Fall Guys

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2020 multiplayer video game

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is a 2020 platformer battle royale game developed by Mediatonic and published by Devolver Digital. It was announced at E3 in June 2019 and released on 4 August 2020 for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4. The game draws inspiration from game shows like Takeshi's Castle, It's a Knockout and Total Wipeout.

Fall Guys received positive reviews from critics, who praised its chaotic gameplay, character design, and visual appearance and attributed part of its success to its release during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Contents

Gameplay

Up to 60 players compete in matches with battle royale-style gameplay.[1][2][3] Players, represented as jellybean-like figures,[4] move around a three-dimensional playing field, with additional moves such as jumping, grabbing, or diving to assist gameplay.[5] The aim is to qualify for subsequent rounds by successfully completing each of the randomly selected mini-games.[6][7] Certain mini-games involve running towards a finish line at the end of the map, while others add elements of teamwork.[1][8] On every mini-game, obstacles appear around the map for added complexity.[9][10] Players who are too slow or who fail certain requirements for a mini-game are eliminated. On the final round, the remaining few players compete in a final match with a randomised mini-game designed for a smaller player size.[5] The winner of the match is the last player standing.[11]

Using an in-game currency, "Kudos", players can purchase cosmetics and emotes for their character to show off in game.[12][13] Players obtain Kudos by completing matches and get "Crowns" (the premium currency) by winning.[14] Some of the costumes are of characters from different games, such as Gordon Freeman from the Half-Life series or Jacket from Hotline Miami.[15] The game supports microtransactions for the purchase of additional in-game currency.[13]

Development and release

The conception of Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout began when Mediatonic was discussing another project in January 2018.[16] One member, lead designer Joe Walsh, made a throwaway comment that it reminded him of game shows such as Takeshi's Castle and Total Wipeout. From there, he went on to create a pitch document for what would become Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout.[17] Originally titled Fools' Gauntlet, Walsh's pitch featured 100 players competing in a battle royale composed of physical challenges.[18] Creative director Jeff Tanton, while initially skeptical that creating another battle royale game would be successful, was quickly convinced of the game's potential, and forwarded Walsh's pitch to Mediatonic's founders.[16] Tanton and Walsh then began working on a pitch deck for the game. For the pitch deck, principal concept artist Dan Hoang created images featuring colorful, bean-shaped characters racing on an obstacle course in the sky. Tanton explained that Hoang's character designs helped shift the focus of the game away from the obstacle course itself, to the characters.[19][20] With the pitch deck completed, Tanton pitched the game to 10 different publishers at the 2018 Game Developers Conference. After Devolver Digital agreed to publish the game, development began six months later.[16][19]

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout began its initial prototyping process with a small team, growing to 30 people during development.[21] Initial progress on individual minigames was slow which caused the team to worry that there wouldn't be enough content for launch. A turning point came when the team came up with a group of pillars that "Took the opinions of people out of the occasion" and allowed the developers to "kill ideas faster". Such pillars include making sure a minigame was "50-50 chaos and skill" and that a level had to be "different every time".[22] In an attempt to remain faithful to the game shows they were inspired by, as well as differentiate from first-person shooter battle royale games, Mediatonic's focus was on gameplay variety. By presenting the player with several, randomized rounds of game modes, Mediatonic hoped to recreate the experience of being on a game show.[21] To help keep the "spirit of playground games and game shows", Mediatonic created an internal rule that game modes needed to be explained in three words.[21] Over time, the game underwent numerous other changes. The player count was decreased from 100 to 60, as the games "stopped being readable or fun" when there were too many players competing.[23] The game also went through name changes, going from Fools' Gauntlet to Stumble Chums to Fall Guys.[23]

It's a Knockout, a game show that forced its contestants to dress up in oversized costumes, inspired the idea that the characters should "have that element of being completely uniquely, badly designed for the task that we were gonna put them through".[17] The ragdoll physics were implemented on purpose, because Mediatonic did not want them to be like "hyper athletic Ninja Warrior characters" and because "falling over is funny".[17] According to Walsh, striking the right balance between funny ragdoll collisions and game performance was critical, because "as soon as you lose the ragdoll-ness of the character, you lose the comedy".[21] The character designs were inspired by the look of vinyl toys.[24]

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was announced at E3 in June 2019[9] and was released on 4 August 2020 for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4.[25] Prior to release, it was announced that Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout would be free for PlayStation Plus members during the rest of August.[26]

On 12 August 2020, Mediatonic had announced their first major update would be arriving on the next day, as well as announcing that additional content would be added in the future.

On August 27th 2020, Mediatonic announced a second season at Gamescom, which was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The season is set to be featured around a medieval theme, with new skins and minigames being added. The new season will release in October 2020.[28]

Reception

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.[29][30]

Tom Wiggins of Stuff magazine praised the game, calling it "Super Monkey Ball for the Fortnite generation".[42] Mercury News praised the "controlled chaos" gameplay of Fall Guys, stating it to be utilizing a combination of the elements of the battle royale game Fortnite and the party game Mario Party in such a way that made it "tailored to the coronavirus age".[5]

The weekend before release during a closed beta, Fall Guys briefly became the most watched game on Twitch as well as the sixth-best-selling Steam game where it was available for pre-order.[43]

Sales

Within 24 hours of release, the game had drawn over 1.5 million players.[44] On 10 August 2020, Devolver Digital announced that the game had sold 2 million copies on Steam.[45] During the first day of release, it was reported that the servers for Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout unexpectedly overflowed due to popularity.[1][12]

The popularity of the game caused several brands to express interest in collaborating with Mediatronic in creating custom content for the game.[46] Shortly after release Mediatronic announced a fundraiser by which the brand that donated the most money to the charity SpecialEffect would have their custom skin featured in the game.[47]

As of 26 August 2020, Fall Guys has sold over 7 million copies on Steam and has become the most downloaded monthly PS Plus game of all time.[48]

References

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