PREVIEW: Launching August 4, 2026, Big Walk is everything we wanted and more

These gamers were made for walkin’. And that’s just what they did. And one of these days these gamers are gonna... tell you about it... and that day is right now... Here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91w10fmLi84

Sometimes living in the Pacific Northwest has its perks.

In June, the VGG crew was lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit the Panic offices and play an in-person-only preview of the upcoming open world walk-and-talk game Big Walk. Open to both the public and press alike, these sparse preview spots were quick to evaporate, so we counted ourselves truly lucky to sneak in.

Big Walk is the next game from House House, the development studio based in Melbourne, Australia, best known for their 2019 release Untitled Goose Game. Dipping into that pool of effortless charm and no-frills naming conventions once more, the studio is now working on an adorable cooperative adventure game called Big Walk.

We here at VGG are big fans of fun online multiplayer experiences and we jumped at the opportunity to visit Panic HQ to get some early gameplay time with one of our most anticipated games of 2026.

In Big Walk, you and your absurdly round friends walk around a big island, encountering a series of unique challenges that are either cerebral, silly, or physical in nature. Cooperation and friendship are the tools at your disposal in this unique little adventure.

After a short elevator ride, we were immediately greeted by a series of adorable pals waiting for us in the lobby, apparently a gift from Portland artist Mike Bennett, who had already come through the Panic offices to try the game himself. 

From there, we were escorted into a dimly lit room and instructed to stand and wait for a special presentation. What happened next was a testament to the love and style that the teams at Panic and House House invest into everything they do.

A projection started directly in front of us but quickly grew to wrap around the room, all while a charming lil’ fella introduced us to our special preview event and, through the power of magic, highlighted which of the stations we could pick: a fun effect that, despite Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser’s laughing insistence that it was “extremely unnecessary,” tickled our group. We were seated at these immersion-focused stations, with hoods reaching out from the monitor to shut out the world around us and reactive lighting hidden somewhere behind it.

After that, we were let loose in the world and left to our own devices.

According to Cabel, Big Walk will accommodate up to 12 players, is likely to land around 10-15 hours with a definitive ending point, and as we learned recently during Nintendo's summertime Direct, Big Walk is set to release on August 4th, 2026 on PC, PS5, and Nintendo Switch 2.

So, it’s a bit of an oasis in a barren land if you’re like us, with an online gaming group that just exceeds that most common 4-player maximum you often see in multiplayer games. Our desperately maintained collective spreadsheet of higher-capacity games is pretty happy to see this one coming.

At the heart of Big Walk is an experience about playful experimentation. Outside of a series of murals that teach you the basics about interacting with objects and using your limbs to point and gesture in various ways, you’re left to puzzle things out on your own.

The lush environs are immediately inviting, but even more interesting is the stark contrast of the bold, vibrant colors of the clearly manufactured structures that stand out like a sore thumb amidst the otherwise normal forest. It makes uncovering the island’s many secrets as easy as scanning the horizon for something out of place. 

Stumbling your way toward one of these structures, giggling like madmen as you all flail your arms and test the limits of the game’s proximity voice chat, you end up facing off with one of the game’s challenges, left to sort out what exactly is needed of you.

Find a giant tower with a hole in it and think the goal is to throw a ball at it?

Nope!

Further examination shows you there's actually a button at the top, and you and your friends need to bumble around and stack on top of each other to reach it.

All kinds of little tasks like these prioritize the joy of your own discovery. Poke and prod and figure it out on your own. Or rather... with the help of your friends.

The design of the game is built around rewarding you in little joyful ways when you complete a challenge, confetti and all. For example, gathering up all the strange totems on the island eventually led us to unlock a dance floor pumping out sick tunes for a quick dance break among friends before moving on and finding more challenges out in the world.

So much of what House House has built here encourages your curiosity and emphasizes fun and play. It does little things to disappear potential annoyances or progress-halting issues. Like, for example, we learned that the ocean surrounding the island naturally operates as a sort of conveyor belt pushing items back to shore in case at any point you, say... I dunno. Throw a light off a cliff because you think you don’t need it anymore? Not talking from my own experiences because uh... why would I do that?

Our very first task and intro to Big Walk saw us working together to customize our bulbous bodies. With a wall of paint swatches and short stubby arms, we had to request our colors one by one and recruit help to get the once-over with the paintbrush.

I, of course, went with VGG’s colors. Our pal Shizame had a nice-looking gradient of greens. Julie elected for what I’ll call a children’s toy aesthetic. And of course Oscar had to send out an homage to Wario, painted purple - yellow - purple to emulate the garlic-eating hero's overalls.

Even for this small task, we needed one another. Not unlike the wildly successful PEAK, Big Walk is a game about helping your pals up, communicating and cooperating, and laughing with them and not at them. 

Well, except for when one of your group throws themself off a cliff, for example, and spends an eternity stuck on the beach.

Once we left our mark on the world and found ourselves on the precipice of seeing a large valley full of adventure, we got the shoulder-tap marking the end of our play time. One by one we got up and prepared to meet our in-game guide once more. Thanking us for playing and spotlighting a totem that was totally not there when we started playing, Big Walk’s preview session had one last big surprise for us.

A surprise in the form of an overstuffed confetti cannon blasting us as our in-game guide jumped and cheered on the wall in front of us.

Wrapping up our session, Cabel asked if the game was what we thought it would be. And... it was.

As we dared to hope when we first saw the game revealed, Big Walk is a game that promotes collaboration, makes for silly moments of dilly dallying, and is packed with the fun kinds of aha moments that we strive for. We expected lots of “OH WAIT, GUYS, LOOK!” and “Wait wait wait, you gotta come here and try this,” and we got all that and more in our hour-long play session.

Even when it came to discussing the game’s potential for replayability, a minor curiosity of mine considering the one-and-done nature of its discovery and challenges, Cabel aptly managed to echo the breezy comforts of the experience when he compared the game’s replayability to a hike with your friends. You might first discover it on your own or with one friend group and find beauty in it. But even if you decided to show the same sights you loved to someone else, getting to experience it in different company would lead you on a different journey. And maybe that’s where the joy of replaying Big Walk comes from. Or maybe you love it once and leave it be. And that’s okay.

We can’t wait to play more. We loved spending time at Panic’s offices, feeling the passion and commitment to joy and connection that everyone exudes, and we think you should definitely give the game a look when it comes out. Because, you know, there’s confetti waiting at the end.

Consider giving Big Walk a wishlist on PC, PS5, or Switch 2 to keep an eye on it and help the developers on the way to launch on August 4, 2026.

Thanks again to both Panic and House House for the opportunity.