Blue Prince review: The top game of 2025 will change your thinking.

      "Blue Prince is an engaging puzzle game that could alter your brain chemistry."

      **Pros**

      - Brilliant design

      - Compelling roguelike element

      - Captivating puzzles

      - Continuous discoveries

      After nights filled with both frustration and joy, I've reached this pivotal moment. Although there’s no action, my heart races. It feels like I'm on the verge of breaking free from a cocoon; there’s another identity forming inside me, another mind swelling within my own.

      Just a few more steps. That’s all it takes for me to perhaps experience a rebirth.

      It’s Wednesday evening. I'm sprawled on the couch, just as I have been all week after a sleepless weekend. The sleep debt from a 24-hour wakefulness during a charity live stream on Saturday night has taken its toll. The only task I’ve managed all week is to hold onto my Steam Deck and explore Blue Prince, a mysterious new puzzle game from Raw Fury that has intrigued me for a year since I was the first to demo it at last year’s Game Developers Conference. It has lingered in my thoughts ever since.

      Now, a year later, I’m on the brink of solving it. This achievement comes after days fraught with trial and error. I’ve examined every shifting corner of the enigmatic Mt. Holly manor, with my notebook filled to the brim with clues and my phone filled with shaky screenshots. There’s no space left in my mind; this is all I’ve contemplated for a week, and the end may be near. Am I feeling relief? Or is it a creeping terror? What will remain once I achieve my moment of victory?

      And then, yet another failure. Back to the entrance hall, where it always begins. Inhale deeply. Don't become frustrated. Return to the beginning. Recall your order of operations. Spread out the pieces and assemble them one by one. What is certain?

      Right. I know that Blue Prince begins with a death. My affluent uncle has died and left me his estate in his will. I’m not sure why; I hardly feel deserving, but it’s my obligation now. Or it will be, provided I comply with the condition stated in his final wishes: I won’t receive the keys until I uncover a secret 46th room locked somewhere deep in the manor. It’s just one house. How vast could it possibly be?

      I’m in the entrance hall. It is Day 1.

      Raw Fury

      I’m viewing the scene in first-person perspective, standing in a square room with three closed doors in front of me. I click on one, revealing three tiles before me. These represent the potential rooms on the other side: bedrooms, hallways, boudoirs. Each room has its unique layout of exits and entrances that I must consider before establishing my sections. After making my selection, I can enter that room and move to the next door. Each room is filled with items to collect: keys for unlocking doors, gems necessary for revealing rare rooms later, items whose uses I’ll have to decipher along the way, and the occasional piece of fruit that can restore my stamina, which diminishes by one point each time I enter a new room.

      If I trap myself in too many dead ends or run out of stamina, I’ll need to end the session and return tomorrow, when all the rooms reset like cards shuffled back into a deck. It's a puzzle game. It’s a roguelike. It’s a strategy game. It’s Blue Prince.

      It hooks me instantly, providing the tactile enjoyment of a board game like Betrayal at House on the Hill. With each attempt, I'm constructing a maze of interconnected hallways. I'm an architect trying to fit as many square rooms as possible into a tidy grid. The experience captivates me as it would while assembling a jigsaw puzzle. It simply feels rewarding to see my randomly assembled rooms fit together into a space for exploration.

      What have I learned since then? Well, I realize there's more strategy involved than merely ensuring each room connects into a single navigable path through the manor. When is the right moment to explore dead-end rooms? Does the color of the rooms hold any significance? When should I prioritize placing down rooms that give me gems as opposed to keys? I didn’t know any of this before. I do now. Don’t lose hope; I've transformed from a clueless novice into a well of knowledge in just 50 in-game days.

      I can uncover Room 46. Focus.

      Raw Fury

      Seek out solutions. Success in Blue Prince isn’t just about reaching the conclusion; every run in which I learn something new is a triumph. There are layers of puzzles within the overarching puzzle. What’s the purpose of that dartboard in the game room with its illuminated targets? I’ve now become adept at interpreting it and discovering what lies behind. The boiler room, which once seemed impossible