Fall Guys is hotter than ever now that it’s free to play

You may have recently seen some social media account posts usually associated with self-serious multiplayer shooters about the “skill gap” – the general disparity in skills between pro gamers and casual fans in a given game.

When it comes to competitive multiplayer games, it pays to think about the skill gap. Let’s say someone who has never played a game before could push a few buttons and beat the best player in the field. That’s a small skill gap, and not fun to watch. But watching a game with a huge skill gap is akin to watching an Olympic sport where pros amaze with mind-blowing ballet moves while making them look like child’s play. In talks about high-level games for games such as gloriole and call of Duty.

But not this time. No, this time it’s the game everyone’s obsessed with fall guys, a two-year-old platformer royale that’s having a hell of a second wind right now, partly because it’s a blast to watch. It turns out, fall guysdespite his exaggerated stupidity and mario party-inspired hijinks, seems to have a ridiculously high skill gap.

It’s not often that a game takes the world by storm twice. British studio Mediatonic was first released fall guys for PlayStation 4 and PC in August 2020, its pastel visuals and sense of connectedness (60 players at a time!) are proving to be social salve in the darkest days of the pandemic. The community boomed, thanks in part to the buzz drummed up by them an unconventional Twitch-based advertising campaign. But it was also just right fun: Each round plays out as a series of inventive, bite-sized mini-games that slowly reduce the number of players until a single winner is left.

In March 2021, Epic Games has acquired Mediatonic. fall guys made its way to Xbox and Switch last month. At the same time, they are following in the footsteps of rocket league– another multiplayer game developed by a studio bought by Epic after meteoric enthusiasm –fall guys fully adopted a free-to-play model.

Being free-to-play has been a tremendous boon for us fall guysif you can ignore that Launch day server issues. Last week, said Mediatonic fall guys had been played 50 million people since his free-to-play pivot. (Some of the biggest free-to-play shooters in the world, such as Fourteen days and Apex Legends, have clocked records of around 70 million unique players per month. estimates Peg Action RPG Genshin Impact at a little less than 65 million.)

That brings us to fall guys‘ Nascent Skills Gap. With such a large player base, some people are bound to get staggeringly good at the game, far outperforming standard players. One such clip doing the rounds (7 million views and counting, as of this writing) shows a player completing a flawless run through one of the game’s races. It was shared for the first time by yesterday morning ModernWarzonethe popular one call of Duty fan account who joked this”fall guys has a higher skill gap” than Activision’s high-stakes battle royale:

The clip alone has garnered stunned reactions from some of the biggest names in competitive esports. “I clearly ground the wrong game [skull emoji]” Alex “Shyway” HopeA friend gloriole Analyst and eSports Caster, said in a tweet. “Bruh on god, no video game is just casual anymore, wtf [face with tears of joy emoji]” Jake luckythe popular esports commentator, said in a tweet.

It’s just an example of a miniature cottage industry of attention where fall guys Players share stunning gameplay clips which then garner hundreds of thousands of views (or more). Some have featured “skill jumps” where players take unapproved but physically walkable paths through multiplayer stages:

Others boast about their 50 straight wins, further proof of that fall guys has a legitimate skill gap and is not based on luck:

Oh, yes, and if you’re still not believing in the game’s sudden and undeniable second wave of dominance, then there’s this: clones, capitalism’s ultimate seal of true success. Nintendo has Kirby’s Dream Buffet in progress, announced yesterday and slated for a Switch release this summer. (Obviously development of Kirby’s Dream Buffet was there long before fall guys switched to a free-to-play model last month.) Just this week, trip gamesa clone so shameless it gets DMCA dropped, at the top of the iPhone charts.

Damn, I’m absolutely re-downloading fall guys tonight, right?