What a zany video game! First unveiled in June 2023, Baby Steps finally arrives on PC via Steam and PS5 on September 8, 2025. This atypical walking game, developed by Gabe Cuzillo (Ape Out), Maxi Boch (Dance Central) and Bennett Foddy (Getting Over It) and published by Devolver Digital, offers an unusual videogame experience in which players take on the role of Nate, a thirty-something man in pyjamas thrown into a strange world where the only objective is... to learn to walk. At the crossroads of absurd humor and playful experimentation, Baby Steps intrigues as much as it amuses.
"Take control of the amorphous limbs of Nate, an unemployed nerd who rarely leaves his couch. Explore a misty world and discover an unsuspected power: the ability to put one foot in front of the other. Trek through unforgettable landscapes, enjoy the scenery and meet the local wildlife in this hilarious physics-based adventure game, where you control each leg individually. Let yourself be charmed by Nate as you try to lead this down-on-his-luck hero to safety and find a shred of meaning in this wasted life."
At the heart of the gameplay lies a walking mechanic governed entirely by physics. Here, every step is a victory, every slope a threat. The absence of save points, death or fast travel reinforces this feeling of slow, laborious immersion. As the PlayStation Blog perfectly sums up: " There are no save points, you can't die, and there's no fast travel. The only thing that evolves is your mastery of walking on flat or uneven terrain ". Progression therefore depends solely on the player's patience and ability to tame Nate's lumbering body.
The game's semi-open world unfolds to the rhythm of an interactive soundtrack, with varied environments ranging from misty mountains to muddy valleys. " Baby Steps is an epic that is at once contemplative and demanding, serious and hilarious, anti-capitalist and highly mercantile. Finding meaning in this absurd world is a paradox," Devolver points out in its press release. The absence of mini-maps or indicators encourages exploration, often following an intriguing object or a hard-to-reach ledge.
More than just a joke game for streamers, Baby Steps could well turn out to be a truly introspective experience. Every texture is precisely rendered thanks to the vibrations of the DualSense controller, and every encounter - no matter how wacky - contributes to the endearing strangeness of this journey. As Bennett Foddy explains: " This time around, we tried to create a game that looked difficult, but played rather leisurely. We may even have made it too easy. Yet another paradox for a title that never ceases to surprise, one step at a time.
This page may contain AI-assisted elements, more information here.
