Thin Ice

Thin Ice is one of the rounds in Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout. This round is a Final round and was first introduced in Season 3.

In-game descriptions

 * Objective
 * Don't fall through!


 * Description
 * Stay atop the cracking ice to avoid the slime below!

Standard version
Thin Ice consists of three layers of 177 hex tiles each, displayed in a grid and stacked directly on top of one another, for a total of 531 tiles.

Thin Ice is a survival final stage, being somewhat of a spiritual successor to Hex-A-Gone. The stage consists of three layers of icy hexagons, slowly being broken down as the players move around. This also means that the tiles have ice physics, where players slide on them. The tiles have three stages of breakage: clean, slightly damaged, and very damaged. Every time a player steps onto a tile, the tile converts to its next form, going in order as mentioned earlier, though there is about a second after it converts where the tile is immune to changing. After a player has stepped on to it while a tile is in its very damaged state, it will crack once more and begin to shake, where it breaks one second later. When a player touches the slime beneath the ice, they are disqualified. The last player to not be disqualified wins.

If the round lasts for 5 minutes, all remaining players will receive a crown. The probability of that happening legitimately is remote, and is more likely to occur if there are not many runners, most of the lobby gets eliminated early, and/or the round starts with a lower population.

Alternate version
Starting from Season 4.5, the following variants may appear:


 * The number of tiles may be reduced to three layers of 85 tiles each (for a total of 255).
 * The entire arena may be surrounded by a low gravity zone.
 * The low-gravity variant appears to almost always coincide with the smaller arena, but the smaller arena can also potentially appear on its own, likely in low-population finals.
 * The number of tiles may be reduced to three layers with differing numbers of tiles, with the topmost layer having 72 tiles, the middle layer having 121 tiles, and the bottom layer having 177 tiles (for a total of 370).

Running (Passive)
This is one of the only strategies at the beginning of the game, as the beginning takes a while to get down to the bottom layer as players slowly whittle each layer. This is the best to get rid of more tiles more quickly, making it less likely for people to stand on a large amount of platforms near the end.

Grab and Run (Aggressive)
When there's a tile on the lowest layer that will break after one more step, it's possible to grab a person standing on that platform to stop them from jumping/running away from the breaking platform. This strategy is very risky though, as you could fall into the same hole that they fall into.

Trapping
Because of the decently large number of players that would just run laps around the ice, the trapping tactic could be used to catch a few of them unaware, leading to a few early eliminations. Stand on a group of 2-3 tiles and break it all the way down to the lowest layer, then start to break the lowest layer, jump out and dive to safety. Be warned that other players could use the aforementioned grabbing strategy to eliminate you while you are setting up these traps.

Hopping (Endurance-based)
A returning strategy from Hex-A-Gone, when there are only a few platforms accessible to you, it's possible to jump from platform to platform to slow the ice breaking time. A more advanced version would be to jump on the same platform more than once each time the ice is about to exit its immunity phase. This will let each platform last a little bit longer, giving you a boost of time.

Specifically, if the jumps are timed well enough, it is possible to jump twice on a tile before it cracks to the next stage, meaning an unbroken tile can last for up to six consecutive jumps.

Again, like Hex-A-Gone, the jump-diving strategy can be used to great effect here, eating the tiles up even more slowly. From one tile, jump, then dive to another tile directly next to your current tile. Messing this strategy up is slightly less consequential compared to Hex-A-Gone due to the general tile durability.

Timing out
If Thin Ice starts out with a lower number of players (around 6 or below) and you do not mind sharing the win, start tile-jumping on a single tile using the aforementioned strategy, shifting to other tiles when the one you're jumping on breaks, as soon as the round starts. If done correctly, tile-jumping makes a single tile last for roughly 3 and a half seconds, and with the number of tiles in the round, 6 players can barely time it out if all players tile-jump for the entire 5 minutes. If your opponents are not willing to do the same, tile-jumping can still allow you to constantly assess the state of the field while remaining relatively still in one spot.

Timing this out may also be possible with a larger starting number of players, if for some reason multiple people all inexplicably fall off early. This rarely happens, however - just carefully decide on what to do depending on the number of players and the remaining ice.

Miscellaneous

 * Be extremely careful when near other players, as colliding into them has a sizable chance of causing you to ragdoll and lose control. This can prove to be very costly in the endgame, especially if you're chasing someone else over the most fragile tiles. This has since become less of an issue as off season 4 as Fall Guys were made sturdier and harder to topple, but it can still happen.
 * Avoid walking along the very edges of the map as it not only puts you very close to the slime, but also sets you on a very predictable movement path, making it very easy for other players to intercept you, grab you from the side (so it is impossible to grab them back) and push you off the map.

Alternate version

 * The same strategies apply for the variants with reduced tiles, but it becomes all but impossible to time the round out.
 * Thin Ice becomes a much more passive game when low gravity is present. Attempting to trap other players is significantly more difficult, since your opponents will likely be able to jump across the gaps you create. As a result, usually the optimal strategy is to passively jump from tile to tile.
 * Keep in mind that the tile you're aiming for may disappear while you're still in the air. Be prepared to dive for another tile in case this happens. Alternatively, you can try to remove a tile that another player is aiming for; if done successfully, they'll be forced into the slime.

Survival Variant
A Survival type variant was introduced in the Thin Ice Trials playlist on 2021-03-19. In this variant, the round ends when only a certain number of players are eliminated, leaving 75% players after round 1, and 60% of the remaining players after round 2.

Utilize almost all the same strategies for this version, but be warned that the initial larger number of players can make things trickier. Running is far more encouraged here in order to quickly break the ice and get players eliminated faster. Just be very mindful of where you're running, and be especially careful of ragdolling off other players here.

Medal thresholds

 * Gold - Winner! (or Qualified, if Survival-type variant is played)
 * No medal - Eliminated

Trivia

 * This is the first final round (alongside Roll Off) since Jump Showdown was added on 2020-08-12. There were many complaints about the lack of new final rounds in Season 2.
 * At the start of Season 3, Thin Ice may have been selected to be played really early into a show, and with far more people than the 20 player maximum. This bug is ostensibly patched.
 * Starting in 2020-02-02, Thin Ice’s Music, Final Fall was replaced with Winter Fallympics.


 * Strangely enough, the variation with different numbers of tiles in each layer is not perfectly symmetrical, with a single tile missing from the top layer.