Baby Steps Is the QWOP Open‑World You Didn’t Expect — 2025’s Dark‑Horse GOTY Contender
Baby Steps is an open-world physics-based adventure published by Devolver Digital, developed by the team behind Ape Out and QWOP: Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy. The game places a reluctant, onesie-clad protagonist into a surreal Elder-Scrolls–adjacent landscape and asks players to move him by manually controlling each leg.
Game info
Baby Steps is an open-world physics comedy published by Devolver Digital. It is developed by Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy. The game mixes deliberate, limb-by-limb movement with environmental platforming and exploration. According to the developer credits, the soundtrack includes work by Maxi Boch.
Controls and traversal
Movement model
Movement is controlled by alternating inputs for each leg: the left and right triggers move the corresponding limbs, while the joystick initially makes the character fall forward if not balanced. In other words, players must tap left and right triggers to keep the character upright and to walk.
Traversal challenges
The world contains narrow gaps, steep slopes, balance beams, ziplines, minecart tracks, slippery sand stairs, and other hazards that require precise limb placement. There are situations with single viable routes that are easy to fail, such as escaping a circular river via either a log bridge or a minecart rail.
World and characters
The setting is a surreal, open landscape with distinct areas: a sandcastle section, a rocky mountain, dangling outhouses, a maze of cardboard boxes, and minecart tracks. Nonplayer characters include a cocky climber, a persistent groundskeeper, and humanoid “donkey men” who appear in some encounters. Several NPC interactions and interstitial cutscenes are voiced by the game’s creators.
Themes and structure
Baby Steps frames the protagonist as an underprepared, basement-dwelling adult who is teleported into the game world. The mechanics and level design repeatedly set up physical failures and recoveries, creating sequences where players must accept repeated setbacks to progress. The game includes choke points where only a few precise solutions exist, which can produce many repeated attempts before success.
Release and review notes
Baby Steps is available on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. The reviewer played a 12-hour session and tested the game on a Steam Deck using a prerelease download code provided by Devolver Digital. The project lists influences including QWOP and Getting Over It, and the development team references those prior works in the design lineage.
