Baby Steps, the "slapstick walking simulator about a slob climbing a mountain" co-developed by Bennett Foddy (the Getting Over It guy, which should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect), Gabe Cuzzillo, and Maxi Boch is out today, and the reviews are pretty close to unanimous: The word "hate" appears in the vast majority of them, as do words and phrases like "infuriating," "awkward," "stupid," "frustrating," and a whole bunch more—none of which would likely lead you to believe that these are all words uttered in fascinated praise.
We already had a pretty good idea that Baby Steps was going to be very good thanks to our March preview, but this confirms it. There are some complaints, and at least one critic didn't vibe with it at all, but overall? Baby Steps does what it does very well, and what it does is drive people bananas with rage even as it compels them to keep playing.
"There's so much to love here"
GamesRadar: 3.5/5
GR takes some issue with the lengthy gaps between certain challenges, and the fact that watching Nate, the titular baby-stepper, slide down a hill for 20 seconds is funny the first time, but loses its charm after several hundred times. "Even the most welcoming path through the game is littered with irregular explosions of extreme frustration," reviewer Luke Kemp wrote, adding that he "was angered more often than [he] should have been."
But that is the name of the game, and [[link]] Kemp said "the difficulty inherent in even the simplest of traversal provides regular shots of satisfaction when you overcome it, and the world is full of weird and wonderful surprises that reward exploration."
"One of the most hilariously infuriating journeys it has ever been my pleasure to rage through"
IGN: 9/10
"[I] ended up developing a deep respect for the system that was given [[link]] to me, which has so much nuance and [[link]] so many tricks to learn that I felt like the only limit to what I could pull off was my own skill," IGN review Travis Northrup wrote. "For a hypercompetitive person like myself, this pulled me into an inescapable pursuit of mastery that kept me awake long into the night cursing my creators as I tumbled to the ground for the 50th time in a row."
Sounds absolutely torturous to me, but Northrup said Baby Steps is one of his favorite games of 2025, "a triumphantly quirky physics game that asks you to challenge yourself, both with alluring hiking obstacles that had me screaming to the heavens and a shockingly unconventional story and characters that ended up feeling like family by the end."
"You may or may not need to pick up some cigarettes along the way for a gaggle of donkey men with enormous, swinging dicks"
Polygon: no score, but that's a great quote
Writing for Polygon, Giovanni Colantonio said beating one of Baby Steps' toughest challenges gave him "that fabled rush that Dark Souls players feed off of." He also found real power in the game's story, which he said is "a sincere dissection of manhood and the societal pressures it creates."
"It’s a game about feeling inadequate, but not knowing how to express it," Colantonio wrote. "Every misstep is another disappointment that doesn’t just set back your progress towards the ending, but any hope that our hero can grow too." Yet grow he does, which is Baby Steps' true brilliance: "Each time I take a risk that ends in success, it feels like I’ve done something to help build our hero’s confidence. It’s about him, not me and my stupid avatar."
"Is it possible to love and hate a game at the same time?"
Eurogamer: 4/5
Eurogamer's Robert Purchese says "how you cope with frustration will determine how you cope with Baby Steps," which is one of the reasons I'm staying away from it. But, he continued, "it's more approachable and forgiving than I assume many people will make out."
That doesn't mean it won't piss you off, repeatedly and persistently, because it will, but that's the essence of the experience, "and there is nothing else out there like it."
"I can't explain Baby Steps, but I can recommend it"
TheGamer: 4.5/5
Reviewer Sam Hallahan says specifically that he "conquered" Baby Steps, "because the journey feels like one of the most significant videogame accomplishments I’ve ever managed." Some of the humor fell flat for him (although other bits "feel like utter strokes of genius"), but otherwise it's a genuine banger: "Worth testing your patience, endurance, and curiosity in order to experience a game that is unlike anything I’ve played this year."
"We relished it all"
Push Square: 8/10
Stephen Tailby warned that mileage will absolutely vary when it comes to Baby Steps, based on its "unorthodox dialogue, intentionally maddening gameplay, and willingness to test your patience." But despite some rough edges, including "a couple of odd bugs and occasional crashes" during its roughly 20-hour playtime, he loved it, calling it a rage-bait game, but "one that offers a meaningful narrative thread to follow along with its vast number of tough but satisfying challenges."
"Hiking is hell"
The Verge: no score
Khee Hoon Chan of The Verge is clearly not a hiking enthusiast, but he "can't help but grudgingly agree" with Baby Steps' take on the whole thing: There's a lot of cool stuff out there, and sometimes it's worth making the effort to take it all in, even when that effort really sucks.
"It’s how the game stands out from the burgeoning genre of hiking simulators like Death Stranding, A Short Hike, and Firewatch — titles that depict the activity as a meditative, serene experience," he wrote. "But in Baby Steps, you aren’t just traversing treacherous environments, but also getting around with your own ramshackle body."
"A brainrot-infused adaptation of Sisyphus"
ShackNews: 7/10
Despite the score, it doesn't sound like ShackNews review Lucas White had much fun with Baby Steps. He was stuck at the final challenge of Baby Steps for at least three hours, an experience he described as "an interesting cross-section of misery, stubbornness, and something resembling integrity," and also found its humor flat and challenges not terribly rewarding.
Unlike Colantonio at Polygon, White also wrote that he "never felt that magical sense of 'accomplishment' fans of Soulslikes or whatever tend to nod at: "Struggling to climb up the inside of a crashed train for three hours left me feeling hollow after succeeding. I was glad it was over, but instead of yelling some variant of 'let’s go,' I simply thought, 'Well that sucked and I’ll never get that time back; oh well'."
"Entirely too cringe, stupid, or mean without any real payoff"
DualShockers: 4/10
Most reviewers really liked Baby Steps, but not all of them, and Ethan Krieger at DualShockers had some harsh words for it, including comparing it to the infamous 2003 film The Room. Krieger felt the mechanics were uninteresting, the graphics ugly, the soundtrack purpose-designed "to send your mind further into a state of madness," and the characters, game world, humor, and underlying narrative utterly lacking in redeeming qualities: "It's just stupid stuff in a stupid game that feels like it's trying to trick you into thinking that maybe it isn't."
So that's where we currently stand: Not a unanimous critical hit, but pretty close to the mark. That's reflected in user reviews on Steam as well: There aren't a lot, just 48 as I write this, but 91% of them are positive. That's a very good start.
