Monument Valley 3

My spreadsheet instincts kept firing warning signs through Monument Valley 3, and not because the puzzles are hard. They aren't. What they are is impeccably composed: eleven chapters of M.C. Escher-style impossible geometry where you click to guide Noor, a lighthouse apprentice, across paths that fold over ceilings, twist through inverted palaces, and snake along gravity-defying walkways. The core loop is the same as it's always been: rotate a crank, shift a platform left or right using circular nubs on its surface, align two impossible surfaces so they become one walkable path, reach the door. The satisfaction when it clicks is real. The problem is that it clicks fast, almost every time. The new mechanics are genuinely interesting on paper. Sailing sequences have Noor navigating a boat through flooded plazas and partially submerged structures, adding a light timing element as shifting water levels open and close routes. There are also growing-flower puzzles where coaxing leaves onto different platform surfaces creates temporary bridges, and paper-folding-style path manipulation that feels fresh for about two levels before the game stops pushing it anywhere demanding. A Lighthouse hub area ties the chapters together better than any previous entry managed with transitions, and a late-game shift into chromatic-aberration-soaked, off-kilter visual territory does jolt the puzzle design into something more jagged and interesting. But by then you're close to credits. Most players are wrapping the main story somewhere around two hours, with completionists hitting 100 percent not long after. For a PC release, that runtime lands harder than it did as a mobile game bundled into a Netflix subscription. The audio is the one area where Monument Valley 3 doesn't just hold its own, it leads the whole series. Composer credits aside, the reactive sound design deserves separate mention: rotating stone hums, dripping water resolves into harp tones, door clicks pulse like soft percussion. Moving through a level feels like conducting something. Visually, the color palette work is the best ustwo has produced, shifting from warm lighthouse ambers into cool oceanic blues and then into full surreal glitch-art for the final act. Each screen genuinely could function as a still. The Lighthouse hub area, the boat on flooded cobblestones, the inverted palace chapter: all of them are the kind of thing you pause on longer than the puzzle demands. Here is the actual strategic consideration for anyone reading this page right now: the base game's eleven chapters are already accompanied by a free expansion called The Garden of Life, which adds four more chapters focused on village-building, optional hidden puzzles, and community bonds. That content ships alongside the PC version, which means the value picture is meaningfully better than it was at console launch when reviewers were working with the core game alone. The expansion reportedly contains the most demanding puzzles in the package. If you play in order and do not skip The Garden of Life, you will end on a higher note than the main story's comparatively gentle finale. Series veterans should adjust expectations downward on difficulty and upward on ambiance. Newcomers to the franchise have absolutely no barrier here: there is no prior lore to track, no prior mechanics to master, and the difficulty curve teaches everything it needs to within the opening chapter.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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