A year after its announcement at E3 2019, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout has now been fully released on consoles. This wacky and colorful battle royale game has been met with high praise throughout its closed beta on PC. Now, PlayStation 4 owners have the opportunity to play the title for themselves. The game pits 60 players against each other in a wild series of competitions heavily reminiscent of game shows like Wipeout. Players then need to stay alive before a timer runs out or reach a finish line, depending on the type of competition. The last jelly-bean character standing at the end of 5 rounds wins.
Interestingly, one of the most challenging aspects of Fall Guys are the physics and how they affect the player characters. The odd bean shaped fellows are a little top heavy so it’s easy for players to find themselves tumbling left and right. Given that competitors can also grab each other, it can be difficult to stay upright and avoid falling off the course. Luckily, the game features very simplistic controls which can be fully customized on PC, making Fall Guys readily accessible to everyone. However, PS4 players are a little out of luck.
For players who would like to use their Dualshock 4 controller on PC, they can access the control hotkeys in the Settings menu. There, they will be able to completely adjust and customize how they want their controller layout to be. For some reason, these control options are not present on the PS4, although the same Dualshock 4 controller is being used on PC. This includes the lack of an Invert Y-Axis option. Mediatonic has expressed that they are looking into the issue and will be working to correct it. However, why the PC version of the game is fully capable of controls customization while the PS4 launch isn’t is unclear.
Fall Guys: PS4 Players Cannot Rebind Keys On Their Controllers
The ability to rebind keys in any game is critical, especially on the topic of accessibility. For players who may have limited mobility and are unable to fully utilize the default controls in Fall Guys, they may be completely barred from playing the game altogether. For the game to release without control options, especially when the same title features these settings on other platforms, is strange. Even for players who simply prefer a different key or button orientation, the lack of customization on the PS4 can be irritating. If anything, it can make Fall Guys extremely difficult if not nearly impossible to play, especially for users who enjoy having inverted Y-Axis controls.
Hopefully Mediatonic will be able to resolve this issue sooner rather than later. With the slew of problems the Fall Guys servers are facing, it is likely the developer will be putting their attention towards stabilizing the game before fixing the PS4 settings. Control binding is a quality-of-life feature that nearly all major games have so it’s critical for Mediatonic to address this issue if they want the game to retain its popularity. If anything, the missing controls option could put people off from purchasing the game on the PS4. At the very least, players may wait to order the game until the control settings are fixed. Ultimately, sales are what keep a game alive, and it would be unfortunate to see Fall Guys collapse due to this easily fixable problem.
Even with the PS4 issues, Fall Guys is still leading up to be a massive success. With constantly busy servers and new players joining the game every day, this unique battle royale is sure to thrive. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout will be part of Sony’s free selection of PS Plus games during the month of August, an event that is sure to bring many more colorful jelly-beans into the game.