Out of respect
What House House prioritizes in their video games
House House’s new game Big Walk has been very successful, with a million copies sold in its first week. A lot of the praise has been on its ability to redefine a poorly-named category and carve out its own space as a unique experience to share with friends. While using communication in novel ways is a big draw for players of all kinds, I think Big Walk resonates beyond a single game mechanic for the same reason Untitled Goose Game was so successful:
It has a very strong sense of place.
Early on in Big Walk, you will come across a large physical map of the island, which serves as a helpful reference for players in determining the layout of the environment and exploring the space. The world feels grounded, like it could be a real place.
This is because it is.
House House is a video game studio based in Melbourne, Australia. A few hours away is Wilsons Promontory National Park, which is the inspiration for the island of Big Walk.
I found it interesting that this video game world so closely mirrored a real place. This map was not just an in-game reference for the player: it was an external reference for the designers.
Jake Strasser talks about this approach in a talk he gave on designing the environment for Untitled Goose Game. Not being from Australia, I was surprised how he began his talk:
Hello and welcome to my talk…Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land that I’m recording on: the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. And I’d like to pay my respects to their elders, past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded, and this always was, always will be, aboriginal land.
A similar message is included in the credits of Untitled Goose Game and Big Walk. Living in a place where there is strong emphasis on approaching an environment and its people with respect—a place where that respect has not historically been given or acknowledged—becomes an important design decision for how a level is constructed. In the talk, Jake says he had never been to the UK when working on Untitled Goose Game, but used Google Earth for location scouting, a technique informed by his experiences in film school. He emphasizes the importance of doing justice to a place, ensuring that their game represents it with nuance and authenticity, serving as a strong anchor for meaningful gameplay and humor.
In their next game, House House employed the same practice, bringing it closer to home. They took great care to make the experience of Big Walk true to going on a big walk in their nearby national park. As Em, who toured the park to get sounds for the game puts it: “When you play Big Walk you’re exploring a real place.”
This can be thought of as attention-to-detail, but I think a better description is respect. Starting with a real place, real people, real history, House House anchors their games with a strong foundation, allowing for meaningful stories and gameplay to be built on top. Using these rich references, they respect both the origin of a place, and the players who explore the places they create.
Let’s end on this note: game release trailers are tricky. It can be a challenge to distill unique games with years of work behind them into just a few sentences. It is notable that House House chooses to begin their explanation of Big Walk upon its release this way:
It’s a place for friends to have a big adventure.
Just like the real thing.
🔴🟡🔵
Images
- In-game screenshots
- Google Maps
- Bluesky Screenshot, Em
- Big Walk Presskit, © 2026 House House in cooperation with Panic