Keeper review: Art too beautiful and bizarre to describe

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Video games have maintained a high level of quality this last year, with major publishers delivering some stellar titles. As we near the end of 2025, though, my favorites still remain those games with more focused scopes, like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and The Alters.

Now, a third title is completing the trilogy, directly targeting my personal tastes in games with such absurd creativity that I could never guess quite what would happen next. This is Keeper, and its synopsis is deceptively simple: you are a lighthouse, and now you’re alive, accompanied by a grateful bird, and intent on taking a walk.

If you’re intrigued, I recommend playing Keeper with as little knowledge as possible; it’s on Xbox Game Pass, too. I’m not naive enough to hope Keeper will become a resounding mainstream success for Xbox, and I’m confident reviews will be varied (as they often are for unique indie-style games), but that won’t stop me from defending and recommending this game endlessly.

This review was made possible thanks to a review code provided by Xbox Game Studios. Double Fine Productions and Xbox Game Studios had no input nor saw the contents of this review prior to publication.

To call Keeper creative would be a wild understatement. Even its foundational premise is the kind of absurdity many can only expect from the developers at Double Fine Productions, which finally returns after 2021’s Psychonauts 2.

Keeper

• Release date: Oct. 17, 2025
• Developer: Double Fine Productions
• Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
• Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (Microsoft Store & Steam), Xbox Game Pass (Ultimate, PC, & Cloud)
• Playtime: 6-8 hours

That virtual insanity is best experienced unspoiled, and while I’ll be very careful to avoid such spoilers in my review (as I always am), I still recommend skipping the reviews and diving straight into the game.

For those who need a basic understanding of a game before deciding if it’s worth the time spent buying and downloading it, Keeper can be described as a puzzle-adventure game.

You’ll explore a diverse world swimming in alien life and vibrant colors, searching for the way forward, while also slowly learning more about this mysterious world (if you care to look for those secrets).

I honestly expected a 3-4 hour adventure, like a lot of indie games, and instead enjoyed an 8-10 hour journey across realms. Keeper is a slower burn, but it does a brilliant job evolving as you progress, keeping the game fresh and interesting as your mind is blown all the way to the credits rolling.

Strictly from a technical perspective, Keeper is impressive, but not astoundingly so. Performance was impeccable apart from brief stutters during a late-game cinematic, and there were occasional (brief) loading screens when transitioning between major areas. I didn’t encounter any noticeable bugs or breaks during my play through.

Keeper is Double Fine at its absolute finest, but it’s also not like any other Double Fine game I’ve ever played.

This is Double Fine at its finest

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Double Fine has never been “normal,” and they’ve also been one of my favorite studios for years. No correlation, I’m sure. Like with Keeper, you can always count on Double Fine to keep you guessing at what’s coming next, with some of the most unique worlds in all of gaming under its belt.

Where most Double Fine games tend to be straight up goofy, or cover devastating topics with a disarming layer of Double Fine-brand humor, Keeper is somber and serious throughout. It’s a very different experience compared to other Double Fine games, especially since a single world is never spoken.

The story of Keeper is told entirely through the world itself, either through the strange life occupying its regions, the mysterious ruins of some long-gone civilization, crumbled statues hinting at a disastrous history, the constant threat of an enigmatic decay seeping through every crack, even your own inscrutable actions as a sentient lighthouse with a clearly set goal that may not be clear to you at all.

Keeper is one of the most stunning games of the year — Double Fine truly outdid itself.

What is immediately obvious, though, is that Double Fine has truly outdone itself with Keeper’s art direction and visual style. It’s difficult to capture in words just how beautiful this game is, and it’s remarkable how it continuously impresses you in new ways as you progress. Most of my images are from the beginning chapters to avoid spoilers, so you’ll just have to trust me when I say Keeper gets wild.

The color palette, the environment and character models, the smooth and intricate animations for everything, the relentlessly cinematic camera (which, admittedly, is sometimes frustrating to wrangle) — Keeper is special, and it all serves to support the story being told. I can say the same about the gameplay, which starts out simple: you can walk, and you shine a light.

As you progress, though, Keeper slowly adds new features, changes existing mechanics, and even occasionally throws everything away to give you something completely different. At first, I wondered how Keeper would keep me entertained for its entire runtime — by the final act, I was left stunned by how skillfully Keeper evolved its gameplay to keep me engaged and further strengthen the unspoken narrative.

If there’s one area where Keeper may fall short, it’s the soundscape. The audio design and soundtrack are fine, and there are absolutely powerful moments, but audio in general lacked the impact of the visuals. If I hadn’t been spoiled by Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 earlier this year, though, I probably wouldn’t feel as strongly about it.

Keeper review: My final thoughts

✅You should play this if …

All you needed to hear was “new Double Fine game.”
You love immensely creative games with stunning visuals.
You were looking for a new, low-energy puzzle-adventure game.

❌You should not play this if …

You only play games with high-octane gameplay or spoken stories.
You bizarrely hate lighthouses, specifically, and can’t stand to play as one.

After Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and The Alters, Keeper is my third 5/5 game of 2025, and my second favorite title overall (I don’t see anything beating Expedition 33 for me, honestly).

It’s easily my favorite Xbox Game Studios release this year, and I’ll be shocked if The Outer Worlds 2 manages to impress me to a similar degree (although I’m still very excited to begin playing it next). I simply adore this game, and I’m ecstatic to know that Double Fine is currently working on multiple new projects.

Instead of formulaic remakes and sequels, major publishers need to embrace sheer creativity with more games like Keeper (but not at all like Keeper, you know what I mean). Sadly, I’ve lost faith in Xbox to keep investing in games that aren’t easy wins — after the latest round of cancellations and full-blown studio closures, I’ve been constantly afraid Double Fine might find itself on the cutting block next.

So, I’ll do my part and tell you to go play Keeper. It’s perfectly priced for what it is ($29.99 at Xbox), and it’s available on Xbox Game Pass from day one. Keeper is a work of art that deserves to be experienced by as many people as possible, especially if it means the studio that made it happen can keep exploring the outer reaches of creativity with future games.

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