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The Witness
87 Score
Adventure · Indie · Puzzle

The Witness

NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios  /  January 25, 2016  /  Rated Unrated

Data last updated July 24, 2026

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Released

2016

Publisher

Thekla

Time to beat

~4 hrs

Community

6,407

The Witness is a 3D puzzle game where you explore a mysterious island full of natural and artificial structures. The game is focused on non-verbal communication that should make the player more attentive to the environment surrounding him. To complete the game, you need to solve puzzles in each of the eleven island's regions and get to the mountain in the center of it. While the regions differ a little, puzzles they feature are quite similar and, as a rule, have something to do with symmetry to be solved. Puzzles are activated at the grids you can find around locations. 
There are two modes in the game. In the walking mode you can explore the island, and in the path-drawing mode you don’t move and focus on solving puzzles.
While the game’s plot is quite unclear and The Witness doesn’t give many details on the hero’s background, its key feature is the visual aspect combined with music, inspiring quotes you can hear and the meditative tone of the game in general. The game features several visual illusions based on depth perception.

The Witness is a 2016 puzzle video game developed and published by Thekla, Inc. Inspired by Myst, the game involves the exploration of an open world island filled with natural and human-made structures. The player progresses by solving puzzles, which are based on interactions with grids presented on panels around the island or paths hidden within the environment. No direct instructions are provided for solving these puzzles, requiring the player to identify the meaning of symbols in the puzzles. A central design element was how these puzzles are presented so that the player can achieve a moment of inspiration through trial and error and gain that comprehension themselves.

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recommended
40.6%
exceptional
36.21%
meh
16.95%
skip
6.24%

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