Fair warning: despite my labeling Baby Steps as comedic, the game is also somewhat tragic. Because comedy and tragedy often go hand-in-hand in Baby Steps— only, the tragic part is that you’re the butt of the joke. That isn’t to say I didn’t like what Baby Steps did to me; I didn’t expect it would engross me, even if it more or less gives Hollow Knight: Silksong a run for its money when it comes to difficulty. It’s just that salting my wounds with its humor became a familiar gameplay loop.
We are Failson
For those who are unfamiliar with Baby Steps, one of its developers is Bennett Foddy, the man responsible for the infernal platformer known as Getting Over It, where you control a legless man who has to climb a mountain using nothing but a hammer. Baby Steps is similar; you control a clumsy and pudgy man-baby named Nate or Nathan. That’s him above, by the way; that’s not a picture of you or me. It just so happens that Nate is relatable to many millennials (or perhaps similar-looking).
Nate is what the devs call a “Failson,” a man in his 30s still living in his parents’ basement. But he was suddenly transported or isekai’d to a weird world where he must climb mountains and traverse terrain to get home, somehow, or perhaps improve his life. At its core, Baby Steps is a walking simulator– no enemies, just pure exploration and traversal.
The only catch is that Nate’s arms are useless, and his legs are jelly. It wasn’t outright explained why, but that doesn’t matter. Because, as Nate, you’ll soon find out that going out of your comfort zone and trying to get things done is full of hard lessons along the way, and rushing will result in hypertension and destroyed controllers. Hence, baby steps are recommended in Baby Steps.
Forget What You Know About Games
This is where Baby Steps‘ novelty and shock value come in. Whereas other games will “hold your hand” and make themselves more accessible to you with standardized and conventional mechanics, Baby Steps treats you like an orphaned newborn squeezed out into the wilderness. There are no maps, no utility tools, no running, and no special skills or superpowers.
What you get is a pair of atrophied couch-potato legs. You can only control where Nate’s feet will land. One. Step. At. A. Time. Try to step too far, and Nate will do a split, and since he’s 35 years old and joint stretches are lethal at that age, Nate will collapse if you so much as take a step in the wrong direction or on an uneven surface. Don’t worry, he gets back up; he’s not allowed to die in this world until he’s had his fill of hard work.
This is where Baby Steps‘ ingenuity comes in. It’s a constant battle between what you’re allowed to do in-game and how you’re used to being treated in other games. Baby Steps‘ bold approach to its unconventional design is a refreshing layer of difficulty in and of itself. And beneath that layer, there are plenty more to keep you challenged while also surprisingly engaged.
Baby Steps‘ approach of stripping down gaming controls and reverse-engineering them into a bizarre simulator that the genre has never seen before is the kind of innovation you’d usually expect only from a AAA studio. Baby Steps showing how it’s done in a simple yet effective method is, in hindsight, impressive, though a certain “louder” and more apparent part of the game tends to overshadow that praise. Not that it’s a bad thing.
Australian Comedy is Your Travel Buddy
Who would make a game making fun of its problematic protagonist? Well, leave it to the Australians and their self-deprecating humor. Nate, being a “failson,” is the butt of the jokes, refusing to accept grappling hooks, shoes, and even eating utensils out of pride or shyness. He also constantly gets smeared in mud and sweat, thrown into cactuses, and even flaunts a dump truck of a butt that would make Instagram models insecure.
Outside of poking fun at Nate, the crass and rather unapologetic toilet humor is usually there to break the ice and give you some semblance of reprieve from your monumental task of… walking. Truth be told, it’s motivating to see just how insane the next outburst of humor will be; occasionally, they’re drawn like vulgar graffiti all over the environment.
This kind of comedy is not just on the surface level. Baby Steps‘ level design and playgrounds all seem to have been built with the developers’ own brand of humor (usually Australian). From rogue cactuses that push you off cliffs to mudslides that reset your progress by dumping you into a latrine pit all the way from the top of a mountain, that’s the kind of digital rock bottom you can expect to fall into in Baby Steps. The game loves to keep throwing you back down there.
Same Things Make Us Laugh, Make Us Cry
Of course, it’s not all laughs and funny belly flops in Baby Steps. Some landings are painful, especially when the game’s physics-based movement system starts showing inconsistencies in how it registers. This can happen frequently when you’re trying to see how high Nate can bend his knees or how much of an incline will cause him to slip. Difficulty spikes are also quite rampant in Baby Steps, for that matter.
The first few dozen times these inconsistencies happen, it’s fair to treat them as jokes, but the same joke again and again can wear thin, especially if you want to progress after watching a neckbeard slip and fall on the same sand staircase for an hour. It gets frustrating after a while, and it’s not like exploring elsewhere is incentivized —if anything, it’s inadvertently discouraged, since one wrong step can reset a huge chunk of progress.
Moreover, I feel like the lack of multiplayer is a huge missed opportunity for Baby Steps. Imagine racing your buddies while waddling like infants with full diapers. Or at the very least, a two-person couch co-op where each person controls either foot should’ve been implemented.
Because at times, walking alone up a mountain or some generic desert sands with a soundtrack not much different than ambient cricket mating calls is a little too lonely, or dare I say dull. These dull moments in Baby Steps become too apparent whenever a difficulty spike or a cutscene presents itself.
Bold Strides
Despite my design gripes and disappointment about a lack of vision for gameplay conventions that make comedy video games more fun (such as basic multiplayer), Baby Steps is a step in the right direction and certainly a unique and memorable title. More importantly, there’s an on-the-nose message here about taking risks and leaving comfort zones, even though it might hurt.
Baby Steps is funny, unhinged, challenging, unconventional, fresh, and uncompromising. Those qualities alone make it worth the price of admission, and it’s already on our list of the most interesting games in 2025.
Baby Steps (PC Reviewed)
Baby Steps will make you laugh and cry while also somewhat motivating you to never give up. This daring new take on a 3D walking simulator might just be the most bizarre 2025 gaming subversion we've seen yet.
Pros
- Unique gameplay mechanics
- Entertaining humor and atmosphere
- Relatable themes
Cons
- Inconsistent physics
- Difficulty spikes
