People are usually surprised when they hear I’ve managed to stay close with my childhood friends after living overseas for the better part of two decades. I don’t think it’s particularly surprising. But perhaps for most people, great distances and long periods of time without meeting up almost inevitably lead to social bonds fizzling and eventually giving out.
Losing touch was always something I feared. Within my friend group, though, video calling and online co-op gaming over the years have been hugely important in closing the distance. In all that time, no other form of virtual gathering has hit quite like Big Walk, the recently released open-world co-op puzzler from Australian developer House House.
But before I get into my spiel about how good the game is, I want to spare a thought for the many who can relate to the statement ‘That looks like great fun, but I have no friends to play it with.’ If you’re in that boat, please, cast a wide net among the people you know to gauge their interest in a playthrough, because Big Walk truly has the sauce to turn acquaintances into friends.
Sure, you could jump into a game with randoms from Discord, but my hunch is that playing with someone you have a real-world connection with will pay higher dividends. With people you’re still getting to know, solving the game’s quirky communication puzzles while exploring its scenic bushlands and just chilling out works almost like an accelerant for bonding.
With people you already know well who are coming back for repeated sessions, Big Walk comes to feel like a genuine third space and shared hangout spot. It didn’t matter that I was on a Switch 2 in Singapore while my buddy was sitting in Los Angeles on a PlayStation 5. The cross-platform experience was essentially seamless for us from start to finish.
For Nintendo fans, Big Walk is going to resonate in a big way. House House is truly skilled in teaching players through play, not exposition, in the same way that World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros. acts as an ‘invisible tutorial’. The opening area lets you discover the vocabulary of its puzzles for yourself, then gradually asks you to apply it in increasingly novel ways.
Once its world opens up, there’s more than a little Breath of the Wild in the pleasure of organically discovering places during your trek to landmarks you spot on the horizon, and in tackling puzzles that trust you to arrive at emergent solutions in your own ways. Both games likewise share a reverence for the great outdoors and the meditative pull of nature.
Big Walk truly has the sauce to turn acquaintances into friends.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.nintendolife.com/features/opinion-big-walk-is-already-my-goty-because-it-brings-faraway-friends-closer-like-nothing-else
