The best game of the year contenders are the ones you don’t see coming. That describes Big Walk, the latest game from Untitled Goose Game developer House House. There has been plenty of buzz behind the co-op puzzle game since it was first announced, but even its biggest admirers probably didn’t expect it to become the best reviewed game of 2026. With 13 scored reviews in, plus a handful of unscored praise, Big Walk sits at a 93 on Metacritic. That makes it the best reviewed new release of 2026, beating Forza Horizon 6 and Mina the Hollower.
So what’s the big deal? Critics across the board are charmed by the multiplayer game’s brilliant puzzle design and chill-out vibes. In a 9/10 review for Gamespot, Mark Delaney calls it “one of the best co-op games ever.” He praises House House’s hands-off approach to design, allowing players to discover all the secrets scattered across Big Walk‘s open-world island.
“Big Walk’s world speaks for itself,” Delaney writes. “Across its realistic-looking landscape are many more cartoonishly colored structures of all shapes and sizes that stick out by contrast, and developer House House trusts each friend group to carve out their own adventure through the world, letting their curiosity guide them and building on shared learning hour after hour.”
The puzzle design is a high-point across the board for critics. In a five-star review for Restart, Imran Khan praised a strong collection of puzzles that push you and your friends to talk out solutions: “There’s a lot of puzzles in Big Walk and as our group did more and more, we got better and better at learning to communicate within the game’s absurd contexts, at interpreting how each other think, at knowing exactly what it means when someone sits down and raises their arms above their heads.”
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