{"id":78199,"date":"2026-08-21T11:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T03:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=78199"},"modified":"2026-08-21T11:49:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T03:49:00","slug":"big-walks-ending-delivered-a-gut-punch-i-never-saw-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=78199","title":{"rendered":"Big Walk\u2019s Ending Delivered A Gut Punch I Never Saw Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For about 15 hours and 57 minutes of our 16-hour playthrough of Big Walk, my kids and I laughed as we stumbled down cliffsides, put our heads together to solve dozens of inventive puzzles, and rejoiced whenever we&#8217;d finish a task and that small burst of confetti would shoot out, unlocking our all-important &#8220;eggy things&#8221; we&#8217;d need to beat the game. That experience already made Big Walk one of the best co-op games I&#8217;ve ever played. But the final three minutes solidified the game as a strong Game of the Year contender, delivering a bittersweet gut punch that felt like peering into the future and seeing my kids as young adults leaving home for the first time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>Waring: Big Walk ending spoilers ahead!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the last hour or two of the game already provides an amazing twist to the gameplay (in a way I won&#8217;t explain here so as not to spoil any more than I already need to), it&#8217;s these final minutes that take it even beyond that already unforgettable display. Having hit the credits, which we watched together on a screen set up on the island&#8217;s final area, I and my kids, ages 13 and 7, then approached a bridge that awaited us at the very end of the landmass.<\/p>\n<figure data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;core&quot;: { &quot;image&quot;: { &quot;initialized&quot;: true } } }\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-ref-id=\"1857273\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.core.image.showLightbox\" style=\"cursor: zoom-in\" height=\"576\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1478500_297.jpg?w=636\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1857273\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Where the big walk ends<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On it was a turnstile door much like the many others we&#8217;d seen in the game up to that point. But this one was different. No puzzle awaited us on the other side. Instead, a button beside it provided wordless instructions that I probably intuited a moment before them. We were being told to pass through the turnstile one at a time, according to the coded sign that lit up with three circles aligned vertically, matching our silly characters&#8217; color schemes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With a press of the button, the sign lit up teal, pink, and yellow. My daughter was being called upon first. She passed through the gate. Neither my son nor I could join her. Only one of us at a time could pass through. It was clear then, after so many hours working together and bonding so closely, inseparable and totally reliant on each other&#8217;s patience, communication, and puzzle-brained knowhow, that we were being asked to part ways on our own.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;core&quot;: { &quot;image&quot;: { &quot;initialized&quot;: true } } }\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-ref-id=\"1857270\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.core.image.showLightbox\" style=\"cursor: zoom-in\" height=\"576\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1478500_298.jpg?w=636\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1857270\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Saying goodbye to my daughter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few feet away was a misty passageway, just far enough from our locked gate that our proximity chat range would fade away as she entered the mist. I called out to her, &#8220;I love you, Bean! Go through the door, baby. Thank you for all your help! I love you!&#8221; Finding myself reflexively role-playing, as if she weren&#8217;t just in the other room on our Steam Deck, it felt like a genuine goodbye. I began to tear up. She waved her character&#8217;s hands, jumping and calling back to us with I-love-yous of her own as her voice grew more distant. Then, she stepped deeper into the mist, and she was gone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We pressed the button again. I don&#8217;t know if it was luck of the draw or perhaps the host is always saved for last, but the sign showed three new colors: gray, teal, gray. My son was up next. He crossed the threshold, and I felt the same tug on my heart. &#8220;Goodbye, Nay Nay! I love you, son! Thank you, buddy! I&#8217;ll see you on the other side!&#8221; He, too, jumped and called back to me, seeming to soak in the scene as I was. Not long after, the same mist enveloped him, and for the first time in the game, I was truly alone.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;core&quot;: { &quot;image&quot;: { &quot;initialized&quot;: true } } }\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-ref-id=\"1857271\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.core.image.showLightbox\" style=\"cursor: zoom-in\" height=\"576\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1478500_299.jpg?w=636\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1857271\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Saying goodbye to my son<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I pressed the button a third and final time: blue, orange, brown. It felt almost mean leaving me for last like this, but the truth is I wouldn&#8217;t have wanted it any other way. It was cinematic in a way, to say goodbye to them like that before my own turn arose. It felt like I was seeing them drive off to college, or moving out some years in our future. It tore me up.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;ve recently had to adapt to parenting milestones like letting our son trick-or-treat without my wife and me for the first time, or sending our daughter to her friends&#8217; houses solo for playdates. Any parent will tell you these things aren&#8217;t easy, sending your kids out into the world, trusting they&#8217;ll come back okay, but they are necessary and ultimately good things. You&#8217;re watching them grow up. For years, they only really do that with you, but increasingly, they do it away from you&#8211;first at school, then at friends&#8217; houses, eventually creating families of their own, perhaps even far away.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;ll be years more before I have to experience some of those moments, and yet, it won&#8217;t always feel so far away. It&#8217;s happening too fast, and it&#8217;s scary, but it&#8217;s beautiful at the same time. I didn&#8217;t expect Big Walk to hit me with these specific feelings and I cherish it for this, perhaps above all else it does, even as it does everything so incredibly well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stepping through the turnstile, there was no one there for me to wave goodbye to, no reason to jump around. After all those hours with their little voices surrounding me, I only had my thoughts and their palpable absence.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;core&quot;: { &quot;image&quot;: { &quot;initialized&quot;: true } } }\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-ref-id=\"1857272\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.core.image.showLightbox\" style=\"cursor: zoom-in\" height=\"576\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1478500_301.jpg?w=636\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1857272\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Saying goodbye<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I reflected on all we&#8217;d achieved. The final few puzzles were especially challenging, but we&#8217;d overcome them all by relying on each other. I don&#8217;t know that House House would&#8217;ve guessed the first person to beat their game outside of those in the credits would be seven years old, or that the next would be just 13.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Standing there without them suddenly became a hole in my heart. It didn&#8217;t matter that we were all literally under the same roof outside of the game&#8217;s world. I was filled with gratitude for the memories we made together. I approached the precipice of the misty hallway, turned to look at the island one last time, and I knew Big Walk, despite being billed as merely a co-op puzzle game, would forever mean so much more to me.<\/p>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/big-walks-ending-delivered-a-gut-punch-i-never-saw-coming\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For about 15 hours and 57 minutes of our 16-hour playthrough of Big Walk, my kids and I laughed as we stumbled down cliffsides, put&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[577,613,7929,15746,5775,16331],"class_list":["post-78199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-big","tag-coming","tag-delivered","tag-gut","tag-punch","tag-walks","wpcat-32-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}