Everyone, stretch your hamstrings. Leg-having simulator Baby Steps got a release date during last night’s PlayStation State of Play. As shown in the trailer below, the game is not so much a “walking sim” as a “walking badly sim”. But hey, that’s what you get from the makers of Getting Over It and Ape Out. It was also revealed that the “hero” of the game is in dire need of the bathroom.
It’s due out September 8th, say the developers. Baby Steps was delayed last year, alongside enough other games to warrant a satirical “Best Delayed Games” awards show from publishers Devolver. That’s okay, it’s still one of our most anticipated games of this year.
You play as Nate, an “unemployed failson” who is one day magically thrust into the wilderness and must learn to use his actual legs to actually walk on the actual ground. What! I could muse about this being a tale of overcoming learned helplessness, or a story about facing down crippling social anxiety, or a comic commentary on humanity’s habit of cognitive offloading – giving all mental effort to machinery. But then, I’d be doing the work for you. Just play the game and analyse it yourself, for heaven’s sake.
Getting Over It was a silly meditation on difficulty and perseverance disguised as a game that streamers would love because it allowed them to scream a lot. Matt had a go, and then I had a go, and then I gave up because I had other things to do and I hate being bad at things. I did not get over it.