The Witness

The Witness is a first-person puzzle game about solving maze-like line puzzles on a beautiful island. Small panels with a grid and various symbols upon it are scattered across the island; your goal is to draw a line on each grid according to the rules and the clues you identified. Complex logic and loads of bonus content make The Witness a game that will keep even expert puzzlers occupied for hours.

The panel puzzles require drawing a line from a starting point to an ending point on a grid. Most of the grids are squares or rectangles with a small number of cells, providing a tight board for compact puzzles. Each grid usually features a few symbols, such as white squares and black hexagons, which define logical conditions your line should meet in order to clear the puzzle. For instance, you might have to go over every hexagon, or to divide the board so that symbols of different colors are kept in separate areas.

It should be noted that the rules associated with each symbol are never made explicit; instead, the players should discover them through trial and error. The game does feature tutorials, but they come in the form of short series of introductory puzzles whose successive solutions are meant to validate and refine your understanding of each mechanic. When a line is valid, you can proceed to the next panel with newly gained knowledge; and when it’s not, the symbols with unmet conditions will be highlighted with a red blink, guiding you towards a working solution. The Witness was designed by Jonathan Blow, the creator of Braid, and players should expect the same level of minimal hand-holding and shifting assumptions.

While these puzzles are solved on 2D panels, they are placed around a lush 3D open-world map. The island is divided into several areas, each of which revolves around one variation on the line-drawing formula. Each individual area is mostly linear—clearing one panel unlocks the next one—but if there’s a puzzle you find yourself unable to work out, you can still move to another location and come back later. Most of the areas are self-contained, but some of them require prior knowledge from other parts of the island, adding a medroidbrainia aspect to the gameplay. All in all, there are a prodigious number of puzzles, but you don’t need to complete every area to unlock the endgame section.

There’s a deep connection running between the island and its puzzles. Some panels function as controllers for doors or elevators. Instead of the aforementioned abstract symbols, several solutions rely on environmental clues such as visual patterns or sound cues. These sensory puzzles may be an accessibility concern for colorblind and hearing-impaired players; most are optional, but there are some unskippable color puzzles in the final area, as well as a couple with strobe effects. Other late game hurdles include confined randomness and timing elements. And while the game’s detailed world may seem superfluous, it actually exists for a reason that is left as a joyful surprise for players to eventually discover on their own.

The Witness keeps the puzzle-solving experience front and center. There's no story and no text, except for discreet audio logs quoting scientists and philosophers on themes of truth and perception. The bulk of the game involves tackling hundreds of tricky puzzles that explore the line puzzle formula from every possible angle.

This description was written by Gwen C. Katz.