One of 2025’s best-reviewed games is dropping on Xbox Game Pass this week — and chances are, you’ve never even heard of it.
Blue Prince has quietly taken critics by storm, earning a staggering 92 on Metacritic and already being hailed as a potential game of the year. Some are even calling it the best game they’ve ever played. And yet, until yesterday, it wasn’t even on my radar.
That changes now. With its official Xbox Game Pass launch set for April 10, Blue Prince could be 2025’s biggest sleeper hit — an indie darling poised to outshine even Balatro in surprise success.
But before we dive into what this mysterious game is, here’s a look at some of the glowing reviews, most of which strongly suggest you stop reading and just play the game.
Blue Prince Review Round up
- Eurogamer (5/5) – “Blue Prince seems aware of the time you’re spending within it, and that’s pure magic to me. The richest aspect of the game’s extremely rich design may be how many secrets it springs once you’ve lived with it for a while. It’s the pleasure of finding hidden aspects to things you thought you understood in full, the pleasure of coming back to something you thought was simple and finding that it’s not simple at all.”
- Xbox Era (10/10) – “It is an impeccably made work of absolute genius, and the team at Dogubomb and Game Director Tonda Ros have worked magic here. As I said at the start of this review, I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever played. Without a doubt a shoe-in for indie darling of the year, I’d give it an 11 out of 10 if I could.”
- PC Gamer (92/100) – I love Blue Prince so much I’m going to spend the next 1,500 words or so telling you as little about it as possible. Unraveling its many mysteries and solving its multitude of puzzles—several of which I’m still working on even after finishing the game—is best done if you go in with nearly no information. Don’t watch videos. Don’t Google solutions. Don’t even finish reading this review. Just go play it.
- Digital Spy (100/100) – “Blue Prince is a special game full of mysteries, secrets and mind-blowing moments with an addictive gameplay loop. It’s so good that labelling this as one of the best puzzle games of all time feels like a disservice. Instead, it’s possibly the most memorable experience I’ve ever had playing a game and I can’t stop thinking about it.”
- GAMINGbible (100/100) – “Blue Prince is one of the greatest video games I have ever played, but please: don’t read this review.”
- Noisy Pixel (100/100) – “I remember telling the developer, “Holy shit, this is incredible.” I’m not usually this blunt, but even in a loud room, I felt immersed in its creative designs.”
Read more reviews over at Metacritic, where the game currently sits at ‘Universal Acclaim’.
What is Blue Prince?
Honestly, I’d never heard of this game until yesterday, but my good friend Jon over at Xbox Era started waxing lyrical about it to me before publishing his review, since which I’ve watched a bunch of trailers and become obsessed. That being said I’ll be waiting until the Xbox Game Pass launch on April 10 to get my hands on the game officially.
From what I’ve garnered from the trailers, and reviews so far, the basic premise of the game is to ‘reach room 46’ in a mysterious mansion. You’ll need to navigate various rooms with limited stamina, or ‘steps,’ which are consumed when entering different areas.
There are multiple room types, each with unique challenges, secrets, or buffs, as well as consumables like money, keys, and gems that impact player progression.
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Players must carefully manage these resources while solving puzzles and exploring ultra-rare special rooms that can provide vital insights.
The mansion, however, is reset daily. Many have likened its mechanics to a deck-building game intertwined with puzzles, many people putting over 150 hours into the demo alone. Sometimes you can’t solve a puzzle because you haven’t come across the ‘solution’ elsewhere yet, in another playthrough.
You may need to combine tools and items found throughout the manor, so planning is essential, but you’ll hit multiple dead ends and fail in your progress to the perceived ‘end’.
So will you be entering the mansion and chasing down Room 46 for yourself? Blue Prince might just be the most talked-about game you’ve never heard of — until now.
Whether you’re intrigued by its mysterious mechanics or just want to see what all the hype is about, April 10 on Xbox Game Pass is shaping up to be a date worth watching. Have you played the demo? Are you diving in blind? Drop your thoughts, theories, and first impressions in the comments — we want to hear from you!
