Twelve Years Later, Nothing Plays Like Monument Valley

Rating: 10/10 ⭐️

I reinstall Monument Valley about once a year. Not for the story, which I can recite, but for one specific feeling: the moment a staircase rotates into a path that should not exist, and my brain just accepts it. Twelve years after the original launched, I still cannot point to another game that lands that feeling the same way.

That is a strange thing to say about a game from 2014. The medium has lapped it a hundred times over on power, scope, and budget. Monument Valley stayed exactly where it was, and somehow that is the point.

The trick nobody else has matched

The whole game runs on one idea. You twist and drag pieces of an impossible building until a broken path snaps together, then you walk a silent princess named Ida through it. ustwo Games built the original around optical illusions, M.C. Escher staircases, and the Crow People who block your way.

Plenty of games copied the look. Evo Explores, Where Shadows Slumber, and a dozen others on the App Store borrowed the pastel geometry and the rotate-to-solve hook. Almost none of them copied the restraint.

Monument Valley never explains itself, never pads its runtime, never throws a tutorial pop-up in your face. It trusts that you will feel the solution before you understand it, and you almost always do.

The sound design does quiet work too. Every twist of the world answers with a soft chime, so finishing a level feels less like flipping a switch and more like playing an instrument you did not know you owned.

Monument Valley 2 swings at something harder

The sequel arrived in 2017 with a different weight to it. You guide a mother named Ro and her child through 14 chapters, and the rotating-architecture puzzles slowly turn into a story about teaching someone to leave you. It won Best Mobile Game at The Game Awards 2017 and near-universal praise, and for once the consensus is right.

I will be honest about where I land. The first game is the cleaner, sharper experience, and I give it a full five out of five. The sequel reaches for more emotion than its puzzles can always carry, so I sit at four and a half, and I have never once regretted the time.

Neither game says much out loud. There is no dialogue. A mother lets go of a hand, a path opens, and you are left to draw your own conclusion.

I replayed the first game last month with my son on my lap. He is not even two, so he was really just following the colours and the moving blocks, but he stayed quiet and fixed on the screen the whole way through. Whatever a game from 2014 is doing, it reaches further than you would expect.

Monument Valley vs Monument Valley+: what actually changed

Monument Valley+ and Monument Valley 2+ are the Apple Arcade versions of the originals. The gameplay is identical. The + editions bundle every paid DLC chapter for free, carry no ads or in-app purchases, and come with an Apple Arcade subscription instead of a separate one-time purchase.

In practice, Monument Valley+ ships with the Forgotten Shores and Ida's Dream chapters already included, content that cost extra on the original release. Monument Valley 2+ adds a chapter called The Lost Forest, built for a Green Game Jam. If you already pay for Arcade, there is no reason to buy the standalone versions.

And no, Monument Valley 3 is not on Apple Arcade

Monument Valley 3 had a messy ride, so it is worth clearing up. It launched in December 2024 as a Netflix Games exclusive, and ustwo moved the first two games onto Netflix around the same time. Then Netflix's games division hit trouble and pulled all three in July 2025, part of a wider cull of more than 20 games from its library.

The third game survived the exit. It is now a standalone app on iOS and Android, free to try with a one-time purchase to unlock the rest, alongside PC and console versions. What it is not is part of Apple Arcade, so an Arcade subscription gets you the first two games and not the third.

It could still land there in a few months, of course. ustwo has not announced anything, though, and the standalone paid-app route they took after Netflix points the other way, so I would not hold my breath.

The whole saga is a strange footnote for a series this beloved. That is a different article.

Worth your time, a decade on

A game from 2014 should feel dated by now. Monument Valley does not.

The art has aged into something timeless, and the puzzles still surprise on a replay. It asks for two quiet evenings and gives back more than games ten times its size.

If you want more in this lane, both games sit near the top of my Best Apple Arcade Puzzle & Exploration Games (2026), and Old Man's Journey+ Review: A Hand-Drawn Story of Regret scratches the same wordless itch. Start with the first Monument Valley and give it a slow evening. It still does the one thing no other game has managed.