The rise of the cosy game genre has been a fascinating one to watch. With the explosion in popularity of soulsborne style games many have sought to replicate that punishing playstyle, hoping to catch the eye of the git gud crowd. Cosy games then are the antithesis to this, instead putting low to no pressure on the gamer at all with the focus on everything but the challenging gameplay. That genre didn’t exist when Monument Valley first came out but it certainly had all the trappings that the genre now considers core to the experience. As someone who’s been running the gauntlet through a number of challenging games I was very much looking forward to this next instalment in the series and it certainly didn’t disappoint.
Noor has been studying under her mentor for some time, learning the ways of the lighthouse and what it means to all those who depend upon it. The weight of the past tragedies weighs heavily on her mentor, the light that she was meant to keep not always being as bright as it needed to be. Noor continues her journey with her mentor, visiting the sacred geometries and gathering the light where they can, keeping the lighthouse functioning for another day. It’s clear though that the days of the old ways with the monuments is coming to an end and soon there’ll be a need for them to change what they do so the light can continue to shine.
Monument Valley’s aesthetics have been revamped once again with the visuals soaring to new and incredible heights. The colour palettes are supersaturated, vibrant, and diverse. Each of the levels has their own unique visual style which now incorporates many more organic shapes in direct contrast to the previous two originals more angular and artificial motifs. The 3D elements are also more present this time around, although they’ve been worked on extensively to blend in with the 2.5D isometric style of the rest of the game. It’s a testament to Ustwo’s mastery of their craft here that each of the games just gets better and better.
The core game loop retains all of the core elements of the previous two instalments with their non-euclidean environments that you’ll have to bend your mind around in order to solve them. Whilst Monument Valley was never one to be known for its intractable puzzles the third instalment does feel like the easiest of the bunch with most of them being directly solvable without the need for much abstract thinking. Part of this is, I think, due to Ustwo’s ambitions to reach a much wider audience than they had previously which is also the main reason behind their partnership with Netflix.
Which I think has been both a blessing and a curse to them. To be sure being published by Netflix means access to around ~300 million users of which 70 million of them are active every month. At the same time though you don’t have to dig far to find those who loved both originals and are now hoping that the Netflix subscription requirement is just a timed exclusive. I’ve never been one to balk at a game due to exclusivity on a platform, heck there’s 2 Xboxes around here whose main job was the Mass Effect series, but I’m not your average joe when it comes to these sorts of things. So I can see the arguments against something like this but also know why Ustwo did it.
The soundtrack is also worth mentioning, yet again being an exemplary piece of composition that beautifully matches with the games visuals. The only time it missteps is the controls go a bit wonky on a puzzle and the synchronised scoring starts playing a wild selection of melodies which have no hope of being cohesive. THe foley work is amazing too, every interaction having that distinct Monument Valley feel to it with the modernist clicks, pops, and sliding noises that accompany all the movements on screen. Pairing up my Pixel Tablet with my PC gaming headphones was a choice I do not regret.
Monument Valley 3’s narrative is a bit more direct than I remember the previous too being although, reading back through my reviews from both of them, I think I was just too enamored with the audio visual experience to care about much more beyond that. This time around though the messaging around climate change, the environment and coexistence with nature are much more center stage. Older elements are still there, like the passing of the torch between generations and the burdens of the past, but they’re the supporting cast to the overall environmental theme. For me it was definitely a message of hope, one that there’s a path for us there should we take the time to search for it.
Monument Valley 3 continues the traditions of the series in the best way possible. The audio visual craftsmanship of Ustwo continues to improve with each of the titles reaching new heights I didn’t think possible. The partnership with Netflix is going to be an interesting one, both to see if it was successful for Ustwo but also what it means for the future of their games. This is the first Monument Valley that will have additional content coming out for it, the first due in April next year. I’m certainly interested to see what episodic content for Monument Valley looks like although I can’t deny I see the dark pattern there of trying to boost subscriber numbers. Although given that, and the fact that there are still some wonky puzzle controls are the only two black marks against Monument Valley 3 should tell you plenty about how good this game is.
Rating: 9.25/10
Monument Valley is available on iOS and Android right now for free with a Netflix subscription. Total play time was approximately 3 hours.
