The Witness is, without a doubt, an amazing puzzle game. Add in the stunning visuals, and you start to have all the makings for a home run. Unfortunately, the payouts are very few and very far between. This pacing makes the drive to keep playing feel like it is shrinking every time you turn off the game.
The Witness starts you off on a mysterious island with absolutely nothing to go on. Similar to Myst, there’s no introductory story or even a short conversation, you just get dropped in. It’s slightly disorienting, but made me feel like the whole island was ready and waiting for me to explore.
From here, you continue to receive no structure. There are no signs pointing you in the right way; no indications on how to solve any puzzles. Thankfully, the puzzles are designed elegantly enough that their concepts are introduced slowly before getting stacked together to form more complex puzzles.
It was in the first five to ten hours or so I probably had the most fun with The Witness. It was here that I found myself exploring all the corners of this crazy island, from the sunny beach to the windy top of the high mountain. I was also knocking out dozens of puzzles everywhere I went. I felt like a genius, despite getting stuck on a few particularly tricky ones.
It’s a good thing The Witness gives you this invincible genius feeling early on, because the usual reward for completing a puzzle is to unlock the next puzzle. Even after completing a tricky series of puzzles, you are rewarded with another series of even trickier puzzles.
There’s very little sense of reward in The Witness. Why bother scratching your head for 15-20 minutes solving one puzzle if you know you’ll only be treated to an equally difficult, or perhaps even more challenging, puzzle as a “prize”?
Sharp-eyed players can find many audio logs lying around the island, and they end up being as equally confusing as the puzzles. Many audio logs revolve around philosophical quotes regarding religion, said by men hundreds of years ago. Why? The best explanation I can give you is “just keep playing.” It’s the only message I could find as to why any of things in The Witness are the way they are.
Unfortunately, I often found myself caught on a particularly complex puzzle. If you get held up on these, you can keep exploring the island all you want. But eventually all you’re left with is these bottleneck puzzles. Just know that every puzzle does have a solution and you need to keep trying. This isn’t the most fun answer, but it’s the best one we get.
And that’s the question many people will have looking at The Witness: “is it fun?” Do you enjoy puzzles like sudoku? Do you like a free-form game experience with no hand holding? If so, The Witness is for you. Do you like strong narratives? Do you want a soundtrack with your game? If so, you might want to skip this one.
One thing is certain: The Witness is a unique gaming experience. The feeling you have of walking around the island, with nothing but the sounds of nature surrounding you and dirt under your feet, is unlike any other. Whether you get sucked in by the seemingly endless number of puzzles or not, The Witness will stick with you; your mind constantly walking back under the bright pink trees, or exploring a rusted out shipwreck. The island in The Witness may be mysterious, but it’s oddly comforting at the same time. It’s a place you don’t want to leave.
The Witness is available to download for the PS4 and PC on Jan. 26.
So what do you think? Do you plan on playing The Witness? What other puzzle games are you interested in playing? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
