are largely aligned on Big Walk as a design success. The lower scores are not pushing back on the premise. They are asking how much patience you have for a deliberately awkward, socially dependent game that may run better on some hardware than others.
What critics agree on: communication is the whole game
The strongest thread across reviews is that Big Walk treats communication as a mechanic, not a convenience feature. Proximity chat is tuned so friends become muffled or vanish if they move too far away. Puzzles split players up, block sightlines, cut off sound, or force the group to invent gestures and naming systems. It supports up to 12 players, with puzzles adjusted for different group sizes, but the critical sweet spot seems to be small groups where every misunderstanding matters.
IGN's review describes a group creating its own names for objects: the red, peanut-like puzzle rewards become "beans," towers become "bean towers," and underground passages become "the backrooms." Eurogamer's group finds its own names too, which is the point. The game does not label everything for you. That absence makes the social layer heavier. You cannot say, "take the official puzzle item to the marked destination." You have to say something much stranger, and then hope your friend knows what you mean.
That could be annoying. In most games, it would be. Big Walk appears to make it generous instead. Reviewers keep coming back to the way mistakes become memories. A dropped object rolls off a cliff. A flashlight disappears at night. Someone wanders away with both walkie-talkies. Someone gets stuck while looking for a tool they lost five minutes earlier. These are not just failure states. They are the stuff the reviews remember first.
There is a nice tension there. Big Walk seems carefully designed, but not overcontrolled. It gives groups enough structure to move forward and enough looseness to embarrass themselves. That is harder than it sounds. Too much direction and the group just follows instructions. Too little and the evening becomes a Discord call with chores. The praise from Eurogamer, IGN, GameSpot, and Press Start suggests House House found a middle path: a game that knows when to step back, but still gives the walk a shape.
Where reviewers split: friction, platform, and who you play with
The criticism is not hidden, and it is worth taking seriously. Big Walk is co-op only. If you do not have people you want to spend several sessions with, the whole thing loses its center. This is not a solo puzzle game with optional guests. The guests are the game.
The second concern is friction. Movement can be clumsy. Objects roll away. Getting separated can become funny, then tiring, then funny again. Some puzzles require precision from tools that are intentionally a little silly. Eurogamer treats much of that as part of the texture, but even that review mentions awkward exploration and moments where players get stuck between rocks. Nintendo Life is more pointed about technical friction on Switch 2, where visual compromises and performance issues make the weakest version sound like the one to avoid if PC is available.
Press Start's 8.5/10 excerpt gets the balance right. It praises Big Walk as a top-tier co-op game where proximity chat is "far from a gimmick" and communication is "as much a mechanic as running and jumping." It also notes that some work can become tedious. That is probably the fair warning. Big Walk may be magical with the right friends and slightly maddening with the wrong rhythm.
That is not a flaw Perthro users should ignore. It is exactly the kind of note worth putting in a review journal. Big Walk might deserve one rating for the game as designed and another for the night you actually had with it. A five-star experience for one group could be a three-star evening for another if nobody wants to talk, wander, wait, or look foolish.
Why Big Walk matters in a crowded August
The easy SEO answer is that Big Walk is a high-scoring new release from the Untitled Goose Game team. That is true, and it is why people are searching for Big Walk reviews this week. The more interesting answer is that it arrives at a good time for co-op games. A lot of multiplayer design is built around progression, retention, and frictionless matchmaking. Big Walk seems almost stubbornly interested in the opposite. It wants friction, but friendly friction. It wants a group to slow down long enough to develop habits.
That is why the strongest reviews sound personal. IGN talks about shared language. Eurogamer talks about being alone and together, and about an ending that tests what you have come to understand about the people with you. Nintendo Life talks about playing with a spouse in different rooms while a baby naps. These are not the usual review beats. Nobody is spending much time on upgrade trees or content cadence. They are describing a particular kind of evening.
There is something honest about that. Games are often reviewed as objects, but we play them as situations. Big Walk seems built around the situation: who is in the call, who gets distracted, who names the thing, who carries the light, who falls off the cliff, who admits they got emotional at the end. That is the quiet hit hiding inside the OpenCritic number.
Should you play Big Walk now?
If you have two or three friends who like collaborative puzzle solving and can leave the external voice chat off, Big Walk sounds like an easy yes. The critical consensus is unusually warm, and the 88 OpenCritic score is backed by outlets that explain themselves clearly rather than just praising the vibe. Start on PC if you can. The Switch 2 version still reviewed well, but Nintendo Life's technical notes are specific enough that I would not ignore them.
If your group mostly wants efficient objectives, clear labels, or a game that keeps everyone pointed at the next task, I would be more careful. Big Walk's best moments seem to come from getting a little lost, physically and verbally. That is the sell. It is also the risk.
Perthro is in TestFlight beta on iPhone, and this is the sort of game the app was built to remember: not just played or unplayed, but what happened, who was there, and whether the walk became one of those odd little stories you keep retelling. If you do play it, write the messy version down. The official score is already easy to find. Your group's name for the red object will not be.