Constance Preview: A Mental Health Metroidvania Hollow Knight Fans Will Adore

Constance is a metroidvania akin to Hollow Knight that’ll take players on a guided tour through the mind of a struggling artist.

After playing it at Gamescom it quickly became a standout title on my pre-release wishlist and I’ve played the demo several times already.

In Constance you play as…Constance. An artist whose passion has escaped her and she struggles with mental health woes. That alone spoke to me as burnout can be a hell of a thing, especially in a job or hobby that you used to enjoy.

Throughout the game you’ll wield a giant paintbrush that can be used to traverse the map, fend off enemies and unlock new abilities to allow for more exploration, typical metroidvania stuff.

Visually the game is very striking, and it would be given how the game is about an artist. Colours popped and the hand-drawn backgrounds make entering new areas a joy. I’m looking forward to seeing all of the in-game environments when the full game drops.

If you’ve played games like Celeste you’ll get a kick out of the platforming, as while the majority of my demo featured fairly straight-forward jumps there were a few segments that required you to paint over parts of the foreground before crossing, and sometimes you could only do so midair, adding some technicality. I’d imagine some of the end-game areas will seriously test your skills and reaction times, so I’m looking forward to that.

What I’ve loved most about the game so far though is its link to mental wellbeing. It’s an important part of our daily lives and I think we can all relate to Constance’s struggles in one way or another. Much like the benches in Hollow Knight there are rest points where Constance will meditate, as she collects herself and prepares for the next part of her journey.

All in all I liked what I played at Gamescom and I’m happy to have been able to play more when I got home, though now I’m counting down the days to November when the full game launches on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.