‘Blue Prince’ Is Obviously GOTY, Possibly Even With A 2025 ‘GTA 6’

Little cozy puzzle games are not exactly my thing these days. I’m a looter shooter person, as many people know. More recently I’ve been dismembering people in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Before that, mass demon slaughter in Path of Exile 2.

Blue Prince? Blue Prince has changed me to my core.

I’ve never played a game like this. When I started, I compared it to a combination of Myst and Gone Home, but mix in roguelike elements and the end result is not comparable to anything really. Outer Wilds maybe? Even then, this feels wholly unique.

The basic premise is that you start each day facing a grid of rooms in a mansion. They do different things, costing diamonds or keys to enter, as you attempt to wind the hallways toward a locked, secret 46th room, as if you do, you will inherit the entire mansion from your late uncle.

Rolling credits doing this is perhaps 25% of the game.

We are talking about puzzles on puzzles on puzzles here. Many of which will unlock permanent upgrades helping your runs, from more steps to use in your day, to more money in your pocket when you first arrive. And after you do hit that final room, things open up even more and after 50 hours I am staring at a whole list of unsolved puzzles and unopened doors as I attempt to piece together the other portion of this game.

Every time you solve a complicated puzzle here, the sense of euphoria is more than I’ve experienced in any game in a long while. I understand why all the reviews that came out about Blue Prince a short while ago mentioned GOTY frequently. Yes, we are a third of the way through the year, but I have trouble imagining anything in the upcoming calendar is going to surpass this except well, you know.

The GTA 6 question has not really felt like much of a question. It’s going to be the biggest game ever made, and if it does make it out in 2025 as promised, GOTY seems almost inevitable.

But I do wonder if the types of critics and industry figures who vote in these shows might look beyond the massive scope of GTA 6 and think about what’s more innovative, what’s more engaging, what’s truly unique in the gaming sphere this year. If GTA 6 is a bigger, better-looking Grand Theft Auto, that may not sway them, at least for the industry’s awards. This would be far from the first time a smaller game has upset bigger ones.

That say, I’m still going to say it’s a 95% GTA 6 wins, but for my personally? Even knowing that’s coming, it will be hard to top the experience I’ve had with Blue Prince here.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.