How did Fall Guys become the internet’s favorite game?

Fortnite move over, there’s a new king in the video game world and the name is Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout. A game full of bright colors, cute characters, and a soundtrack you can rock out to for hours Fall Guys has won over the hearts of everyone from kids to professional gamers.

Fall Guys is the creation of the independent video game company Mediatonic – it’s a fresh twist on the current beloved battle royale genre. Instead of fighting everyone to the death you and 59 other players waddle costumed jelly bean characters across obstacle courses reminicist of Wipeout and mini games that are simultaneously simple, yet delightfully infuriating. Don’t mess up because you might not qualify for the next round.

How did this game become the internet’s next favorite thing already breaking records in its release month? Let’s take a look.

Records broken

For starters, let’s talk about exactly how popular Fall Guys is. As of August 26, the game which was released to PS4 and PC on August 4, reached 7 million copies sold on Steam. Last weekend the game also broke the record of most concurrent Steam players with a total of 172,213 people all playing simultaneously.

On top of this success, Devolver Digital, the publisher of the game, announced Fall Guys has become the most downloaded PS Plus game of all time.

Cuteness when we needed it most

At the beginning of the pandemic Animal Crossing released a new iteration in their series of games for the Nintendo Switch. The serendipitous release date allowed not just fans of the franchise to escape into a world of cute animals and calming ritualistic tasks, but people who had never played before hopped in on the hype to escape the stressors of an unprecedented health crisis.

However, this was many months ago and the internet is fickle at best. It seems Fall Guys released itself at just the right time in order to give people a new family friendly game to chill out with as the outside world continues to be a chaotic mess.

Even better, you can play the game with friends, which allows for a way to hang out while still socially distant.

A balance of difficulty and fun

The game has just the right balance of difficulty & win-ability. Young audiences or adults with little gaming experience can feel accomplished qualifying in the first few rounds and even occasionally snagging a crown & winning it all.

However, even competitive gamers & professionals feel challenged, since being good isn’t enough to guarantee a win. The occasional team game means that no matter how good you are at video games, your team might let you down and get you eliminated.

Hard core gamers also enjoy the challenge of finding tricks & shortcuts on the various courses, which turn the game into a sort of speedrun challenge for anyone interested in that type of gameplay – however you can still win without this.

Social media guru

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout also has the benefit of a masterful social media manager. Throwing out dozens of “spicy Tweets” every day the Twitter account is silly, casual, and endearing. A great way to engage a fan base & feel accessible.

On top of just all around fun tweets, the Fall Guys official twitter account also pulls stunts which gain massive media attention. The most notable occured on August 17, when the twitter account announced “battle of the brands”. Due to the game’s immediate rise to popularity many brands were looking to partner with Mediatonic to get branded costumes in the game.

🔥 BATTLE OF THE BRANDS 🔥

The thirst from brands has been unreal… so we're turning it into something positive!

Prize: Your brand inside Fall Guys as a costume!

👉 To enter:
Reply to this tweet with the highest amount of money you would be willing to donate to @SpecialEffect

— Fall Guys 👑 (@FallGuysGame) August 17, 2020

Rather than just accept everyone’s money, they announced a competition lasting until August 31. Whatever company or person put in a bid with the highest donation for the charity Special Effect via Twitter would get a costume in Fall Guys. The hype was immediate and it wasn’t long before the bids were in the hundreds of thousands. Game companies bid, and even professional gamer Ninja (Tyler Blevins) put in a personal bid.

The competition ended today and at the very last moment Aim Lab, G2 eSports, Ninja, and YouTuber Mr. Beast joined together to put in a bid of $1 million. The spiciest team up since the Avengers according to the Fall Guys Twitter.

Everyone loves it

The game is built with joy (and a little chaos) – even when you get eliminated in the first round your jelly bean character will clap elatedly for earning a few participation points, and it makes you feel ready to hop into the next game to do better.

Despite not even existing for a full month the game has already seen multiple tournaments for the game pop up including a Twitch Rivals match featuring popular streamers on the website.

This is, without a doubt, the internet’s favorite video game right now. We just feel bad for Xbox players who can’t join in on the fun due to an exclusive agreement Mediatonic made with Sony. Press F in the chat for Xbox players. We hope to see you out there on the obstacle courses eventually.