Gaming
Chinese company acquires mobile rights to Fall Guys. Can the U.S. be next, please?
The Chinese-owned Bilibili plans to release a mobile port of the massively successful game soon, but what does this mean for stateside gamers?
Already becoming a massively viral success on PC and PS4 earlier this month, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is hitting mobile platforms in the very near future... if you happen to live in China. Over the weekend it was announced that the Chinese-owned company, Bilibili, acquired the rights to port Mediatonic's hit game for mobile devices. Meanwhile, TikTok would like a word...
No word on a release date — Unfortunately, that's pretty much all we know so far about the hit brawler making it to smartphones across the Pacific. That said, it does highlight what is undoubtedly a massive, behind-the-scenes scrabble to buy up distribution rights for other platforms. With the announcement that Fall Guys is coming to Chinese citizens' pockets in the coming months, American consumers will be eager for similar access. It's probably safe to say that Fall Guys on an iPhone is not so much a question of "If?" as it is "When?"
Don't fall (guy) for it — Somewhat ironically, the official Fall Guys Twitter account tweeted out a warning for fans about potential mobile port scams just last week. Life comes at you fast, we guess. In their defense, it's certainly not unprecedented for those gaming scams. After Apple pulled Fortnite from the App Store, some real asshats started attempting to hawk iPhones with the game "pre-installed" on the device for as much as $10,000.
Speaking of fast, even in a world of viral phenomena, it's impressive just how quickly the video game has skyrocketed in popularity. For those of you still playing catch-up, allow us to fill you in on all the details with our handy Fall Guys primer. What sets the video game apart from its competitors is its reliance on cooperative mini-games and team challenges, as opposed to the shooter battle royales, a la Fortnite or PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
All that said, it's still relatively easy to hop on the Fall Guys bandwagon. If you have $20 and access to Steam or a Playstation 4, you can go ahead and start bashing your fellow jellybean-esque competitors in no time. Or, you could take that $20 and throw it into the Input office pool for how long it'll take before we get a mediocre CGI film adaptation starring Andy Samberg.
