18 Games Like Blue Prince That Will Become Your Next Obsession

Not since the release of Myst way back in 1993 has a game felt as consequential to the puzzle genre as Blue Prince. And while it's tough to compare the two--Myst's enormous impact turned it into a monument of what PC gaming could be to the burgeoning market of personal computers--Blue Prince does feel like a watershed moment in a similar vein. It's a game so dense with ideas, so captivating in its construction, and so smart in its execution that it feels likely to influence the genre for years to come.At its heart is the mixing of the rogue-like elements, which continue to seep into every genre, with classic first-person puzzle construction. Your goal in Blue Prince is to explore the mysterious Mount Holly Manor to reach its hidden 46th room.The caveat is that the mansion's floorplan is constantly shifting; every time you open a door, you aren't greeted with a new room, but given the choice between three different ones. You pick which room appears, and use its layout and orientation to plot your way north from the entrance hall to the Antechamber just outside of the fabled 46th room. Getting to the goal is a constantly rearranging puzzle unto itself, and that's before you realize that you'll need to discover the means to unlock the Antechamber.But that's just what's visible on the surface of Blue Prince. It drives players to obsession by providing hours and hours and hours of riddles and puzzles, loose threads to pull on and fascinating developments to uncover. Those most dedicated Blue Prince sickos (like me) have pumped hundreds of hours into the game trying to unravel all its mysteries, and as of this writing, many remain unsolved--by anyone.Blue Prince is something of a singular puzzle experience at the moment, but there are giants that have come before it, and many similar and fascinating executions on parallel ideas that serve as its contemporaries. Below, you'll find a list of 18 games and franchises that can scratch your riddle-solving itch once you've decided to step away from Mount Holly Manor, many of which will burrow into your brain in the exact same way. MystDeveloper: CyanRelease Date: September 30, 1993Platforms: PC, Mac, PlayStation, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Android, iOS, Meta QuestGenre: First-person graphic adventureIn a lot of ways, Myst is still a shining light of the first-person puzzle genre. It revolutionized the idea of puzzle games in 1993, both with graphics that raised the bar for PC gaming, and with its imaginative and inventive world. Myst grabbed people, even if they weren't already fans of video games in 1993, and helped popularize a whole genre of games, while leading to a great many imitators. Even today, though, the game is a subtle and brilliantly constructed experience, with smart puzzles and a fascinating narrative you'll have to uncover on your own. Developer Cyan recently remade the game with modern graphics and sensibilities, including a virtual reality mode, and while it's sad to lose some of the original's FMV charm, it's absolutely worth experiencing if you never have before.Oh, and there are four more Myst games that followed, along with comics and novels. We'll talk about the Sequel to Myst in a second, but Mysts 3-5 aren't bad either--even if they never quite reach the heights of the first two games. See on Steam Riven: The Sequel to MystDeveloper: CyanRelease Date: October 31, 1997Platforms: PC, Mac, PlayStation, Android, iOS, Meta QuestGenre: First-person graphic adventureI only played Riven for the first time in 2025 and it has quickly become one of my favorite games ever. I've never felt smarter playing a video game than I did making my way through Riven. Like Myst before it, Cyan recently released a remake version of the game, but the original still holds up. Its gorgeous visuals make it feel like it's set in a real, if fantastical, place, but it's the incredibly smart puzzle design that makes this game a masterpiece. What makes Riven stand apart is that many of its puzzles don't necessarily feel like puzzles at all, in the usual video game sense--they instead serve to introduce you to different aspects of the world, and are utilized by its people to guard their secrets, lock their doors, and turn people away from hidden mysteries in a way that often feels realistic as well as revealing. Seriously, if you like games like Blue Prince and you haven't played Riven, do yourself a favor. Play Riven. See on Steam Obduction Developer: CyanRelease Date: October 31, 1997Platforms: PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox OneGenre: First-person adventureIn the years following the massive success of Myst, things got tumultuous for Cyan, but it has rebounded recently with new games as well as remakes of its classics. Even more than a modernization of Myst and Riven, Obduction captures what made those games great and brings them into the modern era of gaming. Cyan's approach to puzzles remains excellent throughout, but it's the narrative tha

Jun 3, 2025 - 00:20

18 Games Like Blue Prince That Will Become Your Next Obsession

Not since the release of Myst way back in 1993 has a game felt as consequential to the puzzle genre as Blue Prince. And while it's tough to compare the two--Myst's enormous impact turned it into a monument of what PC gaming could be to the burgeoning market of personal computers--Blue Prince does feel like a watershed moment in a similar vein. It's a game so dense with ideas, so captivating in its construction, and so smart in its execution that it feels likely to influence the genre for years to come.

At its heart is the mixing of the rogue-like elements, which continue to seep into every genre, with classic first-person puzzle construction. Your goal in Blue Prince is to explore the mysterious Mount Holly Manor to reach its hidden 46th room.

The caveat is that the mansion's floorplan is constantly shifting; every time you open a door, you aren't greeted with a new room, but given the choice between three different ones. You pick which room appears, and use its layout and orientation to plot your way north from the entrance hall to the Antechamber just outside of the fabled 46th room. Getting to the goal is a constantly rearranging puzzle unto itself, and that's before you realize that you'll need to discover the means to unlock the Antechamber.

But that's just what's visible on the surface of Blue Prince. It drives players to obsession by providing hours and hours and hours of riddles and puzzles, loose threads to pull on and fascinating developments to uncover. Those most dedicated Blue Prince sickos (like me) have pumped hundreds of hours into the game trying to unravel all its mysteries, and as of this writing, many remain unsolved--by anyone.

Blue Prince is something of a singular puzzle experience at the moment, but there are giants that have come before it, and many similar and fascinating executions on parallel ideas that serve as its contemporaries. Below, you'll find a list of 18 games and franchises that can scratch your riddle-solving itch once you've decided to step away from Mount Holly Manor, many of which will burrow into your brain in the exact same way.

Myst

Developer: Cyan
Release Date: September 30, 1993
Platforms: PC, Mac, PlayStation, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Android, iOS, Meta Quest
Genre: First-person graphic adventure

In a lot of ways, Myst is still a shining light of the first-person puzzle genre. It revolutionized the idea of puzzle games in 1993, both with graphics that raised the bar for PC gaming, and with its imaginative and inventive world. Myst grabbed people, even if they weren't already fans of video games in 1993, and helped popularize a whole genre of games, while leading to a great many imitators. Even today, though, the game is a subtle and brilliantly constructed experience, with smart puzzles and a fascinating narrative you'll have to uncover on your own. Developer Cyan recently remade the game with modern graphics and sensibilities, including a virtual reality mode, and while it's sad to lose some of the original's FMV charm, it's absolutely worth experiencing if you never have before.

Oh, and there are four more Myst games that followed, along with comics and novels. We'll talk about the Sequel to Myst in a second, but Mysts 3-5 aren't bad either--even if they never quite reach the heights of the first two games.

See on Steam

Riven: The Sequel to Myst

Developer: Cyan
Release Date: October 31, 1997
Platforms: PC, Mac, PlayStation, Android, iOS, Meta Quest
Genre: First-person graphic adventure

I only played Riven for the first time in 2025 and it has quickly become one of my favorite games ever. I've never felt smarter playing a video game than I did making my way through Riven. Like Myst before it, Cyan recently released a remake version of the game, but the original still holds up. Its gorgeous visuals make it feel like it's set in a real, if fantastical, place, but it's the incredibly smart puzzle design that makes this game a masterpiece. What makes Riven stand apart is that many of its puzzles don't necessarily feel like puzzles at all, in the usual video game sense--they instead serve to introduce you to different aspects of the world, and are utilized by its people to guard their secrets, lock their doors, and turn people away from hidden mysteries in a way that often feels realistic as well as revealing. Seriously, if you like games like Blue Prince and you haven't played Riven, do yourself a favor. Play Riven.

See on Steam

Obduction

Developer: Cyan
Release Date: October 31, 1997
Platforms: PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Genre: First-person adventure

In the years following the massive success of Myst, things got tumultuous for Cyan, but it has rebounded recently with new games as well as remakes of its classics. Even more than a modernization of Myst and Riven, Obduction captures what made those games great and brings them into the modern era of gaming. Cyan's approach to puzzles remains excellent throughout, but it's the narrative that gets a bigger focus here. The game starts with the player character being abducted by aliens, awakening in a small western town that's been scooped up from Earth and deposited on an alien world. Finding what happened to the town's missing inhabitants and trying to make your way home becomes your focus. Obduction has the same sense of wonder as Myst does, taking you to beautiful, colossal new worlds as you try to piece together what has happened here, and what will happen if you don't intervene.

See on Steam

The Roottrees Are Dead

Developer: Jeremy Johnston and Robin Ward
Release Date: January 15, 2025
Platforms: PC
Genre: Puzzle

As you make your way through Mount Holly Manor over and over again in Blue Prince, the mysteries you uncover soon become as much about the people who used to occupy the house and what became of them as about opening the next locked door. A similar detective-style story is at the heart of The Roottrees are Dead, where your goal is to make your way through the family tree of the eponymous clan to determine whether certain people are legitimate heirs to its massive fortune. It's effectively a game about googling, making your way through the internet of 1998 to discover websites and documents, make connections, and uncover the truth. But Roottrees is deceptively simple and intelligently designed to push you to develop a narrative as you uncover each new piece of information, and the story becomes deep and intriguing as you slowly uncover more sordid details. The Roottrees are Dead is a game that you'll be thinking about and making connections in long after you've shut it off.

See on Steam

Isles of Sea and Sky

Developer: Cicada Games
Release Date: May 22, 2024
Platforms: PC
Genre: Puzzle

Imagine a game like the NES classic The Legend of Zelda, but made up only of top-down 8-bit puzzles, and you have a sense of Isles of Sea and Sky. Don't let its simple presentation fool you, however--this is a smart, expansive open-world puzzle game with a whole lot of depth. Waking up on one of the isles in question, you have to make your way by pushing blocks, gathering keys and upgrades, and visiting ancient gods to slowly uncover what's happening in this mystical place. Sea and Sky's Sokoban-style challenges are great about constantly testing you with new ideas and recontextualizations of its mechanics, so that a game that at first appears to be just about pushing blocks quickly becomes a whole lot more. Its nonlinear gameplay approach will also scratch an itch to what you might feel as you play Blue Prince, as will uncovering its enigmatic story.

Isles of Sea and Sky

The Talos Principle / 2

Developer: Croteam
Release Date: December 11, 2014 / November 2, 2023
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android
Genre: First-person puzzle

The Talos Principle and its sequel are two brilliant puzzlers, but more than that, they're games that may well stick with you forever. They're beautiful and emotional, using the medium of games to tell the kinds of stories that wouldn't quite work in any other form. In the original game, you find yourself in a strange garden riddled with Roman statues and architecture, a booming, godly voice pushing you forward to complete its brain-twisting trials. Similar to games such as The Stanley Parable, you soon find The Talos Principle exploring ideas of agency and free will as you make your way through its cascading series of mind-bending challenges. But while the puzzles themselves are fun, it's the story that helps the game transcend.

Ten years later, developer Croteam released a sequel that's even better in The Talos Principle 2--bigger, deeper, with more involved puzzles, and a story that expands on the big, fascinating philosophical ideas of the original in all the best ways. These are two of my favorite games ever and I can't recommend them enough. What's more, Croteam just released a remastered version of The Talos Principle that adds even more riddles to solve and story to discover.

See at Fanatical

Superliminal

Developer: Pillow Castle Games
Release Date: November 12, 2019
Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, iOS, Android
Genre: First-person puzzle

Blue Prince is littered with puzzles that require you to change how you think about something you're familiar with to solve them; a change in perspective, so to speak. Changing perspective is the much more literal focus of Superliminal, in which you explore a dreamlike world and solve its many puzzles by making use of optical illusions and forced perspective. If you need to get over something high, for instance, you might pluck an exit sign off the wall, then stand back and hold it up so the sign looks like it forms a ramp. Let it go, and suddenly the sign is the ramp, expanding to the same size you saw it when you held it up in front of your face. Superliminal is filled with mind-bending moments where you size up or size down its many elements by how you position them, and it constantly requires you to change your thinking to make it through its imaginative challenges.

See at Fanatical

Manifold Garden

Developer: William Chyr Studio
Release Date: October 18, 2019
Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, iOS
Genre: First-person puzzle

Much like Superliminal, Manifold Garden is also a game that'll test you to change how you think about the world around you. Instead of puzzles relying on forced perspective, however, Manifold Garden draws its inspiration from works like those of M.C. Escher. You're tasked with making your way through twisting, often impossible landscapes, where gravity can sometimes work in unexpected ways. Growing a garden of fractal patterns requires you to change your approach to physics as well as physical space, taking you through some incredible places as you bring life to infinity.

See on Steam

Scratches

Developer: Nucleosys
Release Date: January 25, 2006
Platforms: PC
Genre: Horror adventure

Scratches is a bit more of a classic point-and-click adventure game than a first-person puzzler, but it has a lot in common with early games like Myst, and with Blue Prince's exploration-driven storytelling. Taking center stage here is an atmospheric horror tale, in which you play a writer who has rented an old, abandoned house to let him get some time alone for his work. Soon, though, exploring the eerie house and unearthing what happened to its inhabitants takes over his focus. There are plenty of puzzles to solve in Scratches, but the frightening tale it weaves is arguably the more interesting part, especially as it immerses you in its atmosphere. If Blue Prince leaves you looking for something spooky, Scratches is a good next stop.

See on Steam

Inscryption

Developer: Daniel Mullins Games
Release Date: October 19, 2021
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch
Genre: Deck-builder

Bending and remixing genres allows Inscryption to hit you with something wholly unexpected, much in the same way Blue Prince does. The top level of the game is a deck-building card game with an excellently disturbing, atmospheric setting. But that's just scratching the surface. Much like with Blue Prince, to say too much about Inscryption is to ruin it, so it's best you experience it for yourself. Know that you can expect a winding path beset with excellent gameplay, some solid puzzles, and a story that will stick with you as you fall down its rabbit hole.

See at Fanatical

Quern - Undying Thoughts

Developer: Zadbox Entertainment
Release Date: November 28, 2016
Platforms: PC, Xbox One
Genre: First-person puzzle

Quern - Undying Thoughts is a first-person puzzle game very much in the vein of Myst and the games that came after it. You start on a mysterious island with no idea how you got there and start uncovering the island's story as you solve puzzles to access more and more of it. Quern has a solid series of brain-teasers to test yourself against, as well as some fascinating mysteries to uncover. It sits squarely in the "Myst-like" genre of puzzle titles, and while it doesn't throw in any unexpected twists in terms of gameplay, it's very good at doing exactly what it means to in building on the games that have inspired it.

See on Steam

Amanda the Adventurer / 2

Developer: MANGLEDmaw Games
Release Date: April 8, 2023 / October 22, 2024
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PS5, Nintendo Switch
Genre: Horror

Horror games have always had a close relationship with puzzles, and the Amanda the Adventurer games pull in some of the best elements of adventure games and first-person puzzlers to create a fun and often frightening experience. In the first game, you find yourself in the attic of the protagonist's late Aunt Kate, where you find some mysterious video tapes. They all contain episodes of a children's show called Amanda the Adventurer, and you quickly realize there's something strange about these tapes--especially as what you see in the cartoons seems to influence the items in the attic. Amanda the Adventurer has some inventive puzzles to solve as you work through its ever-darkening story and discover the secrets surrounding the tapes, and it does a great job of being exceedingly creepy. The story continues in Amanda the Adventurer 2, which is just as smart and just as spooky. The conclusion to the trilogy is on its way, making this a great time to complete the first two chapters.

See on Steam

The Mortuary Assistant

Developer: Darkstone Digital
Release Date: August 2, 2022
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PS5, Nintendo Switch
Genre: Horror

Blue Prince is very much a game where the setting becomes a character in the game. That's also the case in The Mortuary Assistant, but its setting is less a character than an antagonist. Working the night shift at a mortuary, your job is to process bodies through the evening--sewing them up, embalming them, and otherwise getting them ready for their funerals. It's a great combination of unsettling and mundane work, but things start to get weird as the night goes on, requiring you to search the mortuary for items and information, all while trying to figure out if that thing you spotted out of the corner of your eye was really there. The Mortuary Assistant mixes the horror and puzzle genres together in ways that aren't always expected, but it has the same kind of haunting immersion that Blue Prince trades in.

See at Fanatical

The Room series

Developer: Fireproof Games
Release Date: September 12, 2012
Platforms: iOS, Android, PC, Nintendo Switch, Meta Quest
Genre: Puzzle

Getting their start as mobile games, The Room series is more a series of puzzle boxes and escape rooms than the Blue Prince. It's the intricacy of Fireproof Games' titles, however, that make it worthy of consideration for Blue Prince fans. Each game is packed with excellently devised puzzles, pushing you to unlock layer after layer. There's also a subtle but unsettling Lovecraftian narrative underpinning all the games that add an excellent element of creepiness to all the extremely involved boxes you have to open and rooms you have to explore. The final entry in the series includes a VR edition for an even more immersive experience.

See on Steam

Call of the Sea

Developer: Out of the Blue
Release Date: December 8, 2020
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PS5, PC
Genre: Adventure

Set in the 1930s, Call of the Sea is a first-person adventure game in which you play a woman whose husband embarked on an expedition to discover a cure for her mysterious illness. Following him to the island, you find yourself trying to track down the expedition and find out what befell them, as you start to discover the strange secrets of the place and its inhabitants. Call of the Sea is more up-front about its story than Blue Prince, but delivers the same brand of unfolding story pieced together through detective work, coupled with a lot of puzzles to solve in order to figure out exactly what happened to the missing expedition.

Call of the Sea

Animal Well

Developer: Billy Basso
Release Date: May 9, 2024
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch
Genre: Metroidvania puzzle-platformer

At first, Animal Well is an easily understood metroidvania, where your goal is to explore ever further, accruing various new abilities that will allow you to open new doors and venture to new places. Rather than emphasizing combat, though, Animal Well pushes you to use your items and abilities in inventive ways. Like with Blue Prince, what's most engaging here is discovering just how deep the Animal Well goes--and it's much, much deeper than you think. A surprising number of inventive puzzles await in the darkness, making Animal Well the kind of game that it's easy to become obsessed with as you continue to search its shadows.

See on Steam

The Case of the Golden Idol series

Developer: Color Gray Games
Release Date: May 9, 2024
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android
Genre: Puzzle

Each level of The Case of the Golden Idol is a scene in which you're witnessing the aftermath of some strange, often tragic event--more often than not, a murder. You play detective in each of these scenes, clicking on characters and objects to gain information about them to piece together what happened. You do that by arranging the info you find into a block of text, literally filling in the gaps of the narrative. Blue Prince tests you to play detective and uncover the fates of characters you'll never meet, and the Golden Idol games will push you in the same ways, stories that are just as intricate and fascinating.

See at Fanatical

Return of the Obra Dinn

Developer: Lucas Pope
Release Date: October 18, 2018
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Genre: Adventure, puzzle

After being lost at sea for years, the merchant ship Obra Dinn mysteriously drifts into port. With its crew dead or missing, it's up to you as an insurance investigator to figure out what happened aboard the ship. Return of the Obra Dinn has a lot of similarities to the Golden Idol games, emphasizing detective work as you venture through frozen scenes and gather information to piece together what happened. Your main tools are your ability to gather information and your powers of deduction, and you'll be put through your paces to make the connections necessary to discover the Obra Dinn's secrets.

See on Steam