Baby Steps Review: The Ultimate Test of Patience and Foot-Placement – A Hiker’s Nightmare is a Gamer’s Delight

The phrase “walking simulator” has long been a term of derision, yet Baby Steps, the latest absurdist challenge from the minds behind QWOP and Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, boldly reclaims it. Released for PC and PlayStation 5, this game is a glorious, hilarious, and frequently maddening exploration of the simple, yet profound, act of putting one foot in front of the other. The initial comparisons to Hideo Kojima’s massive-scale, open-world hiking epic, Death Stranding, are apt, but misleading. If Sam Porter Bridges’ journey was a logistical puzzle of weight distribution, Baby Steps is a pure, unadulterated physics-based torture test, making its spiritual predecessor feel like an actual walk in the park.

The Core Mechanic: Every Step is a High-Stakes Gamble

You play as Nate, an unemployed “failson” who wakes up lost in a beautiful, mist-covered mountainous region, clad only in a grubby onesie. Nate’s problem? He’s terrible at walking. The player must manually control every aspect of Nate’s locomotion. Using the dual analog sticks (or mouse/keyboard combination), you lean Nate’s body, and the controller triggers lift and plant each individual foot. This unique control scheme is the source of both the game’s brilliance and its extreme frustration.

• Mastering Momentum: Simply moving forward requires a meditative rhythm of lifting, placing, and weight-shifting. Flat ground is your tutorial, but the world quickly escalates, introducing steep inclines, uneven rocky paths, muddy slopes, and narrow ledges.
• The Thrill of Ascent: Conquering a tricky section—say, shimmying across a log over a chasm or finding a foothold on a vertical rock face—delivers a shot of pure, unadulterated satisfaction rarely matched in gaming.
• The Comedy of Failure: Nate’s ragdoll physics are a constant source of slapstick gold. A misplaced toe can send him wobbling, stumbling, and ultimately tumbling down the mountain, leaving a trail of dirt and mud on his onesie and your screen. It is in these moments that the game truly shines as a spectator experience.

Difficulty Spikes and Progress Loss: A True Foddy Production

The game’s developers, led by Bennett Foddy, have not abandoned their signature penchant for punishing difficulty. While the overall experience is more inviting and accessible than the infamous Getting Over It, the optional, trickier sections of the open-world trek have been confirmed to be “harder than Getting Over It by quite some distance.”

This is where the title of the review rings painfully true: prepare to get dropped from many great heights.

The world of Baby Steps is an interconnected, open environment with few formal checkpoints on its tougher climbs. A single misstep high on a precarious mountain pass can result in a devastating, minutes-long slide back to the very bottom, erasing huge chunks of difficult progress. This deliberate design choice serves a dual purpose: it heightens the tension of every single baby step and forces the player to approach each obstacle with patience, planning, and a deep respect for gravity. The camera, while generally serviceable, occasionally becomes another obstacle, obscuring a critical foothold in moments when absolute precision is essential.

Beyond the Walk: Exploration and Absurdist Narrative

Though the movement is the star, the game’s beautiful, surrealist world and subtle narrative add surprising depth. There are no maps or waypoints; your only guide is the smoke from distant campsites. This encourages true open-world exploration at your own, often incredibly slow, pace.

• Hidden Challenges: The environment is littered with small, optional tasks, like retrieving a lost item (such as a hat) from a perilous location. These often become self-imposed challenges that test the limits of your newfound walking mastery.
• Emotional Arc: Beneath the layers of slapstick humor, Nate’s journey is a subtle, genuine story about emotional growth, self-awareness, and overcoming internal resistance. He encounters quirky characters, yet initially rebuffs their help, forcing his own path to independence—one awkward step at a time.

Verdict: A Masochistic Masterpiece for the Patient Gamer

Baby Steps is a singular achievement in indie gaming. It takes a ridiculous premise and executes it with an ambitious, fully-simulated physics engine, making the simple act of walking a compelling, high-stakes skill. If you found the environmental challenges of Death Stranding compelling but wished for a control scheme that was truly antagonistic, or if you appreciate the punishing but rewarding core loop of a classic Foddy title, then this game is your mountain.

Be warned: you will yell at your screen, you will rage-quit, and you will watch minutes of hard-earned progress tumble away in a second. But when you finally crest that ridge, having meticulously placed every single foot, the feeling of accomplishment is monumental. It is a brilliant, bizarre, and profoundly frustrating piece of video game design.