Big Walk is the co-op game to play right now, and PS5 owners can claim it free until August 31

Most co-op games treat voice chat as plumbing. Something you bolt on so players can coordinate, and if it’s bad, that’s what Discord is for. Big Walk treats it as the entire game, and that’s why it’s our pick this week.

House House took nearly seven years to follow up Untitled Goose Game, and landed on something almost nobody predicted. Big Walk launched August 4 on Steam, PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2, published by Panic, and it’s a cooperative adventure for anywhere from 2 to 12 players about walking across a big world and trying to stay in touch while you do it.

The voice chat is the mechanic

Here’s the part that makes it worth $19.99. House House built a proximity voice system where your voice fades over distance, echoes down corridors, muffles through walls, and crackles when it comes through a walkie-talkie. It isn’t a comfort feature. It’s the puzzle.

You’re crossing an open world together, which means you’re constantly splitting up, losing each other, and trying to describe where you are to someone who can’t see you. The game hands you tools for exactly that problem: walkie-talkies, laser pointers, binoculars, megaphones, flares, whiteboards, cowbells, and a big golden head that I’ll let you discover on your own.

Then it takes your voice away. In some stretches you can’t talk at all, and you’re left pointing, waving, and gesturing with those absurd noodle arms to get an idea across. Anyone who’s tried to explain a puzzle solution through mime already knows how this goes.

It actually ends, which matters more than it sounds

The co-op comedy space has gone all-in on infinite runs. Lethal Company, R.E.P.O. and everything downstream of them are loops you grind until the group gets bored, which we went through in detail in our 10 best friendslop games roundup. They’re great, but nobody finishes them.

Big Walk is hand-crafted start to finish and has an ending. That’s a genuinely different pitch: a co-op game you and three friends can actually complete and then talk about, instead of one you drift away from. It’s closer in spirit to a shared road trip than a score attack.

It also means the player count is a real decision rather than a lobby cap. Two players is a focused adventure. Twelve, by House House’s own description, is “an absolute mess.” Both are supported deliberately.

How it landed, with one caveat worth knowing

Critics liked it a lot. On Metacritic the PC version sits at 91 from 29 critic reviews, and Steam has it at Very Positive with 94 percent of more than 20,000 reviews positive. For a game whose central mechanic is “talk to your friends,” that consensus is the signal that it works.

The caveat is platform-specific, and a few outlets have glossed over it. Metacritic’s PS5 page shows 89 from 8 reviews, but the Nintendo Switch 2 version sits at 75 from 5 reviews, well below the others. If Switch 2 is your only option, read those reviews before you buy. The PC build is Steam Deck Verified, so the handheld itch is covered there too, and you’ll find it on our best indie games on Steam Deck list.

You’ll also see it described around the web as the highest-rated game of 2026. Metacritic’s own numbers don’t support that framing, so treat it as enthusiasm rather than fact.

Free on PS Plus through August 31

This is the timely part. Big Walk went straight into PS Plus as an August monthly game on the day it launched, and PS5 owners with an active subscription can claim it at no extra cost through August 31. Day-one inclusion of a well-reviewed new release is unusual for PS Plus, which normally saves its monthly drops for older catalog titles.

If you’re subscribed and you’ve been putting it off, claim it now and decide later. Claimed monthly games stay in your library as long as the subscription is active.

Should you play it

If you’ve got even one friend who’ll commit to a few evenings, yes. This is the rare co-op game built for people who like each other rather than for people who want to sabotage each other, and the fact that it reaches an ending means it won’t quietly rot in your library like most of the genre.

If you’re mainly solo, skip it. There’s no single-player mode worth the price here, and no amount of good design fixes an empty lobby.

Big Walk is out now on Steam, PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2 at $19.99, with crossplay across all of them, full controller support and 14 languages. It’s free for PS Plus members until August 31.

For more of the genre, our best co-op indie games on Steam in 2026 list has the reliable picks, and if you’d rather your co-op came with monsters and screaming, Last Pirates: Die Together hit Early Access yesterday with its own take on proximity chat.