Baby Steps: PS5 Review

Developed by Gabe Cuzzillo Maxi Boch
Published by Devolver Digital
Platform: PS5

If you're a fan of Chumbawamba's biggest ever hit, then Baby Steps will take that love and twist it into something perverse and ultimately challenging.

In this at-times-insane indie, you play Nate, a man whose life is mostly spent sleepwalking and who one day wakes up on a hiking trip after being transported randomly from his basement couch.

And really, that's about as straight as this game gets in terms of simple narratives, because Baby Steps is a walking sim that's packed with metaphor and hidden meaning as you guide Nate around. But within minutes of the game, you'll be frustrated, angry and utterly bemused by how a simple plank offering you access between two platforms can cause so much damn fear.

Dropped into a world, you have to walk Nate around, climbing various mixed terrain and using triggers on the controller and the left stick (for PlayStation 5) to help him navigate the land. It sounds easy enough, but if you've not facepalmed within seconds of this game, you've fluked it and are likely to come a cropper before you realise it.

One of the first characters to arrive on the scene is Jim, who tries to help Nate get used to the world he's in, only to constantly be turned down with every piece of advice. It's a classic approach to setting up a villain arc as Nate rebuffs him, but there's a hint of more below the surface as these encounters play out, and which set up part of the journey across the game.

At the end of the day though, it has to be said that all of that is kind of incidental to the gameplay, which, to be frank, is intensely frustrating and annoying initially. Falling over the first time is kind of funny - sort of like how Goat Simulator revels in its own cracks and mistakes - but after the ninth time within less than a minute, it's beyond irritating and may see you want to rage quit the game.

The best advice for that is not to. Because once you find a groove and learn to make the legs function independently and coherently, it can be bracing to manage to create some kind of momentum. And the terrain functions to offer different ways to reach you goal rather than leaving you to have one way only to ascend to where you need to.

But be warned - while it can be enticing to want to hurl yourself down a cliff just to watch the character slide and ragdoll, the upshot of a suicidal moment is hours of trying to get back where you were. It's only for the brave-hearted or the incredibly stupid that you try that.

And yet, here's the rub with Baby Steps - the challenge rests on if you can put the game to one side and not keep trying. It's the simplicity that is the hook here, and while not every moment lands, the idea that, "It's just a walking game, how hard that can be" is what sees you returning to the controller each time you want to throw it away.

Along with a soundtrack that's made up by the nature around you and which speeds up as you gain momentum, there's plenty of perverse pleasure to be had in Baby Steps - if you're willing to take it just one step at a time.

A  review code for Baby Steps was provided by Devolver Digital for the purpose of this review.