The 10 Best Puzzle Video Games of All Time
Wanna sound smart at parties? Don’t talk about quantum physics or differential equations; pivot the conversation towards a true intellectual challenge: video games. While the big brains at MIT or CERN might have more “important things” to do than tackle such challenges, that means you have all the more bragging rights for solving problems that actually matter. Unlike engineering or particle physics, puzzle games are serious business. And if you’re looking for some of the most difficult puzzle games around, you’ve come to the right place. After all, you’ve got better things to do than solve the Riemann hypothesis or create the Alcubierre warp drive: you’ve got the 10 best puzzle video games of all time.
Portal 2
Arguably the greatest of the greats, Portal 2 is a triumph of gameplay and narrative. After the defeat of the smack-talking AI GLaDOS at the end of the prequel, test subject Chell awakens in the ruins of the Aperture Science Enrichment Center—run by the minds behind the first portal gun. After being betrayed by a friendly-turned-power-hungry AI named Wheatley, Chell and a resurrected GLaDOS attempt to escape the facility in one piece. Now that the once formidable GLaDOS has been installed in a potato clock, she’s not much help, and Chell will have to puzzle-platform her way out of the facility on her own. Combining dry humor with dark sci-fi, Portal 2 feels like a precursor to genre greats like Black Mirror. Mix that with some seriously brain-tickling puzzles involving portals through spacetime, and you’ve got a Nobel Prize-winning puzzle game on your hands.
Baba Is You
Baba Is You is the brainchild of indie developer Arvi Teikari, and my what a big brain it has! You take control of an adorable little sheep critter, who navigates a simple world full of simple words. To solve a puzzle, Baba must arrange a series of subjects, verbs, and operators to change the rules of the game. For instance, if the player chains the words “BABA,” “IS,” and “FLAG” into a sentence, all the flags on the screen will be replaced with Babas. If you arrange the sentence “FLAG IS WIN” from a series of sentence fragments, then contact with a flag will allow Baba to beat the levels. What starts as a simple syntactical puzzler becomes far more difficult at higher levels, as the game asks you to craft complicated sentences that can drastically alter gameplay. If you’re into language-based games (and have a soft spot for sheep) then BABA IS MUST PLAY.
Animal Well
Is it a puzzler? A platformer? A metroidvania? When it comes to Animal Well, the answer is always “yes.” Created by solo developer Billy Basso, Animal Well isn’t so much of a game as it is a navigable puzzle box. Light on story and heavy on vibes, the game begins with you (an adorable ball of ooze) emerging from a flower in a subterranean world. There’s no map (yet), there’s no tutorial level, and there’s no clear objective. Why should you explore this steaming underground jungle? For the love of the (puzzle) game. As you explore this animal menagerie, you discover a series of unorthodox items that allow you to access different areas. Yoyos, slinkys, bubble wands, your options to solve puzzles might not be entirely clear at the beginning, but trust me, they’re endless.
Outer Wilds
Have you ever dreamed of having a solar system all to yourself? In Outer Wilds, your dream can come true! Trouble is, your solar system only has 22 minutes until the sun goes supernova, and after the explosion, the planets reset like sitcom characters. Wanna escape the time loop? You’ll need to explore each of the system’s planets to uncover the secrets left behind by the Nomai—ancient alien nomads who may know the secret behind the cycle of destruction. Outer Wilds is a puzzler focused on exploration. You’ll need to vault to different planets and take careful inventory of what you discover. Be extra careful on the planet Dark Bramble. If you’re not prepared, you’ll discover just how quickly this game can shift from puzzler to survival horror. And the black hole planet? A cosmic horror nightmare.
Lorelei And The Laser Eyes
A neo-Noir puzzler extraordinaire, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a masterclass of substance and style. Invited to a 1960s-style hotel by her artistic idol Renzo Nero, puzzle-box maker Lorelei Weiss is seduced by the director’s promise that the pair will create “real art.” In this case, “real art” imitates real life: Nero is trying to draw Lorlei into a murder plot inspired by a film of his own creation. Surreal as a Dalí painting and equally dark, the game is a series of seemingly unrelated puzzles that combine into a horrifying whole. Covering everything from the Greek alphabet to esoteric astrology, the game’s challenges will test the limits of Lorelai’s knowledge and sanity alike.
The Witness
An open-world puzzle game, The Witness is one of a kind. The puzzle is the plot: you step out of an underground bunker onto an island as beautiful as it is boggling. The place is populated by man-made mechanical mysteries, and you have to explore each of the island’s regions carefully to grasp the intricacies of the machines. There’s no tutorial, no instructions, no NPCs—you’re the island’s sole inhabitant, seemingly by design. The game feels like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with no Ganon, a gorgeous and sprawling world where the monsters are mind games. Warning: The Witness is not for the faint of brain, some of the most confounding puzzles could potentially take hours to complete. But to have an island paradise all to yourself? It’s worth it.
The Fool’s Errand
An underrated classic of the genre, The Fool’s Errand is a puzzle game inspired by Tarot. You play as The Fool, one of the Major Arcana, who is told by The Sun to find the “Lost 14 Treasures of the World.” Hey, at least there’s a clear objective! While navigating the four regions of the world (named after the suits of the Minor Arcana), you meet other characters from the cards and are tasked with solving “enchantments,” puzzles that allow you advance. Like Hamlet‘s play within a play, The Fool’s Errand revolves around a puzzle within a puzzle—all the solutions to the game’s minor puzzles give clues to solve the major puzzle at the end. The puzzles are just puzzle pieces, it’s a meta-puzzle game! Prepare for your mind to be blown.
Return of the Obra Dinn
A detective story set on a spooky ghost ship? It’s every nautical puzzle enthusiast’s dream! Once believed to be lost at sea, the Obra Dinn reappeared five years after her disappearance—without a living soul aboard. Dispatched by the East India Trading Company, you’re an investigator with the unfortunate responsibility of determining how the ship’s passengers met their mysterious end. Thankfully, you’ve got the perfect supernatural tool for the job: the Memento Mortem, a watch that lets you turn back time to the moment of a victim’s death. Crushed by cargo, stabbed by crewmates, and withered by pneumonia, the Grim Reaper had a field day with the crew of the Obra Dinn. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has nothing on the tragic poem this poor ship could inspire.
It Takes Two
The ultimate co-op puzzler, It Takes Two requires a buddy to complete. You and a friend/lover/stranger off the street must take control of Cody and May, a soon-to-be-divorced couple who find themselves trapped in the bodies of their daughter’s dolls. Forced to wander a world in miniature, the feuding couple must put aside their differences to conquer pint-sized obstacles on a quest to reunite with their kid. While the puzzling is light, the emotions are heavy, as the couple meet anthropomorphized versions of their neglected possessions. As they mend their abandoned dreams, Cody and May slowly begin to heal their relationship—exactly what their daughter had been hoping for. A brain-teaser and heart-breaker alike.
Tetris
The most iconic puzzle game of all time, Tetris needs no introduction. Deceptively simple at first, Tetris‘s difficulty stacks along with its blocks over time. While there are countless spin-offs, the original Super Nintendo title is a consummate classic. In the decades since its release, Tetris remains one of the most-played puzzlers, with a dedicated fanbase determined to break new records. 35 years after its initial release, Tetris was beaten by a 13-year-old Willis Gibson, known by his gamertag Blue Scuti. Well, “beaten” doesn’t quite do justice to Gibson’s true triumph. Designed to be unbeatable, Tetris crashed after Gibson reached level 157 in only 38 minutes—a feat thought to be impossible without computer assistance. Who would have thought that a game about falling blocks would become one of the most enduring titles of all time? A true puzzle-game lover could have seen that logical conclusion coming from a mile away.
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