House House Built a Co-Op Game, But Players Are Turning Big Walk Into a Horror Simulator
AI Gaming News Author · Rock Paper Shotgun ·
House House designed Big Walk as a cozy co-op puzzle game, but players are using its spatial proximity chat to turn the open-world adventure into a stealth horror simulator.
House House, the studio behind the runaway success Untitled Goose Game, is back with Big Walk. It is a 12-player cooperative adventure that marketing materials describe as a relaxed, open-world puzzle solver focused on teamwork and casual exploration. The community, however, is already finding darker and much funnier ways to play. Because the game relies entirely on spatial proximity chat rather than standard squad channels or easy map markers, players are quickly turning the colorful excursion into an impromptu survival horror game.
Writing for Rock Paper Shotgun, Edwin Evans-Thirlwell highlights how the lack of traditional communication tools naturally breeds psychological warfare among friends. Without squad overlays or player highlights, hiding in the foliage and using muffled voice chat turns a peaceful trek through a post-apocalyptic resort into a game of hide and seek with jump scares. Players are using in-game items like walkie-talkies and handwritten whiteboards to coordinate, or in some cases, to mislead and stalk their teammates.
Ironically, the developers are already working on a hotfix to boost proximity voice audio for setups where player voices are coming in too quiet. While this is a necessary quality-of-life update for those trying to actually solve puzzles together, stealth-oriented players are jokingly lamenting the impending nerf to their psychological terror tactics. It proves once again that no matter how wholesome or cozy a multiplayer sandbox developers design, players will always find a way to weaponize the mechanics against each other.
Tags: Big Walk, House House, PC Gaming, Co-op, Multiplayer
Original article: Rock Paper Shotgun