Fall Guys

My Saturday night co-op crew has a rule: if you can explain the goal in three words, it goes on the rotation. Fall Guys qualifies on every round in the game, which is exactly the design philosophy Mediatonic built in from the start. Up to 32 jellybean-shaped players are dropped into a randomised sequence of mini-games pulled from Race, Survive, and Points categories, and the last bean standing wins a crown. Rounds typically clock in at a few minutes each, so a full session rarely takes more than 15-20 minutes before you are back at the lobby button, itching for revenge. The mini-game roster is where the game earns its reputation. Standouts like Slime Climb, Hex-a-Gone, and Door Dash are genuinely clever, demanding a read of the crowd and decent timing. The team games are a recurring sore spot: getting knocked out because your three teammates decided to run in opposite directions during a ball-pushing round is the kind of randomness that can sour a run, and it has frustrated players since launch. The physics are deliberately wobbly, which is funny the first hundred times and occasionally maddening the hundred-and-first, especially in tight final rounds where a single bounce off another bean costs you the win. That said, the overall design philosophy of keeping chaos at exactly 50 percent skill and 50 percent luck holds up surprisingly well in practice. The Creative mode, added in Season 4, is a genuine expansion of the game's lifespan. Players build custom Race, Survival, and Points rounds using a point-and-place obstacle editor, share them via share codes, and the best community levels get pulled into official playlists. Within 48 hours of Creative launching, over 230,000 player-made levels had been published, which tells you everything about the appetite for it. The editor is approachable enough that you do not need to be a level-design veteran to produce something playable, and some community courses have become genuine highlights. The flip side is that Mediatonic has pulled back community levels from main curated playlists over time, making it harder for creators to find an audience, and the dedicated creator program has reportedly been shut down. The Creative ecosystem has promise but feels under-supported right now. On the free-to-play monetisation front: cosmetics are the only thing behind a paywall, and nothing in the shop changes how the game plays. The battle pass, introduced after the Epic Games acquisition, is standard live-service fare. The premium cosmetics are pricey for what they are, and some of the nicer skins do require spending real money, but the core loop is completely accessible without spending a cent. Cross-platform matchmaking means lobbies fill fast on PC, and the controller support is solid enough that a gamepad on the couch works without fussing with settings. There is no split-screen, which is the one real sting for a couch co-op crowd: you will need separate devices and separate accounts to play together locally, full stop. The community consensus after five-plus years is roughly what you would expect: best in the first few sessions, extremely good in a group of friends online, and noticeably repetitive once the novelty thins out. It sits at 81 percent positive across nearly 470,000 Steam reviews and an 80 on Metacritic, which is an honest score for a game this accessible. If your crew plays it in bursts rather than marathon sessions, it holds up well. If you are chasing it as a solo competitive grind, the luck factor will wear on you.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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