No. 42 in The Noteworthy 50 · Party Battle Royale
Fall Guys
Sixty jellybeans fall off an obstacle course, and it is still funnier than it has any right to be.
Fall Guys took the battle royale structure — many enter, one wins — and removed the guns, the stakes and the stress. What is left is sixty wobbly beans falling off spinning platforms, and the discovery in 2020 was that this is genuinely, durably funny. Losing is not frustrating here in the way losing is everywhere else on this list, because losing is the joke.
The physics do the heavy lifting. Characters are deliberately imprecise — momentum carries you, collisions send you tumbling, and grabbing another player is always an option. That imprecision means even a skilled player can be undone by a crowd, which keeps the outcome uncertain and the tone light.
Depth is the limit
There is not much of it. The round pool is finite, and once you have learned the optimal line through Slime Climb and the trick to Hex-A-Gone, the game becomes execution with a heavy dose of randomness. Team rounds are the weakest part — being eliminated because four strangers failed to collect eggs is the one genuinely irritating thing here. Creative mode, which lets players build courses, has extended the life considerably.
Free on everything, playable by a five-year-old and an adult in the same lobby, and disposable in the best way. It is not going to hold anyone for a season, but as a game to have installed for an occasional half hour it earns its place.
What works
- Immediately readable and playable by literally anyone
- Physics comedy that stays funny across hundreds of rounds
- Free, cross-platform, and runs on everything including phones
- Creative mode lets players build and share their own courses
What doesn't
- Round variety is limited and repetition sets in within weeks
- Some minigames are decided by luck rather than skill
- The cosmetic store leans heavily on licensed crossover FOMO
- Team rounds punish you for other people's failures
The Catch — what it will cost you
Free since 2022, cosmetics only — but the store is aggressive with limited-time licensed collaborations, and the audience is largely children. Show Bucks and Kudos create the usual two-currency confusion that exists to obscure real prices. The battle pass is decent value if you play regularly.
Who it's for: Families, casual groups and anyone who wants a competitive game with zero stress.
If you like this
Review
Rocket League
A perfect design executed almost perfectly, with a skill ceiling that has not been found yet.
Review
Brawl Stars
Excellent moment-to-moment design and a brawler economy that still gates too much behind luck and money.