Big Walk’s Ending Delivered A Gut Punch I Never Saw Coming

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'd finish a task and that small burst of confetti would shoot out, unlocking our all-important "eggy things" we'd need to beat the game. That experience already made Big Walk one of the best co-op games I'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.

Waring: Big Walk ending spoilers ahead!

While the last hour or two of the game already provides an amazing twist to the gameplay (in a way I won't explain here so as not to spoil any more than I already need to), it'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'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.

On it was a turnstile door much like the many others we'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' color schemes.

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's patience, communication, and puzzle-brained knowhow, that we were being asked to part ways on our own.

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, "I love you, Bean! Go through the door, baby. Thank you for all your help! I love you!" Finding myself reflexively role-playing, as if she weren'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'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.

We pressed the button again. I don'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. "Goodbye, Nay Nay! I love you, son! Thank you, buddy! I'll see you on the other side!" 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.

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'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.

I'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' houses solo for playdates. Any parent will tell you these things aren't easy, sending your kids out into the world, trusting they'll come back okay, but they are necessary and ultimately good things. You're watching them grow up. For years, they only really do that with you, but increasingly, they do it away from you--first at school, then at friends' houses, eventually creating families of their own, perhaps even far away.

It'll be years more before I have to experience some of those moments, and yet, it won't always feel so far away. It's happening too fast, and it's scary, but it's beautiful at the same time. I didn'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.

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.

I reflected on all we'd achieved. The final few puzzles were especially challenging, but we'd overcome them all by relying on each other. I don't know that House House would'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.

Standing there without them suddenly became a hole in my heart. It didn't matter that we were all literally under the same roof outside of the game'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.