The Witness

The finished product is just as arresting and enthralling as anyone could have expected.

The Witness feels like the fulfillment of that dynamic, a way of ingeniously hiding locks and keys and entire modes of inquiry in plain sight. Blow’s triumph lies in his insight into the thresholds of human perspective, how information travels and agglomerates, and how, given the right frame of mind, any of us might move mountains.

The Witness is a game brimming with secrets: daunting and multilayered mysteries that sunk into my subconscious, tracing snaking paths across my brain until I was literally seeing mazes every time I closed my eyes. That’s the kind of power The Witness has. It hooked me in with its masterful puzzle design and gorgeous visuals, then compelled me forward as I began to carve out my own purpose on the island. It’s a freedom granted by a world as welcomingly open to exploration as it is enjoyably challenging to crack open.

This is one of those genuinely special experiences that, at least in the case of Blow’s track record, only come along once a generation. Be sure not to miss out on this instant classic.

The Witness is a “just” puzzle game as much as orgasm is just a feeling. [March 2016]

The Witness is highly unconventional but will enchant players who come ready to surrender their imagination to its unusual charms and challenging puzzles.

A relatively simple gameplay concept in The Witness was translated into one of the best puzzle games in years, with gorgeous graphics. Hundreds of panels to solve can sound a little monotonous, but there's no time for boredom.

It took eight years for Jonathan Blow to create his follow-up to Braid. It was worth it. We're obsessed.

Blow does it again. Exquisitely layered puzzles populate a world that will keep you guessing.

This world is made to challenge the player and make the player feel proud. That works well on this island full of puzzles, which uses riddles to form an interesting story.

The Witness proves how modern video games have spoiled us. This is a challenging puzzle game with a beautifully0crafted world you'll love to explore and is filled with puzzles that will keep you guessing endlessly.

The Witness is a unique, complex and brilliantly designed puzzle that won't resonate with every player. It offers over thirty hours of highly cerebral gameplay that will delight every fan of "intelligent" games, yet is open enough to let more casual players explore its landscapes.

Some gamers will consider The Witness to be a masterpiece and another proof that videogames are art. In this case the Witness requires you to possess at least two out of these three character traits: superb intelligence, angelic patience and passion for analyzing various cultural works. Everyone else will probably think that The Witness is pretty, but too hard.

I'm not upset about how inaccessible so much of The Witness felt for me. I feel sad, because I think The Witness is an experience a lot of people are going to enjoy figuring out, whereas I'm going to need more hints to get through it.

It's a beautiful game and knowing that I finished it with minimal help actually does make me feel smarter. It also contains some subtle messages about human potential that I found surprisingly uplifting (when I wasn't pulling my hair out). Despite feeling deeply satisfied by the experience, it's hard for me to ignore how much time I spent frustrated and bored and angry. Maybe contrasting those two ends of the emotional spectrum is essential to the experience of playing The Witness, but an era when they can skip the frustration, I'm not convinced most players will have the patience to obtain it.