I admit that I fell into playing Blue Prince, a seemingly quirky offering from game studio Dogubomb listed among April’s Xbox Game Pass titles, without realizing how obsessed I was about to become.
A charming first-person, rogue-like, puzzle-solving explorer (even now I find it hard to find the right words to describe this genre-defying gem), on the surface Blue Prince looked like a pleasant way to waste an hour or two while waiting for meatier titles to drop.
How wrong I was! As I write these words on Day 27 of my loop, I laugh at my own naivety, and the lightness of my unburdened mind. What was there to think about before Room 46? Nothing of any importance, surely.
You step into the game as Simon P. Jones, a teenage heir to a vast fortune, tasked with claiming his late great-uncle’s estate. However, great-uncle Herbert S. Sinclair seems to have been quite a character. His will stipulates that you can only inherit the sprawling Mount Holly pile if you are able to locate a hidden room — Room 46, a mysterious space that does not appear on the extensive mansion blueprints. Failure to do so means losing everything.
You must not fail, Simon! There is so much more than you realize at stake.
You begin in the Entrance Hall at 8 a.m. A set of blueprints rests on a table nearby ready for you to use as your game map, inventory, and guide. Ahead lie 3 doors, branching North, East, and West. What next?
Whichever door you choose will kick off your adventure.
Opening a door grants you access to one of three rooms, randomly generated by the game. Choose one and it instantly appears on your blueprints, and also blossoms into reality, waiting for you to step through.
Sometimes you’ll conjure a kitchen, or dining room where you can eat, or an office or study offering clues as to the whereabouts of Room 46. Other drafted rooms help to unlock parts of the map you have yet to discover, or unlock special doors ahead. On occasion you’ll draw a red card, signifying the room ahead will take something from you or make your search more difficult.
Your blueprints allow you to create a mansion consisting of various rooms, utilities, corridors, closets, garages, verandas, garden rooms, and more, all drafted on a 5×9 grid on your blueprints. If you have not managed to find Room 46 before you decide to call it a day, you must try again tomorrow.
Sounds easy, right? But there’s a catch. The mansion resets at night, meaning all of the rooms you have placed that day disappear, forcing you to rebuild again from scratch. Stuck in a loop, and with nothing where it was yesterday, you’re going to need to rely on more than just luck or brute forcing a run of particular room types to get to your objective.
The gameplay loop is intoxicating. Addictive. Ha! I can’t stop playing.
This roguelike mechanic, reminiscent of board games like Betrayal at House on the Hill, forces you to balance and consider resources carefully. You begin each day with a finite number of ‘steps’ you can take before becoming exhausted and being forced to call it a day. Each time you enter or re-enter a room you lose a step. Steps can be replenished by eating food items found in particular rooms, or by ‘resting’ in bedrooms. There are also keys which will help you unlock tricky doors, and collectible gems which you can use as payment in drafting specific extremely helpful rooms.
In fact there are myriad items in the game that can be used to your advantage — shovels, metal detectors, a compass, electronic key cards, a sledgehammer, special keys, a coin purse, and many, many more. Additionally, I should note that practically every room holds a piece of some puzzle or some clue of note.
Blue Prince is reminiscent of Outer Wilds (not to be confused with The Outer Worlds), another masterpiece in which a daily time-loop acts as the backdrop to something greater than the sum of its parts. The experience of incrementally teasing out the narrative, and inching closer to your goal is immensely satisfying. In both Blue Prince and Outer Wilds there is no such thing as a wasted day. Everything you learn you’ll need in the next loop.
Every time I come back, I’m better. Stronger. Today will be the day I find Room 46.
The premise may sound simple, but it was only on my fifth or sixth day that I began to realize the level of planning and strategy I was going to need if I was ever to successfully piece together the mansion’s kaleidoscopic secrets. Over repeated loops (may I suggest you get a notebook? There are puzzles everywhere!) your experience begins to unfold into a fractal of interlocking systems and mysteries, family drama, and political intrigue… and even deeper mysteries.
I was on day 12 of my loop before I realized I could turn around in the Entrance Hall and simply walk outside, opening up a whole new world of exploration. I was on day 20 when I began to feel that certain rooms wanted to belong on certain tiles in the blueprints.
I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew.
There were loops where I ended the day early, completely satisfied I had gained access to a secret code, or revealing letter, or a new way to enter the mansion, and looking forward to the next day’s blessedly blank slate. There were other days, a square on the grid away from Room 46, where I howled in frustration because I drafted a dead-end room with no way forward instead.
The mansion’s ever-shifting nature, paired with puzzles ranging from logic problems to environmental riddles, keeps every run fresh yet deeply purposeful. Every failed attempt feels productive, as you scribble notes about a safe’s code or a cryptic note’s meaning.
Can’t lose the notebook. Now that I know about The Foundation. But where is it? And what is the significance of the Realms? Better make a note of that.
To call Blue Prince just another puzzle game is to undersell its grand ambition. In fact, this genre-defying debut is a labyrinth of secrets, strategy, and storytelling that will consume your thoughts long after you’ve stepped away from the screen.
Room 46 WANTS to be found. It’s calling to me.
Visually, Blue Prince is a stunner too. Its graphic novel-inspired cell-shaded art style makes every room feel alive with history. The sound design — from echoing footsteps, to the scrape of a key in a lock or the rustle of leaves in a courtyard — amplifies the eerie yet cozy atmosphere. The narrative, revealed through scattered letters and natural environmental storytelling, starts as a simple inheritance quest but evolves into something much greater. Without spoiling, the story’s depth rivals the best puzzle games, tying mechanics and themes together in a way that feels profoundly enjoyable.
That said, Blue Prince isn’t flawless.
I didn’t write that.
The randomization can occasionally frustrate, especially when a bad room draw derails a promising run.
No. That’s not true. There are no bad runs. Only whispers of a better tomorrow.
To boot, the lack of a mid-run save option also stings for players with limited time, as quitting means losing your progress. Yet these quirks feel like features, not bugs, encouraging you to embrace the mansion’s unpredictability and savor your small victories.
Another gripe is that some puzzles feel over complex in the number of steps required to solve them, and in the details revealed thereafter. Even after the game ends, players are invited to return and continue to dig deeper.
Wait. How far down does this thing go?
“The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tightening, infinitely.” ― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down
However, Blue Prince is still a triumph of design, blending rogue-like strategy, first-person exploration, and puzzle-solving into an experience that’s as addictive as it is cerebral. And while comparisons to Outer Wilds, Myst, and others are all apt, this game carves its own niche.
Day 40. Lost in the catacombs. I finally understand. I see everything. It’s all so beautiful…
For puzzle fans, strategy enthusiasts, or anyone craving a game that respects your intelligence, Blue Prince is an obsession worth indulging. Right now.
Our score: 9/10. Blue Prince is a must-play for anyone who loves a challenge that rewards curiosity and persistence.
Genre: Roguelike Puzzle Adventure
Platform: PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S (and day one on PlayStation Plus Premium and Xbox Game Pass)
Release: April 10, 2025
Studio: Dogubomb
Publisher: Raw Fury