FALLING OUT

I'll be straight with you: FALLING OUT is not my usual beat. No netcode to stress-test, no ranked ladder to grind, no TTK spreadsheet to build. But a roguelite platformer with local co-op and a versus mode still asks real questions about feel, pacing, and whether the loop holds up past the first few runs. Spoiler: it mostly does, with one giant asterisk. The setup is Giorgio and Felicie, a bickering couple who stumble into cursed ancient temples spanning Egypt, the Maya world, Antarctica, and the Underworld. Each run drops you into procedurally generated floors where you dodge arrow traps, fight enemies across four distinct biomes, collect loot, and race a rising water timer to the exit. The crafting system gives you something to actually think about between rooms: you decode blueprints and spend scrap to build weapons and useful gadgets from the shopkeeper Azar, who is just as lost as you are. Giorgio gets a double jump; Felicie brings her own movement tricks. In single-player you swap between them on the fly, which creates a light puzzle layer on top of the platforming. Controls feel tight on a controller, though reviewers noted the knockback reads a little floaty, and the control scheme has enough going on that you will misfire buttons well into your third hour. The Spelunky DNA is undeniable, but this is the friendlier cousin. The challenge is real, especially solo, but the difficulty ceiling sits noticeably lower than Spelunky 2, which makes it approachable without feeling toothless. There are over 40 achievements to chip through, a versus mode if you want to throw your partner at enemies competitively (yes, literally throwing them is a mechanic), and leaderboard scores to chase. The pixel art pops cleanly across the different biomes and the retro soundtrack holds up over long sessions. The gibberish voice acting, Animal Crossing-style, gets grating fast and is the one audio note that clearly needed another pass. Here is the asterisk: there is no online multiplayer. The game is designed around local co-op, and most reviewers agree it peaks when two people are sitting on the same couch. Solo play with an AI partner works, but juggling two characters while the water rises is the kind of multitasking that stops being fun and starts feeling like a chore. If you do not have a regular local co-op partner, you are buying a game that is running at maybe 60 percent of its potential. Steam user reception sits at 85 percent positive across a small sample, and critics landed in the "decent but unremarkable" range, which feels about right. It does nothing badly, but it does not do anything that Spelunky or its imitators have not already done with more depth. Fred, Scout Team