Nothing will ever make you suffer like something you love. If you didn’t care about a thing, you would be mildly surprised when it’s good, and baldly unphased when it goes wrong. This is what makes art such a point of genuine pain for so many: you don’t just stumble into the field because you need a part time job. You have passion, and hope, and ideas, and there’s a whole industry out there ready and eager to strangle that part of you into nothing so that you’ll hurry up and generate a bunch of bullshit templates for executives and clients with no vision. Constance is a brilliant exploration of the pain and struggle that our creatives endure on a daily basis, and, more importantly, it’s done so with the finesse that can only come from gut-churning experience and a fine eye for tight, exciting gameplay.

When we meet the titular Constance, she is actively trying to escape some kind of omnipresent narrator who is dictating her escape, but with a clear tingle of malice. Once she is “free,” a threat hangs heavy in the air as she falls into an unknown world full of strange and wonderful beings. Shortly, Constance finds her all purpose tool: a massive paint brush that seems to warp the very fabric of reality around her. Properly armed and with eyes set on finding her way home, Constance will talk with all sorts of clockwork people and curious entities who seem to want to help her along in some form or another. Constance will seek to assist those trapped in this odd world in any way she can, but we, the player, know that something much deeper and darker is happening behind the scenes, and all is not as it seems.

From the drop, I fell in love with Constance for three great reasons. One, I love when a game is clearly trying to tell a deeper story than what it’s presenting, and it doesn’t hesitate to lead you, by the nose, to where it wants you to go. As soon as you get past that opening, you understand that something is going on that involves Constance the person, not Constance the game. As much as the nickname Connie is cute, there’s a more obvious idea afloat that “Constance” sounds very similar to “constant,” and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. As I stated in my opening paragraph, the field of art will bleed you dry in the name of creation and ideation, and our heroine is clearly in dire straits as we enter into the game. Hell, there’s a disclaimer at the beginning to warn you as such.

Two, the entirety of the visuals are distinct, captivating and whimsical by way of menace. There’s such a feeling of the kind of intermittent wonder and unsettling that I used to get from Don Bluth movies that I couldn’t help but get taken in. Constance brings you from the dark and foreboding caverns up to a literal building in the sky, having you run around and dig through piles of forgotten treasures, empty and forlorn mansions and, my personal favorite, a carnival that is absolutely not meant to evoke feelings of Something Wicked This Way Comes. When you traverse into new areas, you get new enemies, new environmental hazards, new bosses (of course) and it’s all cohesive while still being so separate that you sometimes get surprised that you’ve wandered into a new location.

Three, and this is so damn important, it runs like a dream and is tight as a drum. My computer does not have a great video card, so I braced for some stuttering or needing to totally bite the bullet in order to run the game. Not only did I barely have to modify the settings, but my primitive eyes could barely tell the difference once I “downgraded” the game. Blue Backpack, the creators of Constance, have always had an eye for visually distinct titles (Truberbrook is an underappreciated gem), but to also have the stunning looks dance, dash, swim, slam and positively explode across the screen without chugging or giving up a single frame of action is a marvel, and I think that enthusiasts should seek out Constance if only to appreciate how unbelievable it looks and runs on less-than-current hardware.

The genre of metroidvania is a tough category to stand out in, particularly because it’s been done and refined so much over the years in all shapes and sizes. From the original adventures of Samus and Simon Belmont to modern interpretations that run the gamut of protagonists, we all understand the core formula of “make an adventure game that requires you to continually backtrack.” From Bo to Ori and this year’s band to beat, Silksong, you can always find a new way to approach the concept and give new life and new identity to the game within. I was always a fan of A Robot Named Fight, which was lovely and seems to have fallen off most people’s radars. Simply being able to have a map that asks players to keep notes and revisit it after they find some new twist to interaction is hardly the be-all-end-all.

With Constance, everything revolves around the twin identities of discovery and difficulty. You’d think that wielding a giant brush would slow her down, but the power and success of Constance revolves around that massive art tool. In short order, she learns how the strength of the brush is mightier than the sword, the electrical shock current, the flying hammers and several other forms of barbarism. Sure, you figure out pretty quickly how to swing it around and knock out enemies, but forms of Inspiration will appear to lend even new ways to utilize your iconic weapon. The two forms of Inspiration are permanent changes to your character and swappable “upgrades” that change how you fight. You have a limited palette to switch these ideas in and out, so be sure to hunt down the hidden Erasers that give you more room to add the upgrades, as well as taking time to see what works best for you.

These additional forms of attack and exploration take a toll on your Ink Meter, a curious mechanic that works like magic points or mana, but also not quite the same. Ink will naturally replenish itself over time, so you don’t have to worry about running dry. However, if you do “run out” in the middle of a sequence, Constance’s appearance will change and she will become dark, like a sketch instead of a flushed out character, and trying to use anything Ink related will damage you until the meter refills. This means that, should you be in the middle of a sequence requiring a lot of ink (climbing walls, attacking specific targets), you need to roll the dice on if you’re willing to suffer through additional points of damage in a game that’s already ferocious in order to finish what you’re trying to accomplish.

This is a bit of a push and pull for what the entire quest means in terms of exploration and investment. On the one hand, the main “story” of the game can be accomplished in approximately six to eight hours, depending on your skill and adjustment to certain actions and mechanics. There are plenty of sidequests and things to discover, from trying to photograph ghosts to wayward cousins and also an escaped large cat, which might be hiding somewhere and is somewhat aggressive. These sidequests develop into additional bonuses, like new forms of Inspiration, additional erasers, and components that unlock more health and more Ink, albeit incrementally.  These extras are really fun to discover, and there’s great craftsmanship to allow it to be mostly optional.

But not exploring these elements makes endgame incredibly difficult, and that’s already in a game that’s pretty tough. Constance pulls no punches in making enemies have varying attack patterns that sometimes give you very little room for dodging or avoiding strikes, so you need to get into a good flowstate in mentally mapping where all the triggers are and how to use them. There’s nothing worse than attempting to dash when you actually need to do the grappling move, and failure to push the right directional when trying to pogo off spikes or enemies can lead to your death. The mobs themselves have plenty of hitpoints, and that’s not discounting the Curse that occurs if you should die and choose to respawn in the room. Don’t want to backtrack to the last savepoint? Then prepare for everything to hit harder and take more damage until you can organically find another shrine.

This would all be well and good, but the final few bosses and even rooms leading up to bosses require constant and frequent multiplane traversal, which requires a massive amount of Ink. Surprise, running out of Ink and taking damage in the runup to a boss fight is not a great thing, and it’s even worse when there’s one specific boss that isn’t even a fight, it’s just an escape plan. You know those autoscrolling levels from the NES days that everyone loved? No one loved them? Good news, that’s one of the toughest bosses in the game, and it’s not even the final boss! So if you haven’t been diligent and gotten your Ink meter extended, prepare to also sweat through your shirt as you watch your health plummet as you struggle to survive. Optional my ass, you gotta get in there and search if you want to live!

But, with that in mind, Constance does offer some important olive branches to people who just want to experience the world and the story without also becoming an Elden Ring survivalist. The assists in the options can toggle off nearly all damage, allowing you to make mistakes, get smacked around and run out of Ink to your heart’s content. However, these toggles do not make the game’s movement and puzzles easier, so you still need to develop serious muscle memory in order to outrun a cosmos eating big bad. Or, in my own “scream at the TV case,” you need to refine your pogo skills to knock a naughty little clown out of the sky. Holy hell, that little clown was the bane of my existence for a good twenty minutes, and I taught my daughter a whole new colorful vocabulary that I now need to explain to my wife.

Beyond the visuals of Constance is also the audio, and this was a masterpiece in scoring and sound design. You’d imagine the music would be good, and you’d be right. The tone matches all the areas, from the calliope tunes of the busted carnival to the echoes and stings of the sewer systems below. The dramatic final music as you face off against a multistaged nightmare of a boss is as epic and sweeping as anything you may have encountered in Final Fantasy, and I really appreciated that the music shifted between tones with clear fades and ducks instead of hard cutting or letting the piece play too long during an awkward transition. When you couple that with fantastic sound effects – from Constance’s small grunts of surprise and frustration to the difference of the paint brush hitting a solid or hollow wall – this was pure aural candy.

Lastly, I did appreciate that Constance wove a tale of pain and anxiety that was both pointed yet vague. From the disclaimer and the moments we glimpse of Constance’s waking life, we get a general picture of someone who is under a lot of pressure, has a history of unhappiness and some real dysfunction with her relationships and her work/life balance. Yet, in the interest of keeping it relatable for the general public, we don’t drill down on specifics. Sure, her work seems to be overly demanding, and Constance herself has communication issues, but we don’t say “this is specifically what’s the problem,” because the solution we find at the end is one that is universally appreciated, not one that’s tailor made for bespoke trauma. While some people might find the ending unsatisfying, I think the open ended nature speaks to greater reach and, as a result, greater help.

For me, Constance is the perfect metroidvania. It’s not too short but not too long. It’s got tons to explore and most of it is optional, though being able to do your best sometimes asks you to go off the beaten path. The characters are memorable and the design is so gorgeous while also being crazy functional. I love finishing a game and seeing that I’m less than 80% “done,” so I have plenty of incentive to dive back in. It tells a story, tells it well, and leaves you with plenty of questions, but not for the game. The soundtrack is beautiful, the gameplay is so damn tight and responsive, and it made me feel young and excited to play. I applaud Blue Backpack for this creation, and mark it as a high point of 2025, without a doubt.

Graphics: 9.5 The details and the animation of Constance are a wonder to behold. It’s got flair and diversity, plenty of color and character and every single detail feels loved, planned and well executed.	Gameplay: 9.0 Metroidvania never felt as good as it does here. Incredibly difficult but with a strong learning curve, the exploration and the combat can be overwhelming at times, but so satisfying to execute correctly.
Sound: 10 Without a single voice, the soundtrack tells you so much through music, sound effects and moments of silence. It’s a crafted execution of aural majesty.	Fun Factor: 9.5 A game that makes me feel like I’m getting better, while telling a story about a human aspect, and delivering whimsy, humor and prestige. I couldn’t have been happier, and now I’m hoping for a console port so I can play this on my Switch again next year.
Final Verdict: 9.5

Constance is available now on Steam.

Reviewed on PC.

A copy of Constance was provided by the publisher.