25 Best Puzzle Games To Solve In 2026

Read our Darwin’s Paradox review.

Donut County

• Developer: Ben Esposito
• Release Date: August 28, 2018
• Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, iOS, Android

A short and sweet experience, Donut County is a stylish puzzle game with a simple premise: As an ever-growing hole in the ground, it’s up to you to swallow everything in this story-based physics puzzle game, Egged on the racoon BK, Donut County is equal parts silly and heartfelt, as every stage offers a story to savor while you figure out how to meet cute characters, steal their trash, and throw them into the expanding hole.

Not just a game about destroying stuff–or imprisoning people deep within the earth–Donut County also emphasizes creativity and imagination for some of its more devious puzzles, and the end result is a charming, breezy adventure about a fateful encounter with a raccoon.

Humanity

• Developer: Enhance Games
• Release Date: May 16, 2023
• Platforms: Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC

A stream of humans are walking down a path, and you have to lead them to a specific destination. What better way to do this than with a cute little doggo made of light? You’ll assign certain actions to humans in the mob as you progress, with strategically placed actions being essential to the overall goal of getting these people where they’re going. Humanity hearkens back to the days of Lemmings in a fun and interesting way, and best of all, cute little doggo!

Lingo 2

• Developer: Brenton Wildes
• Release Date: March 13, 2025
• Platforms: PC

Lingo 2 is an in-depth puzzle game that has a little something for every player. It features a wide array of different kinds of puzzles, ranging from word puzzles to geometry problems. The entire map in Lingo 2 unfolds as you explore it, and that only happens as you solve more puzzles that you come across. The game only features puzzles, so don’t worry about any jump scares or tricky combat to interrupt your puzzle-solving flow.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

• Developer: Simogo
• Release Date: May 16, 2024
• Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Nintendo Switch

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is the kind of puzzle game where taking notes is paramount, as the game’s 150 puzzles can be solved in any order you prefer, so if you have to backtrack, you’ll want to remember what you’ve done. It’s also the kind of puzzle game that will make you want to solve “one more puzzle” to learn more about what’s going on in this weird house and who’s behind it all. A puzzle game and an interesting mystery? Say no more.

Minos

• Developer: Artificer
• Release Date: April 9, 2026
• Platforms: PC

Minos is a great modern roguelite take on games like Dungeon Keeper. You’re tasked with defending a location within a maze, but the exact route that invaders take–and the many traps they’ll face along the way–are up to you. You’ve got a finite number of traps, energy, and other constraints to contend with across roguelite-style runs. But what’s so enjoyable about Minos is both the freedom you have to approach a solution in so many ways, and the certainty you can approach a situation with: You know which enemies are coming and the paths they’ll take, as well as what damage they’ll suffer along the way.

The presence of a physical character you directly control gives you the flexibility to manually set off catapult traps and involve yourself in other ways, which means you’re staying active even as your devious maze works its magic. It’s a more action-packed game than most games on this list, but trying to design the optimal approach and find that perfect solution for each wave to ensure you don’t take any damage is consistently enjoyable, scratching that puzzle-solving itch nicely.

The Outer Wilds

• Developer: Mobius Digital
• Release Date: May 28, 2019
• Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Nintendo Switch

The Outer Wilds is an intriguing experiment of a game, with time serving as the central conceit–how much can you explore in only 22 real-world minutes? The unnamed spacefarer starts in the same location during each run, and after 22 minutes–or if the spacefarer should die–the cycle repeats itself. In that limited time–and across multiple runs, you’ll gather clues, make discoveries, and solve the mystery of the Nomai, an extinct race that built the space stations hovering overhead. The Outer Wilds is a truly unique experience, and one with a fascinating puzzle to solve at its core.

Portal 2

• Developer: Valve
• Release Date: April 18, 2011
• Platforms: Xbox One (backward-compatible), Nintendo Switch, PC

The original Portal bent your mind into a pretzel with its first-person, physics-based, portal-powered puzzle solving fueled by the sarcastic and sadistic AI GlaDOS, all within a tidy package that could be wrapped up in a few hours. Portal 2 ups the ante with a much longer campaign, as it also adds lasers, tractor beams, colored paints with different properties, and a new AI named Wheatley with a devious side of his own. Portal 2 is simply a classic, and a game that everyone should try for themselves at least once.

Puzzle Quest 2

• Developer: Infinity Plus Two
• Release Date: June 22, 2010
• Platforms: PC, Mobile, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS

Puzzle Quest 2 frames a high fantasy story with elves, orcs, and magic within a match-3 format, and it was a big inspiration to similar games that followed–like the previously mentioned Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3. Each colored gem holds a specific attribute when matched–red, for example, increases the chance of a critical hit on the next attack–and your abilities rely on the class you choose at the beginning of the game–Barbarian, Sorcerer, Assassin, and Templar. There have been sequels and spin-offs, but for the peak Puzzle Quest experience, Puzzle Quest 2 is the one to check out.

Return of the Obra Dinn

• Developer: Lucas Pope
• Release Date: October 18, 2018
• Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Nintendo Switch

A merchant ship, lost at sea for five years, suddenly appears off the English coast, but with none of its crew aboard. As an investigator for the East India Company, it’s your job to find out what happened to the crew and the Obra Dinn itself through the Memento Mortem, a pocketwatch-like item that can recreate the moment of someone’s death. With it, you must solve the massive puzzle in front of you, while determining the interconnected fates of all 60 known crew members. Return of the Obra Dinn is a remarkable game, with a distinct low-resolution graphical style and a few “a ha!” moments that other games simply cannot replicate.

Rise of the Golden Idol

• Developer: Color Gray Games
• Release Date: November 12, 2024
• Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Nintendo Switch, Mobile

Rise of the Golden Idol couples stellar storytelling with a simple point-and-click system, where finding names, actions, and other important terms through investigation allows you to (literally) fill in the blanks on what’s going down in the scene in front of you. The overarching story has a lot of interesting twists and turns, and you’ll never actually know what’s coming next, but that’s part of the fun. Color Gray Games has a true hit on their hands with the Golden Idol series.

Riven Remake

• Developer: Cyan, Inc.
• Release Date: June 25, 2024
• Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC

Remaking one of the best puzzle games in the world is no small task, but Cyan did an incredible job bringing Riven–the sequel to the massively influential PC puzzler Myst–into the modern age with the 2023 remake. Riven is a sprawling adventure in the mystical world of D’Ni, where an ancient race hides its secret behind massive, mind-bending puzzles. Nothing about what made Riven so magical in the first place–from the unique puzzles to the always-foreboding atmosphere–is lost in translation through Riven’s modernization, and the result is the new best way to relive this absolute classic.

The Room

• Developer: Fireproof Games
• Release Date: September 12, 2012
• Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, Mobile

That The Room–which began as a mobile title over a decade ago–still ranks as one of the best puzzle games ever made should give you an idea of just how enjoyable it is. The presentation is as simple as it gets–it’s a box with puzzles, and as you solve them, the larger box disappears and a smaller box is revealed–but the solutions are dastardly clever, and the accompanying letters add an interesting bit of world-building to the puzzle-solving experience. There have been many Room games released since 2012, but you never forget your first.

Split Fiction

• Developer: Hazelight Studios
• Release Date: March 6, 2025
• Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, PC

When it comes to traditional puzzle games, Split Fiction doesn’t fall as neatly into the genre as others on this list. However, there are a large number of puzzles to solve throughout this co-op action-adventure game that should satisfy any puzzle fan’s craving. Split Fiction needs to be played with another person, and with your partner, you’ll enter different levels brought to life by two authors, who are the characters you control in split-screen action. The game features action-packed combat, heart-warming storytelling, and plenty of puzzles featured in both the main story and side activities. If you have someone to play with, Split Fiction will surprise you even if you don’t traditionally play these types of games.

The Talos Principle 2

• Developer: Croteam
• Release Date: November 2, 2023
• Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PC

In The Talos Principle, an android solves a series of puzzles and becomes the progenitor of a new robotic civilization, after the death of humanity from global warming. Talos Principle 2 continues that story, but adds on a layer of political intrigue and tension that drives you to solve the puzzles even more. Croteam has devised some of the most thought-provoking challenges on this list, and the reward for solving them is a story rooted in real-world issues despite being told through the eyes of robots.

Tetris Effect Connected

• Developer: Enhance Games
• Release Date: November 10, 2020
• Platforms: Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Nintendo Switch, VR

Tetris’s classic line-clearing gameplay has been delighting players for decades now, but there’s something about the way Enhance’s take on the puzzler with Tetris Effect completely enhances the experience, especially in VR. Ethereal wisps flying across the screen, lights pulsing to the beat of the incredible soundtrack, and flashes of brilliant light at key moments make Tetris Effect–and its expansion, Connected–one of the best ways to play Tetris available today.

Viewfinder

• Developer: Sad Owl Studio
• Release Date: July 18, 2023
• Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC

Imagine finding an old photo book and holding one of the photos inside to your eye level, only to find that the image has somehow superimposed itself on the real-world and you can walk into it to explore. That’s Viewfinder at its core, and puzzles are solved by strategically placing photos in this manner all over the world to create paths and access teleporters that take you to the next stage. It’s a novel approach to the puzzle genre, as each picture warps the world in cool and interesting ways that it’s always surprising to see how things turn out.

The Witness

• Developer: Thekla, Inc.
• Release Date: January 26, 2016
• Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, iOS

Speaking of Myst, The Witness plays a lot like the early-’90s classic–you’re thrown into a mysterious island, filled with puzzles littering the entire landscape, and the more progress you make, the more you learn about the world around you. This is also one for the completionists; though it’s not required to finish the game’s story, there are 650 puzzles scattered around The Witness’s world. See if you can solve them all.

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