If you were online in 2008, the name QWOP surely brings back a floodgate of memories. For me, thinking about it transports me back to high school in an instant.
Suddenly, I’m in my best friend’s kitchen at midnight as he’s microwaving pizza rolls, while I’m setting the new QWOP high score for our friend group, completely locked-in as I scoot the player along the ground in full splits-mode. If you were there, you know what I mean.
As much as I played QWOP, and much as it still lives rent-free in my mind 17 years later, was it actually a good game? No, not really. Regardless, it was provacative. It got the people going. Everyone in my school knew about it, but only a select few realized there was a hurdle on the track to overcome if you got to 50 meters. But I knew, because I was very cool back then.
Flash forward to 2025, and QWOP is yet another ancient relic of the time, like apple bottom jeans, boots with the fur, and Gossip Girl. But creator Bennett Foddy kept busy, producing sequels like GIRP, CLOP, and eventually Getting Over It, which caught on heavily with streamers wanting to keep the masses entertained with rage-filled play sessions for hours. And now, we have Baby Steps.
As someone that grew up in the Bennett Foddy zeitgeist, and seeing just how hard Sony themselves seemed to be pushing this title, I wanted to check it out (despite just how much our previewer loathed the experience during his demo back in June). Still, I have a lot of patience, and I went into Baby Steps with an open mind. Maybe my experience would be different. After rolling credits, do I think this is a good game you need to check out?
Nah.
Big Steppin’
Don’t get me wrong. On paper, I actually think Baby Steps has a strong idea at the core. QWOP was a fun novelty, but clearly wasn’t actually much of a game. In practice and execution, Baby Steps will remind you of QWOP for sure, but the mechanics are ultimately much more precise and lend themselves to the capability of doing a lot more with the game in general.
The whole crux of Baby Steps is that each and every step is deliberate and requires your input tenfold.
As gray onesie-clad main character Nate, your objective is pretty simple: put one foot in front of the other. Repeatedly. Forever. This game truly takes the walking simulator genre to a whole new level, and it’s also kind of a mountain climbing game at heart, too.
The game is mostly divided up into four large biomes to putz around in, and each introduces a new hazard to manage. Walking on sand feels like a challenge, mud is slick, and ice is… well, also slick. But let’s not forget moss, which is also slick.
It’s not as simple as just walking on these surfaces like any other game, however. The whole crux of Baby Steps is that each and every step is deliberate and requires your input tenfold. Your left controller trigger raises your left foot, and the same but reverse for the right trigger. The left stick leans Nate in whatever direction you please.
…in implementation, Baby Steps left a lot to be desired.
This means that to actually move, you must lean Nate forward while also lifting and lowering your feet with the proper angles and timing in order to make any actual progress. It’s hilariously stupid at first (well, and throughout), but you’ll get the hang of it and be able to start slowly walking places eventually.
The basis of the game then becomes leveraging this movement style to get across narrow bridges, up craggly mountains, and around threatening cacti. In some of these moments, Baby Steps kind of works. The game becomes about literally taking baby steps, as you’ll painstakingly lift and maneuver Nate’s feet to place them safely around an obstacle as you pray they don’t slide off a ledge and send you down a mudslide, losing dozens of minutes of progress.
As an idea, I kind of like this. But in implementation, Baby Steps left a lot to be desired.
QWOP Goes BOTW (Sort Of)
There’s a sort of sense of discovery in Baby Steps that might remind you of The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild at first. You’ll see something off in the distance and think, “Hmm, can I get there?” Almost always, you can. Like our buddy Link, Nate can find a way eventually.
You’re going to spend a lot of time lost in Baby Steps.
But while these moments in BOTW would almost always lead up a shrine, treasure chest, tower, or some other worthwhile POI, Baby Steps leads you to time waster after time waster. You’ll find a new stupid hat you can wear that you’ll lose immediately the next time you fall, or a watchtower you can climb that shows you nothing of interest, or a peach that Nate can eat for no reason other than talking for a full minute about how fuzzy it is.
Ultimately, everything you’ll explore in Baby Steps just feels fruitless. Sure, this leans into the trolly, ragey, meme-like vibe the game is going for, but it’s also just… a waste. At the end of the day, your goal is to go up, and these pitstops and detours you can take along the way are never worth it aside from being able to say they exist.
Going up, however, is another chore of its own. You’re going to spend a lot of time lost in Baby Steps, and that’s by design as well. You won’t realize it at first, but the map loops around on itself very quickly. Let me give you an example:
I didn’t know where to go once, so I looked in the distance for some sort of visual marker to navigate to, choosing a giant sand castle to work towards. I noticed there was a similar sand castle just behind me, but this was a dead end. As such, this next castle felt potentially more promising. I spent an hour getting there, only to realize… it was the same castle. I’d gone in a complete loop.
I never felt like Baby Steps used its mechanics and the world to actually do much that was interesting at all.
The thing is, you can see both locations at once. When I saw the dead end sand castle behind me at the same time I could see the “more promising” one in the distance, both were actually the same location. Makes sense? No? Yeah, I know. Sure, the goal is to disorient me. I understand that. But in a game where you can lose your footing at the drop of a hat and progress feels like pulling teeth, I don’t need the map and world itself also conspiring against me and just consistently wasting my time.
The worst crime here is that I never felt like Baby Steps used its mechanics and the world to actually do much that was interesting at all, and I really think it could’ve. It boils down to climbing on rocks, crossing bridges, and just… walking. There are no major, cool moments to use these mechanics, or any sort of puzzling or thinking required. It’s just, “Oh, here’s a 250-story spiral staircase to climb. Enjoy.” And yes, it is literally 250 stories. The game makes sure to tell you.
Let’s also not forget the ugly graphics, and the soundtrack made up of bird sounds and random noises that is only there to send your mind further into a state of madness as well. I quickly muted the game and just switched to podcasts to help pass the time.
Grow Up, Dude
The story of Baby Steps is this: Nate is a loser than exists only on his parents’ couch in the basement, binging both pizza and re-runs of One Piece nonstop. He gets transported to the weird dream world the game takes place in. He wants to go home because he has to pee. And… there ya go.
Nate is insufferable, and so is everyone else in the world you’ll meet.
It’s absurd. And to be honest, I’m often good with absurd. In fact, there are several bits of dialogue and moments in Baby Steps that did make me laugh. It’s made a point early on that Nate doesn’t have shoes. You walk around forever, and finally come upon a shoe salesman. After speaking with him, the camera zooms out, and you realize all the shoes are literally giant-sized, so you can’t wear them. Honestly? Hilarious.
But those moments are few and far between. Nate is insufferable, and so is everyone else in the world you’ll meet. While this does lend to some comedic moments occasionally, it’s mostly just entirely too cringe, stupid, or mean without any real payoff.
What’s most annoying is that I feel like Baby Steps even trolled me with the fact that I was constantly trying to find something deeper in the game. I think it’s possible there are themes of childhood trauma, anxiety, insecurity, and determination that could be extrapolated here, but by the end, it feels more like the devs were probably thinking, “Lol, look at this guy trying to find meaning in this game.”
…truly gratuitous to a point well beyond rational humor.
Baby Steps is also just gross. There’s a nudity warning at the start of the game and the option to toggle it off. You should. If not, I hope you enjoy seeing more than a dozen anthropomorphic, talking, biologically male donkeys that will present themselves to you over and over and in more and more graphic and disturbing ways.
Again; memes, jokes… I get it. But it is truly gratuitous to a point well beyond rational humor, leads to some moments where I felt like Nate was actually being assaulted/harassed, and is just never done in any way that could be considered smart, symbolic, or anything else redeeming whatsoever. It’s just stupid stuff in a stupid game that feels like it’s trying to trick you into thinking that maybe it isn’t.
There’s no worthwhile character growth by the end. No redeeming story beats. Just Nate, looking for a place to pee, constantly antagonized by naked donkeys. If that sounds like your thing, have fun.
The Meme Of It All
I can already see a lot of the reaction I might get for this one. “You just don’t get it.” “It’s funny, who cares?” “You must be fun at parties.” “It’s a rage game, what did you expect?” Truly, I get it. You can spare your ire, though it’s fine if you don’t.
The Room is a terrible movie, and yet it lives on in infamy forever because of this very thing. People watch it to be part of the joke; to be in the know. Baby Steps will probably hit that same sweet spot.
I understand these arguments. I mean, shoot. I’ve watched hours of streamers like LilAggy, Ryukahr, and GrandPooBear hilariously struggle through games like Only Up! and had a great time. From a content creation and video consumer perspective, I get Baby Steps. To be honest, I’ll probably watch some people play this game when they all inevitably check it out.
There’s value there, and I get that. But does that still mean that Baby Steps is actually a good video game? I’d argue no. And I’m not even sure Bennett Foddy and the rest of the team will really care if this thing tanks critically. That’s really not what it’s about. As long as they’ve created something that catches some of the current zeitgeist and pops on Twitch and YouTube, that’s going to be a win here.
The Room is a terrible movie, and yet it lives on in infamy forever because of this very thing. People watch it to be part of the joke; to be in the know. Baby Steps will probably hit that same sweet spot. It’s not even a case of “It’s so bad, it’s good.” It’s a case of “I can’t look away and need to see what this trainwreck is.”
At the end of the day, while I actually do like the mechanics of the game in theory, they aren’t implemented in a fun way outside of the first area as you’re learning the ropes. The game shifts from failure because you messed up an input yourself, to failure because you’re just being trolled, and the level design is simply too obtuse and maddening.
Baby Steps really loses all possible value outside of the fact that it’ll likely be the next big thing to stream.
I would’ve been on board with this game if I wasn’t lost more often than I wasn’t. If I fell down a mountain because I was bad, not because I got pushed off the cliff by a living cactus that jump scared me out of nowhere. I get the meme of the game, but it actually could’ve been genuinely good at the same time, and it just… isn’t.
Combine all this with all the needlessly graphic content that quickly blasts beyond “Oh, this could be funny,” to “This is entirely gratuitous and unnecessary,” and Baby Steps really loses all possible value outside of the fact that it’ll likely be the next big thing to stream.
It took me 11 hours, 25 minutes, and 35 seconds to beat the game. I took 39,814 steps in the process. Honestly, I’d like most of them back.
Closing Comments:
I tried hard to be in on the joke of Baby Steps for the first hour, but it lost me insanely quickly. The thing is, I don’t think it even cares. The QWOP-iness of the movement actually is well-done, and there are some moments of absurdity that worked for me. It then just shifts too far from a stupid but fair rage game, to a stupid but cheap-feeling rage game with no redeeming qualities. You’ll painfully wander aimlessly for hours. You’ll cringe hard at the “humor” that gets way too gratuitous, gross, and vulgar completely unjustifiably. This becomes a mostly mean-spirited game that even wants to drive you insane with the soundtrack. Laugh and watch someone else experience it if you want to, but do not play it yourself.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
