{"id":75376,"date":"2026-08-10T10:21:01","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T02:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=75376"},"modified":"2026-08-10T10:21:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T02:21:01","slug":"what-happens-once-you-unlock-the-gate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=75376","title":{"rendered":"What Happens Once You Unlock the Gate"},"content":{"rendered":"


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From a distance, Big Walk<\/em> doesn\u2019t look like the kind of video game that\u2019s out to deliver a big emotional payoff. It\u2019s a chilled out co-op game that mostly tasks you and your friends with solving puzzles scattered around an open-world island environment. Any story here is the one you invent with your friend(s) while goofing around. And yet, the \u201cending\u201d of Big Walk <\/em>left me speechless \u2014 in both a figurative and literal sense. The remarkable sequence snaps House House\u2019s excellent game in place, elevating a carefree multiplayer adventure into one of the most emotionally affecting experiences I\u2019ve ever had with a video game.<\/p>\n

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[Ed. note:<\/strong> End spoilers for Big Walk<\/em> follow from here.]<\/p>\n

For the bulk of Big Walk<\/em>, you follow a clear structure. The island you\u2019re exploring has multiple towers, each of which holds a key locked in place by a mechanism. You can free those keys by collecting red gourds, which are earned by completing puzzles, and placing them in receptacles within the towers. Once you complete every tower, you can open a giant gate on the island and find out what\u2019s hiding off on the horizon.<\/p>\n

Everything that leads up to that final moment is important to the finale. Big Walk<\/em>\u2019s puzzles require you to effectively communicate with your teammates to complete them. Sometimes that means talking it out to figure out a solution, but House House routinely toys with your ability to hear or see one another. Some puzzles drop a soundproof wall between you and your friends, requiring you to get creative in how you signal to one another. Your characters\u2019 very limited body language becomes crucial to that, as you need to learn how to convey an idea by waving your arms around or squatting. Savvy players can get around these problems with walkie-talkies and laser pointers, but the important thing is that you flex your problem-solving skills together.<\/p>\n

Like any great video game, the ending is the ultimate test of those learnings. After walking through the final gate and approaching an orb, your squad is transported to a surreal tower filled with puzzles. The twist? You can no longer hear one another. Not only that, but all the colors that distinguish players from one another have been washed away. Unable to talk or even know who you are waving at, you\u2019re left to solve a suite of puzzles based solely on the trust and communication you\u2019ve built over time.<\/p>\n

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\"A\n <\/picture>Image: House House\/Panic via Polygon<\/small><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

That might sound like a recipe for frustration, but that wasn\u2019t the case in my playthrough. I quickly found that I no longer needed audio to communicate with the two friends I had spent so much time playing with. I had learned how each one used gestures to communicate over time. When we had to relay symbols to one another to solve a puzzle, I knew exactly what one of my friends meant when they sporadically waved their body around to tell me I had misinterpreted them. I knew that when they threw their arms up in the air, they were telling me I heard them right.<\/p>\n

I had learned everyone\u2019s body language to the point where I could tell who was who based on movement alone. The same was true of my teammates. At one point, we found a teapot that was needed to solve a puzzle. I decided to take it with us through the entire tower as a running joke. Later, when we could talk again post-ending, my teammates told me they knew the person carrying the pot was me because I had spent the entire game up to that point hyper fixating on a laser pointer that I refused to get rid of. Of course, I was the guy who wouldn\u2019t drop the pot!<\/p>\n