"Keeper isn't likely to become Xbox's next mainstream hit, but it is a marvelous achievement in art direction, game design, and unspoken storytelling. Keeper is the result of giving a passionate, highly creative team the time and resources they need to create their masterpiece, and it begs to be played with as little knowledge as possible going in."
"The part of me that wonders if I should be more forthcoming about Keeper's surprises is the same part of me that might be inclined to look at its slightly wonky early pacing, its perhaps excessively frictionless progression, and its fairly unambitious puzzle design a little more harshly. But that's not who's reviewing this today. Instead, this one comes from a person who played through Keeper in a single spellbound sitting, thoroughly captivated and utterly delighted by the wondrous artistry of it all. Keeper is a lovely bit of magic; joyously realised, gently moving (but never mawkishly so), and it sees Double Fine - hardly a studio known to flub its big creative swings - on exceptional form."
IGN (9/10)
"A surreal painting come to life, Keeper is a stunning puzzle game that carefully balances its moreish mechanics with a heartfelt story. Its levels are teeming with life to interact with and interesting objects to ogle, with each scene framed by a percussive driving score. The leading duo might not speak. But, well-executed animations and a soundboard of affecting chirps and creaks imbue them with a spirit that grows on you fast. Adorable in premise, Keeper is a psychedelic exploration of life packed into a brief runtime that’s well worth experiencing at least once in your lifetime."
"Keeper is Double Fine at its most confident: a visual feast, a tone poem, an exploration of movement mechanics, a fable about the world and what we owe to it. It's recognizable as an evolution of the studio's earlier works while also feeling fresh and inventive. Double Fine games have always been dense with artistry, but it's Keeper--a game without words--that feels most like it's letting the artistry speak for itself."
"Keeper is a refreshingly creative game out of Xbox-owned studio Double Fine Productions, where you take control of a sentient lighthouse to journey to the top of a mountain with the company of a bird friend. Simple puzzles, tight camera angles, and varied traversal keep the game ticking along, but a lack of extra depth to the world or the story made Keeper feel a little one-note and not as weird as it might think it is."
"Keeper captures the essence of Double Fine, packaged in a heartfelt and surreal world where you never quite know what will happen next. The gameplay regularly surprises, but the lack of challenge in even the more elaborate puzzles is a bit of a drawback, along with not being able to control the camera."
"Keeper is strange in many ways, and sometimes crosses over into genuine psychedelia. In evaluating it as a game, some things didn’t work for me. As a piece of art and creative endeavor, it fares far better."
"While Keeper won’t offer you a fully fledged sense of closure, it’s most definitely an experience I’d recommend to anyone looking to unwind. It’s a slow, meditative game that’ll take you out of your own world and into one that is equal parts intoxicatingly beautiful and utterly baffling. The simple yet compelling gameplay is surprisingly engrossing. I may have rolled credits feeling baffled, but Keeper isn’t a game I’ll forget any time soon."
"Keeper is less a game than it is a playable art exhibit with light puzzle elements. But it's short and digestible, very pretty to look at, and satisfying enough to justify playing it if you have an active Game Pass subscription."
At the time of writing, Keeper has a Metacritic rating of 80 and an Open Critic score of 84; so right around our Pure Xbox review overall. On the whole, Double Fine's latest seems like a keeper then, and we're curious to see how you all find it when you dive in on Xbox Game Pass!
