The best indie platformer
Celeste, climbing a mountain to talk about something else
- Critic score
- 91
- Player rating
- 4.7/5
- Main story
- 8.3 h
- Genre
- Platformer
A demanding platformer where you die hundreds of times, and which is really about anxiety and self-doubt. Celeste pulls off both, without either weakening the other.
On paper Celeste is a two-dimensional platformer: Madeline climbs a mountain across more than five hundred screens spread over eight areas. She can grab any wall and dash through the air. Two verbs, nothing more — and the entire difficulty comes from combining them.
The game is hard, and owns it. You will die a great deal. But respawns are instant and the screen restarts exactly where it left off: you never lose more than three seconds. That very short loop turns failure into learning rather than punishment, and it is probably the most quoted design lesson in the game.
Alongside this, Celeste tells the story of Madeline confronted with her own reflection, literally: a version of herself pursues and contradicts her. The climb becomes a metaphor for an internal struggle with anxiety. It is handled without heaviness, in a handful of well-written exchanges, and the mountain ends up meaning what it needs to mean without anyone having to explain it.
For those who want more, each area hides a markedly harder remixed version, and B-sides built for players who have already mastered everything. There is also an assist mode that can slow time or make the dash infinite: difficulty here is a choice, never a barrier.
Around eight hours for the main story, considerably more if you want to collect everything.