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Save for that blissful half-hour of Silksong that I played back in E3 2019, Constance is, so far, the best Hollow Knight-like game I’ve ever played. It’s not exactly the same–Constance takes a page out of Splatoon’s book and features a main character that can wield dangerous purple paint and submerge into puddles in order to slink past enemies or obstacles or ascend up walls–but I couldn’t help but be reminded of my time spend in Hallownest. My time with the game was unfortunately quite short–I played a 20-minute Gamescom demo–but I adored what I saw of its quirky world and enjoyed how much the various designs of the robotic enemies and assortment of paint-based abilities shook up each combat encounter. Just as Hollow Knight’s gameplay emulates the acrobatic dance and frenzied movements of insects, combat in Constance feels like the frenetic flourishes and flicks of a paintbrush as an artist enters the flow state.
Constance’s story seems quite interesting but I’m reserving judgment until I see more of it–20 minutes just isn’t enough time to get a grasp of the action-adventure game’s narrative. In the game, you play as the titular heroine and explore a non-linear interconnected world that’s been overtaken with danger. The Constance you’re playing as is the figurative representation of the Constance in the real world, an artist. This game represents Constance’s mental health journey with each of the six biomes emulating the different aspects of her psyche and personal history.
Celeste remains one of my favorite games of all time, and Constance’s story feels like it gives off big Celeste energy. This is most clearly seen in Constance’s mechanics, with both platforming segments and combat gauntlets standing in for figurative struggles. Using brush techniques–like sinking into the ground and becoming paint to slide under enemies, or shooting out paint to attack a far-away foe or bounce off a spike, for example–corrupts Constance. If you cool off, the corruption stops but if you use too many of the techniques in a row, Constance becomes corrupted and takes on a negative side effect until she has a chance to meditate at a checkpoint. Obviously, the pressures of burnout and the process of addressing it are more complex than that, but the mechanics capture the gist of the sensation.
In the same vein, Constance has this really cool death mechanic wherein every time she dies, you have the choice of returning to the last checkpoint at full health or continuing from exactly where you died with only 60% of your maximum health. Graciously, going for the latter over and over does not stack over multiple deaths, but it does make repeated efforts against a challenging boss or multiple failed attempts to get past an especially difficult platforming segment much harder. You’re going at the challenge you just messed up with almost half your health gone, after all–that means you have to do better at dodging the enemy attacks or avoiding the chip damage of multiple falls off the map. It’s not impossible, however, which makes it tempting–much as it’s tempting to be tired or hurt and still maintain that everything is fine and you can just persevere through. Take a moment to catch your breath and work your way back up to the issue at hand fully rested and stress-free? Couldn’t be me!
I’m curious to see how mechanics like these continue to impact the gameplay and affect the player’s understanding of the story. I think it could be really cool, but again it’s difficult to get a solid read on the full experience from such a short demo.
Mechanically, Constance is a strong game. There’s that perfect level of pushback to Constance’s strikes, delivering a sense of heft to each attack while encouraging the player to utilize hit-and-run tactics and quickly move across the screen like a paintbrush rapidly flicking across the canvas. And the movement upgrades I saw all contribute to that sense of frenetic movement. Constance clearly has some metroidvania inspirations, with the upgrade I unlocked in the demo even coming from the outreached palm of a Chozo Statue-esque construct. This upgrade was geared toward both movement and combat, letting me get to a previously unreachable place and overcome what were once unstoppable threats. I hope most of Constance’s upgrades are in the same boat.
Constance is also a really pretty game. The 2D hand-drawn artstyle paints the biomes in all assortments of colors, save–at least of what I saw–purple, which is reserved for the protagonist and makes it easy to spot her as she’s backflipping and dashing across the screen. The various NPCs are cute (though I wish they had the expressive garbles of Hollow Knight’s characters) and from what I’ve seen of the environments, each possesses a character all its own.
All in all, I’m excited for Constance. The story seems interesting and the way the game ties combat and movement mechanics to burnout and perseverance is an intriguing idea. And even if the game doesn’t sound as cute as I would like it to, it certainly matches my expectations when it comes to visuals–and for a game about a painter, that’s the more important benchmark to hit anyway!
Constance is scheduled to launch for PC in Q4 2025.
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