Striking Gold
Fall Guys has been out less than a week and has grown in a way that no one could have expected. It has, and continues to compete with, some of the most popular games out now including Fortnite, GTA, Apex Legends, Call of Duty, and Minecraft.
It got to be so popular that it literally broke. Much of Friday afternoon, evening, and night, the servers were down.
When the game is playable, there is no denying how much fun it is. Gather 3 of your friends and hop into this minion-inspired gameshow where you run, jump, bounce, and grab your way towards victory! Fall Guys can be compared to many things but it also stands alone as an incomparable experience.
However, to maintain this astronomic pace and popularity, a few things need to be addressed. For now, here are 6 things we think Fall Guys needs!
Server Stability
Surprise, surprise! I almost feel like I’m cheating by mentioning this, but its importance is paramount. A game can be the best ever or the worst ever, but no one will know if you can’t actually play it.
Fortunately for Fall Guys, it is incredibly fun and silly, plus it has a ton going for it that will bring people back. The fact that it got review bombed and then un-bombed speaks volumes.
People get emotional when you take something from them that they begin to believe they deserve. Cough cough, The Last of Us Part II.
Bigger Party Sizes
Now that we got the boring stuff out the way, let’s get to the obvious. I’ve played Fall Guys with a ton of friends already and every single one of them has individually mentioned the limited party size. This, quite frankly, needs to change.
Last year, PlayStation expanded its party size from 8 to 16. Fortnite has seized this opportunity by allowing for 16 in a party. Fall Guys should really consider following suit.
I could settle for a compromise at 8 or 12, but 16 is the true goal. A few in-game mechanics would need to change. For example, you would no longer be guaranteed to be on the same team as your party mates. Additionally, I think it would make sense to increase the show size from 60 to 64, to make matchmaking easier.
This weekend we had a PlayStation party of 8 which consisted of 2 full Fall Guys groups. This was fun but would have been infinitely more fun had we all been in the same game at the same time. Shenanigans galore!
Improve Spectating Functionality
As anyone who has played this game knows, once you are eliminated you have the option to leave or stay and spectate your friends. It seems like an honest oversight that when you begin spectating, the game doesn’t automatically allow you to watch your friends. More times than not, that is who you’d want to watch anyway.
Improve In-Game Transparency
In a similar light, including a marker on the screen to show which place you are in, when applicable, would be fantastic. When in a party it could show all of your friends. To take things a step further, indicate who passed the round.
I don’t think this would take away from the heart of what the developers were trying to accomplish. It would simply alleviate the question that gets asked after most frantic rounds, “Who made it bois?!”
Improve The Grabbing Mechanic
Grabbing or being grabbed in Fall Guys is both funny and infuriating, a rare combination. It’s funny because a lot of random things can happen.
You can get sent flying, you can get tripped, or the grabber can have their intentions backfire in the worst way. The problem I have with the grabbing is perhaps what makes it so funny: it’s inconsistent.
I think the spirit of Fall Guys as a game is in part due to its randomness. However, gamers rely on accurate feedback from a game. If you press a button at the same time you expect to get the same result.
In Fall Guys, at times it feels you grabbing when you shouldn’t be and whiffing when you shouldn’t be. This reality can ruin the experience. I don’t know if this is a symptom of the server health, but the team needs to do something to make the grabbing feel a bit more responsive.
Until then, all Tail Tag games will feel like a crapshoot.
Add More Variety
This is half a short term ask and half a long term wishlist item. Understandably, certain games in Fall Guys’ library work better for more players while others are more suitable for less. You wouldn’t want a 60-man Hexagon challenge. Although, that would be insane, so maybe some of us would want that.
However, this weekend I felt like I played Hit Parade, See Saw, and Whirlygig an exhausting majority of the times. Dizzy Heights and Gate Crash appeared less often even though they seem to be designed in a similar light. Perhaps this is just an anecdote and I’m nitpicking. In my defense, I have yet to play Jinxed and am above level 10 with several games finishing in the top 5.
Either way, the second half of this is the desire, hope, and expectation that the developer is planning to release new games at a decent rate. As incredible of a game this is, it will surely fall off in popularity if we keep playing the same 24 games over and over. In fact, I just had to check that there were indeed 24 games, many of them are not seen in most playthroughs, making this number feel much lower.
What Do You Think?
Hopefully, I’m not being too hard on the developing team for Fall Guys. Mediatonic couldn’t have anticipated such a rush to play this bundle of joy! When they get their footing and can handle all of us flooding the servers, I hope they continue to look to improve!
What would you add to this list of needed improvements? Let us know in the comments below! Feel free to join the conversations on our social media platforms too!
If you like games and want to be the first to read our latest post, leave your e-mail below. We promise not to spam you!
Also, we just started a new podcast! Check out episode one here, where we talk about the free-to-play gaming model!
