After weeks of beta testing and plenty of memes to win the internet's heart, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is finally releasing this week. The game is launching on Steam and will be one of the free PS Plus games for August 2020. After the announcement that Fall Guys would be included in the free game line up at its launch, some of the developers took to the PlayStation subreddit and held an AMA where they revealed the game may have a very tricky trophy.
Fall Guys is a battle royal game for everyone that has players play as a jellybean looking person and completing different Wipeout style courses and ultimately being the last person standing. Players take on five rounds and compete in races, team-based games, or games that involve staying on a platform the longest. While the game is a simple and fun idea, each course offers its own challenge and nonsense along the way such as hoarding eggs from other teams, jumping through false walls, and running uphill while dodging giant fruit.
While Fall Guys is naturally challenging by having players take control of a jellybean shaped person with poor balancing skills, the team at Mediatonic confirmed that the game will have trophies that might have completionists going mad. Commenting on a question about the inclusion of trophies, the Lead Game Designer Joe Walsh said, "we have trophies and one of them is so insanely hard I don't think anyone will ever unlock it." Walsh didn't provide any context to his comment but when one other commenter on Reddit offered up a challenging guess, Walsh replied, "aw, that's cute" seemingly reiterating that the trophy requirement is very challenging.
Fall Guys is already challenging in its own right. Bumping into other competitors, dodging swinging wrecking balls, and fighting for position on a small platform becomes quite the task in a lobby of 60 other players. However, adding in trophies that unlock under very specific requirements may have any player that is looking to earn all the trophies or even a Platinum Trophy pulling their hair out. Especially if the trophy requires some kind of luck or cooperation from other players in the game.
Although the game is a battle royale that anyone can pick up and play, the challenges that come with completing obstacle courses as an off-balanced jellybean is part of the appeal. The frustration of falling off a course or being eliminated just before the finish line had players raging then queuing up right away which made for excellent entertainment on Twitch. Streamers were offered beta codes over the last week to try the game out and viewers flocked to channels to witness the comical fails and follies offered on screen. Before long, Fall Guys became the top viewed game across Twitch and was only beat by the "Just Chatting" category for viewership.
Mediatonic is enjoying a ton of success and hype recently with Fall Guys. On top of being the most-watched game on Twitch during a beta weekend, Mediatonic also announced that Fall Guys would be free for PlayStation Plus subscribers on launch. This is the type of game that will need a big player base to succeed so offering the game up for free for dedicated PlayStation 4 players seems like a perfect storm. PlayStation Plus did wonders for Rocket League at its launch, and Fall Guys will try to replicate that success.
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout releases on PC and PS4 on August 4.