We may need more Fall Guys games sooner than Mediatonic and Devolver Digital had planned. While this new release has had an absolutely stellar first week, some people are already reporting burnout, as a steady flow of new content is arguably the most important feature of a multiplayer game.
If you’ve missed out on the explosive popularity of Fall Guys, the game operates on a simple premise: 60 players are dumped into a hilarious game show-style competition. Players must navigate a series of challenges — some of which seem downright unfair or impossible — and ultimately climb to the top of the mountain and claim the Crown in one final challenging uphill race.
Although it’s only been a week, some players have dove into this new Devolver game wholeheartedly and are hungry for more content. Some more Fall Guys games would certainly be a treat, but can Mediatonic deliver before they lose momentum?
What makes Fall Guys great
Fall Guys isn’t a particularly complex game. In truth, it’s a wonderfully simple formula: simply combine some moving parts with derpy characters and add a dash of colorful aesthetic.
Hand an artist some paints and a canvas and you can have an infinite variety of possibilities, given enough time. Fall Guys is much the same: the handful of moving parts serve as the paints and the game itself is the canvas.
With these tools in hand, Mediatonic has “painted” more than 20 different games for players to enjoy as they attempt to get a win. Some are great, some are so-so, and some (like the See-Saw game) can be a downright nightmare. The problem ironically comes from one of the game’s strengths: simplicity.
Fast-paced consumption
There’s undeniably a fair amount of variety at launch, but one of the game’s strengths is also a weakness. You see, a game of Fall Guys can be over very quickly. Even if you make it all the way to the final round, you could conceivably play 3–5 games in a single hour.
Put into that context, the 20-something maps included at launch doesn’t seem like much. Heck, you could conceivably see everything the game has to offer in the course of an evening.
This isn’t quite like other multiplayer games, mind. Take something like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive as an example: just one map has dozens of different approaches and angles to consider. Even the top-tier pros will occasionally find themselves surprised by an unconventional attack from an opponent.
Fall Guys doesn’t quite have that same level of depth. There’s no deep, multidimensional strategy to winning one of the various obstacle course races beyond “get to the end as fast as possible and try not to fall on your face too much.” That’s a strength to be sure, but it also means that we don’t get quite as much mileage out of every map.
Can Mediatonic make more Fall Guys maps?
I have absolutely zero behind-the-scenes knowledge of the game, but I am 100% confident that Mediatonic has more Fall Guys maps in the works. There are, however, several things we have to consider.
At its face, each map is made up of several moving parts — platforms, balls, gates, whatever. Those parts are arranged to a theme and used to create the various games we all play. Making more Fall Guys maps should be as simple as taking some of the bits we already have an arranging them in new, entertaining ways.
The big question, however, is just how difficult it is to create these games. There is surely some kind of internal development tool, but it could be as easy as a consumer-friendly map maker or a difficult mess of spaghetti code.
Fall Guys has certainly launched with a healthy variety of content, but players are burning through it at an astonishing pace. Mediatonic should probably focus on getting us a couple more Fall Guys maps sooner rather than later: the hype train can only stay on the rails for so long.
