House House, the studio behind Untitled Goose Game, is working on something new. Their next project called Big Walk, is a cooperative multiplayer adventure game built around exploration and communication. A preview session gave a closer look at the game, including time with the tutorial area alongside a group of five players, and what came through clearly is that the experience is designed around people rather than systems.

The idea behind Big Walk traces back to the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. The team at House House found themselves turning to video games as a way to stay connected with each other, and that experience became the foundation for what they wanted to make. The goal was to capture what it actually feels like to spend time with people, and that intention shows up in how the game is put together.

Big Walk is planned for release with cross-play supported between various platforms. The game supports up to 12 players and has three configurations depending on group size: two-player, three-player, and four-or-more.

How Players Communicate

Communication is built into everything Big Walk does, and the game gives players several ways to do it. Proximity voice chat and text chat are both available. The proximity text chat has a detail worth noting: the farther away another player is, the harder their text becomes to read on screen. It’s a small touch but it gives distance a natural feel that matches what you see in the world.

Players can also use hand gestures to signal teammates, which turns out to be more useful than it might sound, especially in puzzles that require coordination across wider spaces. For players who are spread further apart, laser pointers and binoculars help guide teammates toward things they might not be able to see on their own. Whiteboards also showed up during the preview as a navigation aid, and based on what was shown, they may also tie into puzzles.

Some puzzles are specifically built around restricted communication, where players lose the ability to talk to each other and have to rely on gestures or other available tools to get through.

Exploration and Puzzles

The tutorial area shown during the preview was large enough that players could split off in different directions without feeling restricted, which made the communication tools feel necessary rather than just optional. The game’s puzzle design is built around the same mechanics that players use to communicate and navigate, so those systems feel like one connected thing rather than separate features layered on top of each other.

The game also has a day and night cycle that changes how players move through the world. At night, players need to carry glowing balls to light the path ahead. Fireworks are another tool available during night sections, letting players communicate or signal across large distances without needing to be close to each other.

Groups are encouraged to split up, work through different challenges at the same time, and then come back together to share what they found. The map design supports this with some challenges built specifically around small groups completing tasks across wide distances. The group during the preview session made their way toward the water and ended up in a spot that could have been a dead end, but movement was still possible, which suggests the team has thought carefully about making sure players can always find their way back.

Look and Feel

The characters have a goofy, expressive way of moving that fits the overall tone of the game. They have a bird-like appearance, and the animation makes watching your group move around part of the fun. Players can pick up items in the world and kick them around, and there are small interactive bits scattered throughout, like music stations and various toys, that are not tied to any objectives but give players something to play with between areas.

What Comes Next

After the preview session, it was revealed that a larger area exists beyond the tutorial zone. The tutorial alone gave the group plenty to work through, so the suggestion of more space beyond it points to a game with a lot of ground to cover.

Big Walk is shaping up to be a game where the time spent with other players is the point. The puzzles give the group something to work toward, the tools keep everyone connected across the world, and the space itself is built to be explored and messed around in. Whether that ends up being puzzle-solving across a dark field or kicking someone’s items into the ocean, the game seems to be building toward something that feels genuinely social.