Ready for a Blue Prince review? The game has snuck up on us from the sidelines and left us puzzled in many delightful ways. The new release from Dogubomb is designed to leave its players wondrously stumped, forcing them to actively engage their brains to play rather than invest in the button mashing experience that has grown popular today.

The last game we played where we were actively engaged was Wanderstop, but there was a more introspective, emotional tone to the engagement. With the new Blue Prince mystery game, we’re enchanted by the ever-evolving nature of the gameplay and the potential presented for deckbuilding indie roguelike games. Forbes’ Blue Prince impressions came with the label of “Instant GOTY contender,” and we’re leaning towards agreeing with this assessment. 

The Blue Prince release date has been set for April 10, 2025, so the official launch is nearly upon us. If you’re curious to see where you can put your money—other than investing in a shiny, expensive Switch 2—then read ahead to see why this mystery puzzle roguelike should be your next investment.

indie roguelike game

Writing a Blue Prince review isn’t easy considering how much there is to the story, gameplay, and structure of this game. (Blue Prince Atmospheric Trailer)

Blue Prince Review—Take Measured Steps; You Can’t Get Too Far Without Thinking First

Blue Prince is a new puzzle video game by developer Dogubomb and publisher Raw Fury, designed on the Unity engine. The game is releasing on April 10, 2025, and will soon be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The game design is one of the most interesting concepts we’ve seen in years, taking a board-game-like approach to the capabilities of video gaming. 

The indie roguelike game emerged from the mind of developer Tonda Ros, who began building the game even before he fully knew what a roguelike game was. For a game that has been years in the making, the positive reviews for Blue Prince should tell you that the wait is about to pay off.

Blue Prince Storyline: What Is It About?

To kick off our Blue Prince review, we must first talk about the story. The game revolves around Simon, a young teenager with a big inheritance. Left with a mysterious mansion named Mount Holly, Simon is on a mission to explore the 45 rooms of the building with the intention to also discover the elusive 46th room to become the rightful heir to the house. 

This might sound easy enough, but each day, the layout of the house resets and represents a new challenge for Simon. This is where the roguelike element comes in, as Simon explores the mansion from a first-person perspective, picking a room from the three options presented every time he opens a new door and pieces together the floor plan of the day. Simon also has a limited number of steps, so each one must be calculated correctly. 

The Blue Prince mystery game isn’t just about opening doors and moving from room to room. There are family secrets to uncover, political intrigue to indulge in, and a mysterious disappearance that’s as interesting as the rumored 46th room. The indie roguelike game is astounding in its concept, and each playthrough results in a unique experience.

Blue prince release

The Blue Prince mystery game will take some getting used to, so expect your first few playthroughs to be a little confusing.

Blue Prince Gameplay: What Do You Do?

The genre-defying mystery indie roguelike game offers a fresh start to players every day, presenting them with a new challenge as they stand at the Entrance Hall. Players must begin from the bottom of the 5×9 grid and pick from three randomly presented rooms to draft the floor plan for their next step into the mansion. These could be dead-end rooms, empty corridors, or puzzle-filled rooms that offer a new opportunity for exploration. 

Track Your Steps Carefully in Blue Prince

The Blue Prince gameplay comes with restrictions—players have a limited number of steps each day, and each room counts as a step forward. What happens when you run out of steps? The day ends, and the game resets. Some rooms might add steps into your reserve while others might detract a few extra. 

Resources Are Great, but They Also Reset

You can also collect items through the game as you play, and many of these contribute to your ability to explore further. Gems help with drafting complex rooms, while a sledgehammer can come in handy when you need brute force to smash through a chest that’s locked to you.

Unfortunately for players, these resources may also be reset at the end of the day or when the steps run out, but there may be a way to preserve them when the opportunity presents itself. Resource management is a big part of the indie roguelike game, and depending on how you feel about such game mechanisms, your own Blue Prince review might be starkly different from ours.

Puzzles, Puzzles, Puzzles—It’s Not Just an Exploration Game

There are a healthy number of puzzles scattered throughout the game that will require you to apply yourself more than the average room escape game. From logic puzzles to understanding and interacting with your environment, you’ll have to think hard about solutions that may not be obvious in your first few runs through the game.

With each playthrough, you’ll be able to carry over knowledge and certain upgrades from the previous day, making it a little easier to draft the floor plan and uncover the secrets preserved by the Blue Prince mystery game. We recommend sitting down with a little notebook to keep track of some of the discoveries you make with each run. This is the detective mystery game you’ve always dreamed of.

Who Should Play Blue Prince?

Just because we love the idea and concept behind the game does not mean that every gamer will enjoy Blue Prince’s gameplay. It might feel repetitive and frustrating to many, particularly those who like progression-based games where you get stronger, faster, and better every day. Some playthroughs could see you stuck and retracing your steps rather than getting further, and that’s obviously frustrating. You should buy Blue Prince if you:

  • Like slow-paced, long-drawn games that make you think
  • Enjoy new challenges and do not mind being limited by things like steps or resources
  • Like puzzles, escape room adventures, and hidden object games
  • Enjoy RPG-based games where there is an element of luck that determines which three rooms you draw at every door
  • Can play for longer hours at a stretch because you don’t risk resetting your day when you decide to stop and come back to it later
  • Like piecing together complex stories that often start to take priority over discovering the 46th room
  • Want to appreciate a game that tries to do something unique with its layered approach to mystery-solving
game of the year 2025

There are are a lot of choices to be made throughout the Blue Prince game, so put your thinking cap on before you get started.

Where can I play Blue Prince?

Blue Prince will be released on April 10, 2025, and will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows PC. It will be available on day one with Xbox Game Pass for free. The game is expected to be priced at $29.99 / €29.99 / £24.99, according to the Discord server.

Games Similar to Blue Prince

Recently, we’ve found ourselves completely hooked to a few brilliant free Android mobile games by Peruvian indie game studio Dark Dome, and this seems like a good time to support their games. Whether we talk about Nowhere House, Haunted Laia, or one of their other titles, each game is a masterpiece. 

While these are not nearly as complex as we’ve shown in the Blue Prince game analysis, they also offer some immersive storytelling with interesting puzzles and mysteries to uncover and can be finished quite quickly if you prefer to wrap things up quickly.

Return of the Obra Dinn, The Wolf Among Us, and Outer Wilds are some mystery titles we’d also recommend for more experienced gamers. Blue Prince is far more ambitious in comparison, but if you’re looking to get in the mood for the Blue Prince release, then why not start with these engaging mystery games?

Blue Prince gameplay

We didn’t dive into Blue Prince’s game design but the visuals are quite impressive as well.

Blue Prince Impressions: Final Thoughts

Is Blue Prince the Game of the Year for 2025? It certainly is a top contender, as it is the highest-rated game on Metacritic at the moment. Innovative, genre-defying games like Blue Prince are rare to see, and they reset the standards of what is possible. Sure, seeing each blade of grass sway in the breeze in Assassin’s Creed Shadows is great, but more than enhancing graphics, the mystery puzzle roguelike Blue Prince does something truly innovative with its concept and gameplay.

Although it’s an entirely different genre, we’re nearly certain that GTA 6 will arrive later in the year to distract gamers from all the releases that came before it, but we’re fairly certain that we’ll return to this Blue Prince review and play through the game again, just to remind ourselves of everything it has to offer.

Leave us your Blue Princes reviews to tell us what you think about the game. Then subscribe to Technowize so you’re always ready for the latest and greatest game releases you’re set to see this year.

tagged in Blue Prince game analysis, Blue Prince gameplay, Blue Prince impressions, Blue Prince mystery game, Blue Prince review, Game of the Year 2025, indie roguelike game, mystery puzzle roguelike
Share: