Big Walk Hits Metacritic 94 — The Highest-Rated Game of 2026 Is a Co-op Puzzle Adventure by the Untitled Goose Game Devs

Big Walk, the new cooperative adventure from Melbourne indie studio House House, launched on August 4 with a 94 on Metacritic — the highest score of any game released in 2026. Built for 2 to 12 players across PC (Steam/Mac), PS5, and Nintendo Switch 2, it's available now with a 25% launch discount on Steam (down to $14.99 through August 18) and is free to claim on PS Plus Essential through August 31.

• ▶Sources: Official press kit · Steam store page · Polygon — review roundup · TechTimes — full review · Metacritic

At a Glance

"Big Walk is out now. Have fun." — House House made this launch trailer themselves, on camera.

Who Made This

House House is a four-person studio from Melbourne, Australia. You almost certainly know their last game: Untitled Goose Game (2019), the singular experience of being a menacing goose in a quiet English village. It sold over two million copies and spent weeks dominating social media. Big Walk took six years to follow.

Publisher Panic rounds out the lineup — the same label behind Firewatch and 2024's Thank Goodness You're Here!, with a track record of backing games that resist easy categorization.

What It Actually Is

Big Walk is a co-op adventure set on an open-world island based on Wilsons Promontory National Park on Australia's southeastern coast. Two to twelve players explore together, solve puzzles that require real communication, and walk toward an actual ending. No death state, no daily login loops, no grind. A complete run takes roughly 10–15 hours.

The game's defining mechanic is proximity voice chat used as puzzle design, not a convenience feature. Voices fade with distance, echo in corridors, muffle through walls, and crackle through walkie-talkies scattered across the island. A megaphone lets you project your voice but strips nuance. Binoculars let you spot a teammate across a valley but not speak to them. Distance itself becomes the constraint the puzzles are built around.

Using Discord or an external voice app bypasses the system entirely and removes the communication challenges that generate the game's core puzzles. The spatial audio isn't an accessibility option — it's the design.

The official gameplay overview trailer — island exploration, puzzle variety, and communication tools in action.

The Scores

What Critics Are Saying

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"One of the best co-op games ever. Big Walk's world speaks for itself. Developer House House trusts each friend group to carve out their own adventure through the world, letting their curiosity guide them and building on shared learning hour after hour." — Mark Delaney, GameSpot (9/10)

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"A funny, exciting, and deeply rewarding multiplayer adventure that combines knockabout fun with some surprisingly big ideas." — Chris Schilling, Eurogamer (perfect score)

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"Not since Astro Bot in 2024 have I played a game that has made so much of an impression on me. It powerfully examines and challenges communication in a way I've not seen before in a game and may never see again." — Checkpoint Gaming (95/100)

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"Big Walk is like co-op Breath of the Wild — the sense of discovery and joy are much like what made Breath of the Wild so special, but Big Walk lets me share the world, and those moments of discovery, with my best friend." — Jay Peters, The Verge

How It Compares to Friendslop

The inevitable comparison is to the friendslop genre — Repo, Lethal Company, Peak — games that weaponize shared chaos for viral clips. Big Walk was in development before that trend crested, and it shows.

Where friendslop games thrive on repeatable runs and the occasional ragdoll disaster, Big Walk is a single campaign meant to be played start-to-finish. Polygon framed the difference well: if Peak is Jenga, Big Walk is a proper campaign — you begin it and you finish it. The last time that described a major co-op release was Portal 2.

That distinction explains both the critical reception and the division among casual players. Some Steam reviewers wanted more tension; others called it the best time they'd had gaming this year. It's not for every friend group, but for players who want something to remember when it's done, it's the rare co-op game that earns its ending.

Pricing and How to Play It

Crossplay works through a Join Code — the host generates a short code at session start; anyone on any platform can join with it. The save file stays with the host's account, so the same person needs to initiate each session. Switch 2 has some voice feature limitations compared to PC and PS5; if the proximity audio mechanic is the reason you're interested, the PlayStation or Steam version is the fuller experience.

The release date was announced at Nintendo Direct June 2026, confirming Switch 2 as a day-one platform alongside PS5 and Steam.

The GamePeak Bottom Line

Big Walk is a campaign, not a live service. House House built something meant to be played once, completely, with a specific group of people — and critics across the board say it sticks with you long after. If you have a PS Plus subscription, the barrier to finding out for yourself is zero.