I’m in the tutorial area of Big Walk, on hour seven of a day-long vigil. I’ve been sitting on this little yellow stool for hours, a glowing orb light in front of me at the center of a circle of stools. Also arranged in the circle are the bodies of three other players, stiff and abandoned by their hosts hours before. I’m tired. I’m bored. I’m ready to log off.

Then, I see it. Coming out of one of the starting doors. A glint of silver. A flash of red.

I first learned about John Bigwalk in passing while scrolling through the Big Walk subreddit. My first encounter with the name was this post:

At first, I thought this person was just making some sort of goof I didn’t understand about the basic concept of a protagonist in the game Big Walk. But then I read the thread, in which people were claiming to have encountered someone in their games going by the name John Bigwalk. Some seemed to be joking:

I did more research. It wasn’t just a fluke. Some guy calling himself John Bigwalk really was joining people’s lobbies in Big Walk and making an impression:

Reading through the various accounts, I was able to assemble an idea of what was going on here. Normally, Big Walk is a game you play with a small group of intimate friends—there’s no random matchmaking or anything like that. But for those who don’t have anyone to play with, or who just want the experience of playing with strangers, various Discords and community spaces have popped up to facilitate people matchmaking themselves into groups.

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