Big Walk Beginner Guide: Your First Walk, Step by Step

Your first walk will be better if you spend ten minutes on setup and five minutes on expectations. Here's the whole beginner routine.

Step 1 — Call your crew

Big Walk supports 2 to 12 players, and the puzzle difficulty scales with party size. There is no "right" number, but a few guideposts:

Step 2 — Sort out voice

Voice is built in, not optional. Before you load in:

• Pick a voice mode everyone can hear (proximity by default).
• Learn which button keys your walkie-talkie — you'll want it for the first time your group gets separated.
• If someone's audio is muffled behind walls, that's the game, not a bug — move into the open to be heard.

Step 3 — Host or join

One person hosts the walk, everyone else joins:

1. Host

   Launch Big Walk and select a new walk from the main menu. Your session code appears in the pause menu — bottom-left corner of the screen.

2. Join via friends list

   On the main menu, choose Join Game, then pick a friend from your platform friends list. Works when everyone is on the same platform network.

3. Join via code (crossplay)

   Choose Join Game → Join Code, then enter the host's code. This is the only way to mix PC, PS5 and Switch 2 players in one walk.

See Crossplay & join codes for the full breakdown, including what happens when friends lists don't line up.

Step 4 — Follow the tutorial, then the red things

The tutorial area teaches the basic movement and communication loop. After it, the game points you toward the red tower — the most important landmark on the island:

• Find the red tower near the starting area.
• Collect the five red collectibles scattered around it.
• Slot them in to earn a key and unlock the Map Room.

Everything else opens up from there. If you're unsure what to do next, the answer is almost always: find the red thing, bring it to the red place.

Step 5 — Adopt the five habits

1. Stay in sight of someone. Getting split up is the #1 cause of lost groups — and the #1 cause of great stories.
2. Appoint a caller for puzzles. Two people talking at once across a chasm is how keys get shredded twice.
3. Call out landmarks as you pass them. "Big red gate on the left" costs nothing and saves ten minutes later.
4. Let the slowest walker set the pace. The game is the walk, not the destination.
5. Stop and listen. The island is full of audio cues — water, gears, distant echoes — that mark where the next puzzle lives.

Your first session, in one paragraph

Everyone loads in, you fumble the voice settings once, you walk the tutorial area together, you spot the red tower, and someone says "wait, what are those red things?" — and that's the whole game opening up. Congratulations, you're walking.

Next: Tips & Tricks, or jump straight to the Walkthrough.