Untitled Goose Game Began as a Workplace Slack Joke

The goose is finally loose. Untitled Goose Game was released today for Nintendo Switch and PC, and a tweet that seemingly depicts how this strange stealth game about a goose got made is circulating the internet.A tweet from 2016 by Michael McMaster, a developer on Untitled Goose Game, seemingly depicts a work Slack conversation that led to the creation of Untitled Goose Game. On August 10, 2016, McMaster shared several screen captures from the House House Slack. The conversation began when Stuart Gillespie-Cook messaged the group saying, “Let’s make a game about this,” and posted a picture of a goose.

The chat quickly devolved into a full-length conversation about the pros, and single con, of geese.

People think game development means you get to play games all day, but they’re wrong – it means you talk about geese pic.twitter.com/I8XvTWy7b1

— Michael McMaster (@mjmcmaster) August 11, 2016

House House explained that the in-joke became a real game to The Guardian in 2018. “We don’t have these geese experience. We’re complete outsiders,” House House programmer Nico Disseldorp said at the time. “To us, they might as well be a cartoon animal you don’t actually ever see in real life.”

IGN also reached out to House House for more context around their conversation, but the developers are out of the office to attend the Climate Strike (via Kotaku).

Untitled Goose Game is a stealth game where players control a mischievous goose who goes around and steals household objects. Why? Who can say for sure, but you can read IGN’s Untitled Goose Game review right here. You can also watch IGN’s review in the video below.

Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN. Honk him on Twitter.