Blue Prince.

The Gavler Review.

Blue Prince Review: 2025's Puzzle-Mansion Sleeper Hit

Blue Prince ranks number 9 on Gavler's Best Games of 2025 list with a 9.1 — the highest score on that list held by a game most casual shoppers still haven't heard of. It's a roguelike puzzle game built around a mansion that rebuilds its own floor plan every time you play, and it rewards a very specific kind of buyer: someone willing to keep a notebook nearby and resist the urge to look anything up. PC Gamer's Christopher Livingston, who scored it 92 out of 100, put it simply: this is "one of the best puzzle games in years." The catch is patience — Blue Prince asks for dozens of hours of trial, error, and note-taking before its deepest secrets click, and the game's reliance on random room draws means even devoted players will hit stretches of bad luck along the way. This review, by The Gavler Team, lays out what that investment actually buys.

What it is

Blue Prince comes from Dogubomb, an indie studio that spent more than eight years building it, and is published by Raw Fury. You inherit a sprawling estate from an eccentric relative with one condition attached: explore the mansion's 45 rooms and find the hidden 46th. The twist is that you're building the house as you go. Standing at any doorway, you're offered a choice of three room cards — say, a kitchen, a den, or a cloister — and whichever you draft becomes the room that's actually there. Doors need to connect into a walkable path, rooms carry positive and negative attributes (a darkroom hides your next choices, a drawing room lets you re-roll them), and you're managing a pool of keys, gems, and coins as you push deeper.

The real constraint is a step budget: 50 steps per day, with each doorway costing one. Run out, and the mansion resets completely — cards reshuffle, your inventory empties, and you start the next day from the foyer. What carries forward is knowledge: codes, notes, and permanent unlocks that make each subsequent run smarter than the last. It released April 10, 2025, on Windows, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch 2, priced at $29.99, and holds a 92 on Metacritic with an E10+ rating.

In use

The mechanical hook — draft rooms, spend steps, manage resources, reset, repeat — would work as a tight strategy game on its own. What elevates Blue Prince is the puzzle layer stacked on top of it. Livingston's PC Gamer review captures the appeal better than a plot summary could: "I filled over a dozen pages on my pad with notes, diagrams, names, dates, doodles, and codes. I've got the 45-room grid of the mansion drawn on two separate sheets of paper tracking two different puzzle elements that involve most of the building." That's not hyperbole for effect — Blue Prince genuinely expects you to treat it like a detective board, connecting a note found on day 3 to a code that only makes sense on day 11.

Gavler's own baseline coverage lines up with that reception: GameSpot called it "a sleeper hit and one of the best-reviewed games of 2025," and the pattern holds across outlets — this wasn't a game anyone expected to dominate the conversation, and it did anyway.

It isn't friction-free. Livingston is honest about the game's reliance on randomness undercutting its best moments: "You occasionally have to contend with the foul sting of RNG in that house... Sometimes a run will shower me with coins but give me nothing to spend them on, or I'll face locked doors at every turn but never find the keys to open them." He calls those stretches rare rather than common, but they're real, and they're the single biggest asterisk on an otherwise glowing critical consensus.

Strengths

• A puzzle-mansion structure nobody else is doing. Part deckbuilder, part board game, part detective mystery — Blue Prince doesn't resemble its closest genre neighbors so much as invent its own hybrid.
• Generational depth. Puzzles planted early only make sense dozens of hours later, which keeps long-term players engaged well past the point most roguelikes go stale.
• Broad platform support. Windows, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch 2 all launched with the game — no waiting on a delayed port.
• A $29.99 price against a 92 Metacritic score. Few games in 2025 delivered this much acclaimed content for under $30.
• Permanence that respects your time. Even a "wasted" run can set up tomorrow's success — prepping a mailroom delivery or leaving a key in the coat check for your next attempt.

The trade-offs — who should skip it

Blue Prince's format is also its biggest filter. If you're the type of player who reaches for a guide the moment you're stuck, this game will actively resist you — its entire appeal collapses if you look up the solution to its central mystery before you find it yourself. Livingston's advice is blunt: "Don't Google puzzle solutions. Don't watch walkthroughs or look at guides if you can help it." That's not a minor style preference; it's close to a prerequisite for enjoying the game as designed.

The RNG-driven room drafting is a second real friction point. Runs where the mansion simply doesn't hand you the keys, gems, or connective rooms you need can feel like wasted time rather than meaningful failure, and players who dislike randomness governing their progress — even mild randomness — should know it's baked into every session. Finally, this is a slow-burn puzzle game first and an action or narrative game a distant second; anyone looking for combat, a driving plot, or short, disposable sessions should look elsewhere on this list.

How it compares

Blue Prince shares its list with two very different kinds of 2025 standouts. Doom: The Dark Ages, ranked one spot below at number 10 with an 8.7, is the list's answer for anyone who wants the opposite experience — loud, aggressive, and immediate rather than slow and cerebral. Hades II, ranked 5th with a 9.2, is a closer cousin structurally — another roguelike built on repeated runs and accumulated knowledge — but trades puzzle-box mystery for combat-driven build variety. If Blue Prince's patient, note-taking pace doesn't sound appealing, Hades II is the better roguelike entry point on this same list.

The Gavler verdict

A 9.1, and one of the more deserved scores on Gavler's Best Games of 2025 list. Blue Prince's 92 Metacritic average isn't inflated goodwill for an indie underdog — it reflects a genuinely singular design that critics and players alike found themselves still thinking about weeks after finishing. The RNG-driven rough patches and the demand for total spoiler discipline are real costs, not nitpicks, but they're the price of admission for one of the most inventive puzzle games in years. Go in blind, keep a notebook close, and give it the time it asks for.

Common Questions

Is Blue Prince worth it in 2026?

Yes — it ranks number 9 on Gavler's Best Games of 2025 list with a 9.1, backed by a 92 Metacritic score. PC Gamer's Christopher Livingston, who scored it 92, called it 'one of the best puzzle games in years' after roughly 25 hours reaching its hidden 46th room.

How long does it take to beat Blue Prince?

It varies enormously by how methodically you play. PC Gamer's reviewer needed about 25 hours to reach the mansion's hidden 46th room without using any guides, and noted he still had puzzles left to solve after finishing.

What platforms is Blue Prince on?

Blue Prince is available on Windows, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch 2, at a list price of $29.99.