Baby Steps, the literal walking simulator recently released from Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy is silly, absurdist, and often just plain weird…in a good way. But one of it’s goofiest gags is one that few players are likely to see: a 28-minute long cutscene that plays only if you successfully skip all or most of the game’s other cutscenes.
When I say successfully, I do mean that. Skipping cutscenes in Baby Steps isn’t just a matter of pushing a “Skip” button. Each cutscene skip forces you to play a weird little minigame of sorts with the Skip button, where it’s almost as though the Skip button is trying to actively stop you from doing the skip. You can fail these skips too, and if you don’t skip enough of them, you won’t trigger the ridiculous, lengthy reward (or punishment) that ensues from being a skip-a-holic.
The cutscene itself occurs when Nate visits Moose at the cabin at the end of the game. If the player skipped everything else but doesn’t skip this last cutscene, the cutscene proceeds with Nate breaking the fourth wall to tell Moose about the cutscene skipping, and express that he’s not really up to performing the final scene as a result. The two sit outside and chat as their actors, Cuzzillo and Foddy, shoot the breeze about everything from broccolli sandwiches to the fact that their characters can’t raise their eyebrows individually to the challenges of audio recording under a busy flight path. At one point they try to take a nap, but that proves awkward, and they get sidetracked talking about mold, the human need to pee as a useful writing device, and localization struggles. They repeatedly lambast the player’s incessant cutscene skipping and their feelings about it, then grow frustrated when the player doesn’t skip this particular one, forcing them to continue recording dialogue.
The cutscene goes on for around 28 minutes of silly, inane discussion between the two before they finally decide it’s important to show the credits and a cat starts meowing at them to hurry things along. Beautiful.
Players who just want to watch all this without skipping every other scene can find the whole thing on YouTube. Whether or not you see this sort of thing as a punishment or a reward for your or someone else’s abuse of the skip button is entirely up to you.
We gave Baby Steps a 9/10 calling it “an infuriating ordeal of intentionally awkward physics that’s brutal, unbelievably stupid, and downright awesome.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
