Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

A cute yet still tense party royale.

Each round of Fall Guys begins with 60 players rushing through an obstacle course in a chaotic mob of jumping, diving, whooping, and ragdolling bodies. Only the first 30 or so across the finish line qualify for the next round, which is randomly chosen from about two dozen different levels. Each level eliminates more players until the final round, where anywhere from a handful to more than a dozen compete to be the sole winner.

For most of a match I’m content to goof around, take reckless chances and stop to celebrate with emotes before crossing the finish line. Getting ragdolled out of contention usually just makes me laugh. But as the end of the final round approaches I’m suddenly taking things seriously as hell. I may be a bean wearing a frilly pink tutu, but I want to win.

There are a few different types of levels. Races are the most common, and sometimes you’ll engage in several footraces through various obstacle courses in the same match. The courses may have giant spinning fan blades to knock players back, ramps coated in slippery slime, spinning balance beams, or vanishing floor tiles, walls that can be broken through, or giant pieces of fruit tumbling down the course, knocking players aside like bowling pins unless you dart and dodge around them.

It’s so silly and breezy that if I’m eliminated because of shabby teammates, or if I get bonked into a pit because someone else blundered into a spinning fan and flew into me, I just laugh and shrug and queue up for another match. It’s only in the final round where I care enough to swear. Damn that hot dog to hell.

Fall Guys is best enjoyed in small doses, and an hour of play a day is plenty. But that hour is usually great fun mixed with some delicious tension in the finals. It’s an impressive feat to make a game so charmingly silly that’s still filled with genuinely dramatic moments, heartbreaking losses and last-second acrobatic feats. CHRIS LIVINGSTON

In a genre that is overstuffed with guns and grenades, this cute and cuddly battle royale stands out. ★★★★★