The Witness

The game is very pretty, the sound design is amazing. As others have said, it feels like a chore, and just feels obtuse for the sake of being obtuse. I get that its a puzzle game but its kinda of just repetitive after a while. If you like this type of thing its great but man, idk id give it a mixed if it were an option.

Game is very long, puzzles are very difficult to comprehend and repetitive, and the conclusion is lackluster in that it does not explain why the world you're playing in is the way that it is. Overall a rather annoying experience, even though the visuals are captivating and completing a puzzle keeps you hooked.

yes but it is very hard its only fun if you dont cheat but do to the complexity of the puzzles i also find it to be replayable too.

really enjoyed this game, 10/10 would recommend, shame it doesn't have a colorblind mode though.

I won't pretend that I'm some sort of genius who solved this entire thing without looking some of it up.
Also, all the negative criticisms I've seen of the game are still perfectly valid.
But, ultimately, I do think it's a well-designed game even with its at-times frustrating refusal to communicate with the player. I think everyone would be able to solve the entire game with no guides, and enough patience. I didn't have the patience, admittedly but the point stands that I truly don't think anything about this game is unbeatable on its own.
It would be nice if it had more of a coherent story. And those videos are too long.

If you can figure out the rules, you can finish a puzzle. It's a highly intuitive puzzler if you're paying attention. When you come across a puzzle, the puzzle's panel, or it's surroundings have something that you need to pay attention to; some sort of reference, or obstruction that relates more exactly to the panel's puzzle than others, or a symbol on the panel that you haven't seen before. The proceeding puzzles expand upon the rules that arise, subvert them, or combine them with secondary, tertiary, and quaternary rules. Tutorial areas included. (I just wanted to use those words, because I'm silly. Hahaha, come here, my Discord kitten.)

This game is peak puzzle madness, one of my favourite puzzle game of all time.
While the puzzles are always and only "draw a line on a board", the means to understand or get the right answers are unique to each area of the map. Every mechanics are perfectly crafted and always feature one stupid board that seems almost impossible. I cannot lie that I used a guide for couple puzzles that were blocking me to reach the end, but overall, I've done 99% of the game by myself.

Every aspect of the game is perfectly thought of and are impeccable at what they want and need to achieve.
If you like puzzle games, I cannot recommend the game enough, if you see it on sale, just grab it.

best puzzle game i ever played, figuring out how puzzles work is a treat

It just doesn't stay fresh for the entire duration. If you are intrinsically motivated by puzzles, you will have some fun with this game. If you aren't, stay really far away.

This is the game that made me realize I am not into pure puzzle solving games at all.

Clever, occasional, and relatively simple puzzle solving challenges and rewarding exploration in games like "Zelda: A Link to the Past," love it. The kind of puzzles that the Witness was asking me to solve with no other interesting gameplay? I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd prefer to be slapped in the face with a dead fish.

This is one of the best puzzle games and the ultimate one stroke drawing game. Before this game, I can't even imagine there're so many elements can be added to one stroke drawing. Both the quality and quantity of puzzles in the game are amazing. The first run will take 20+ hours, which is huge for a puzzle game.

Although the game has a reasonable learning curve, it's common to enter areas with unknown mechanisms and this could be frustrating at times. In fact, there's no explanation on any game symbols or mechanisms. It will be very painful if you don't get it from the limited hints. There's a guide in the community provided basic explanation without spoiling which is indeed useful.

There're only two achievements in the game. One for completing the game and the other one is a time limited challenge. The time limited challenge is difficult but doable after a few practices, provided you minimize the use of guides throughout the game. Or else, good luck.

In Braid, the developer's previous game, there's an annoying time limited challenge achievements as well. I hated that achievement all the while. But now after this game, I think maybe I can understand where the developer comes from better. Probably one day I will go back and finish that game.

Overall, this is a must play game for any player love strategy or puzzles.

Very mixed feelings on this Game, I would recommend it granted you like solving puzzles for their own satisfaction, if not might not be your cup of tea (Would recommend getting it on sale for peak value for money). It has Very nice and peaceful atmosphere and an interesting visual style and some pretty cool puzzles (although your mileage may vary with some of them). Not story focused although there are secrets to be found if you keep your eyes open. If your going into it however I will say that not to expect a profound master peace or perfect experience, many parts of the game are enjoyable but I think it was trying to be more profound then what it was saying could really end up being.

GOD AWFUL CONFUSING, spent too much time on dumb things but made me think out of the box, and it stupidly lets you wander and take in the fire hot dope surroundings, very calming and too many places to go and so many fucking puzzles.

Very cool. Progression feels like a metroidvania, but with puzzle mechanics.

bad game you should not waste your money on it. worst game design I have ever seen. could have been a great game but there are so many flaws that just make it a nightmare to play

I finished everything, including the Challenge. Don't play this, go play Antichambr or something. Too many repeating puzzles and too few moments of "epiphany".

I spend more time walking around searching for a puzzle than actually solving puzzles, and when I do find a puzzle, it tends to either be really easy or have a mechanic I haven't learned yet. Most of the puzzles are also just about finding some random thing in the environment that looks like the puzzle board. It's basically just a "find the hidden object" game for those "puzzles" since, once you find the clue, you basically have the answer.

This game is more tedious than difficult and the most difficult parts are about finding the right thing to look at rather than solving the actual puzzle. Especially since the right thing is usually just some arbitrary part of the environment.

If I could give this game a neutral rating I would, because you're either going to absolutely love it or absolutely hate it. As it is, though, I recommend playing it, and just refunding it if after an hour and a half you're not enjoying yourself. Go in blind if possible.

Imma be real, this ain't it.

The puzzles are very complex and become tedious, they aren't particularly fun to do. I was expecting some sort of interesting story here, there is none, just a collection of profound quotes with no collective meaning.

The game looks cool but at the end of the day I wouldn't recommend it.

Playing this game makes me feel incredibly smart, incredibly stupid, and as if I had just stumbled into an undocumented art project of an unhinged and tortured artist who devoted last 40 years of their life for it.

I think about this game a lot.

It's so well crafted, intriguing, and, as is evident, gorgeous.
No matter where you are, you will be intrigued by what's ahead.
A curious narrative strung by philosophical breadcrumbs, but that's all you need since it's not about that.
Ultimately, I find this game's most powerful feature is providing a breathtaking, zen, puzzle island.

I love this game!

In The Witness you play as the snake from Snake and must solve a multitude of mazes without breaking an ever-expanding list of abstract but logically consistent rules communicated through arcane symbols.

You also play as supporting character 3D FPS Person, who carries the snake between mazes and occasionally searches for clues in the environment on 2D Snake's behalf.

Finally there's You, who are charged with choosing your battles, building and retaining knowledge, being patient, being mindful, being curious, embracing the unknown and taking satisfaction in your own achievements.

The Witness is probably also here I don't know. They won't help you with the optional puzzles that require full colour vision and/or hearing ability, so I'm not sure what good they are.

A puzzle game about looking at things from other perspectives, both literally and figuratively. This game is one of the most carefully made and highly detailed works of art I have ever seen, while also being one of the best puzzlers I have ever played.

It doesn't even belong on steam; it belongs in a museum.

This is for me, One of the best games that I played in my life, no matters how much time I have played it keeps surprising me.

very difficult... the atmosphere is quite grand!!!!!!!!! very relaxing and I quite enjoy.. recommended!

An incredibly complex puzzle game with a distinct lack of instructions, hints or any form of advice. It's hard to believe that anyone completed it without some online help. The concept of tracing lines on various types of maze is quite innovative, but the novelty factor quickly wears thin. In fact, after a while the game becomes very frustrating and you just wish that it was over.

I bought this game on sale and played for about 40 min, and I don't think I'll be playing anymore. For reference, I'm a big fan of Myst / Riven style games. My ideal is seamless integration between environment, story, and puzzles. The first 40 mins of The Witness was constant panel puzzles---very minor riffs on the same exact thing, for 40 straight minutes, and no end in sight. Zero story development whatsoever. The world does look cool, but I was just so buried in meaningless panel puzzles that I have no motivation to play again.

fun puzzle game hamstrung only by not being portal/portal 2. also a really high asking price.

THE WITNESS

I started seeing patterns IRL I am going isane also WHAT does the king james bible have to do with anything
10/10 probably one of the best games I've ever experienced

This game is amazing. Some would think it'll get boring by time, but it always changes, and gets more and more complicated. The attention to detail is design is so incredible, every single leaf on the ground, every square millimeter is important int he game progress. And the graphics is beautiful. I can tell, it causes addiction, recommend it 101% for sure!

I've never been so hooked on a puzzle game in my life. This game is insane. The design and attention to detail is astounding.

When I first saw this game, it was my friend playing it, and I looked at it and said, "oh, this is just Myst with maze puzzles". I was wrong; I love Myst, but this game is so much more. It's also so much more than the "8 hours" of gameplay that some of the reviewers are claiming it is. I was engrossed for nearly 40 hours. I actually could have gone longer, but I called it quits and looked up the final bits. Anyways, point being, don't just do the minimum to reach the credits. Keep solving puzzles until you run out and you'll be blown away by the ingeniousness of their designs.

It's simplistic in gameplay, but has nice visuals and is interesting enough. I'd say get it when its on sale.

if your child asks you to buy this game, don't do it, they will rip their hair out in frustration.
i am that child.

still love this game though footsteps 10/10 (and the gameplay obviously)

What was that ending!!!!!????

The main theme of "The Witness" is the brief moments of "enlightenment" that come when you find a solution to an seemingly unsolvable problem. The game develops this theme to the point of absurdity. From the simplest puzzles on the screen to the geography of the entire game world, every part of "The Witness" serves this purpose. The game drives you through an obsession with the search for "meaning," treating meaning as the ultimate problem, and it does this well. Even the pause menu is black like closed eyes, with outlines of puzzle shapes, emphasizing the omnipresence and obsession with solving riddles, as if the player thinks only about this and sees nothing else.

But that is also a problem with "The Witness". The sheer number of variations on the same puzzle becomes overwhelming and tedious, and the moments of enlightenment are no longer enough to keep up with the quantity of puzzles. You begin to wish for concrete answers regarding what is happening on the island, and at some point, you just want the game to end. Everything the game offers you up to that point—through audiobooks, petrified people in ordinary and extraordinary situations, and films—is not sufficient; it might even be discouraging, as these pieces of information are half-puzzles themselves, leaving you without any real motivation to engage with them seriously.

There is no concrete resolution. I won’t spoil the ending, but after struggling through the last puzzles, you receive no answer. Maybe I missed some crucial information in the remaining films or audiobooks, but as I said, I didn't have the will to seek them out, and now I even doubt they would reveal anything new to me.

Don’t get me wrong; "The Witness" is a phenomenal study of puzzles and should be played as such. I’m giving it a negative rating solely because the ending disappointed me so much that my main impression after the whole game is that I wasted too much time, which isn’t good.

I mean, I like puzzles. But a lot of these were just too difficult. The only thing that kept me going was the pretty scenery, and even that was irritatingly artificial – paths you couldn't leave, rocky bits only there to keep you out of the next area. And no obvious logical progression in which bit you needed to solve next. I did finally complete it (thanks to all the walkthrough creators out there – you do stellar work!) and even the ending is extremely irritating, because you can't even go back at the end and explore the pretty landscape with all the puzzles solved. Plus, right near the end there's a REALLY flashy/moving bit that made me feel quite ill and would be impossible for anyone more visually sensitive.

All in all, like a poor version of the Talos Principle, without any of the sense of achievement. But it does look nice.

Pretty incredible game. Have completed it, but also haven't finished it. This game is basically the magnum opus of puzzle games. I speak with very little experience there since I've only really played a couple others, but this game is actually magical and I feel confident in my answer.

5/10

The game with the best puzzles, even if it's not the best game with puzzles.

It's truly incredible to see how much can be squeezed out of a grid and a path. The game does a great job of organically introducing you to new concepts, and confounding you when you're not ready for more advanced ones. The way that so many puzzles break out and interact with the game world is amazing. Yes, some types are better than others, but the game still allows you to get the "main" ending if you skip a few sections.

That said, a lot of the criticism about the rest of the game is fair. Traversal is often unnecessarily slow. The "story" is insubstantial and/or pretentious. And the less said about the ending the better. But if you love challenging yourself with cleverly iterative puzzles, you can approach the game with that lens and not let the rest of it bother you.

You should only take what you want from this game. You don't have to solve EVERYTHING (which seems tedious even to a completionist like me). There is no achievement for it, or even a real progress tracker. In fact the harder stuff can be so obtuse that it seems designed for collaboration.

Just carve out your own path through this world. Enjoy it, and be okay knowing that it's bigger than any one person.

If you really like puzzles, mostly geometry with some logic, then this is good.
Not brilliant, but good.
Way way way too many similar puzzles.
But I had to ignore the philosophical stuff.. the videos and sound clips. Some were interesting, the others were...well.. is it Philosophy that is so meaningless, or were they people waffling along about existential something lacking any real substance.... I'd prefer an interesting story reveal over a set of soundbites and videos that are supposed to make me thing, but are such a small snippet of the world of thought that I feel like I'm being ushered into some sort of cult... or philosophy? Confusing, distracting.
The island is nice, the story ok, the main ending is a bit flat, the secret ending much better.

Nice looking game, so very difficult. Mental exhaustion sets in quickly when a solution doesn't work. I guess I need a lower setting or some feed back or a better brain.

You're in a FPS but all you're doing is playing spatial/logic puzzles that you could play on your iPhone. Stuff like "get two dots through a maze where you control them at the same time" or "uncross the wires". There's no storyline, nothing to motivate you to do these puzzles, that aren't even fun.

The Witness is a masterpiece that transcended my expectations and fundamentally changed the way I perceive not only games but the world around me. At its core, this is more than just a puzzle game—it’s an experience that invites you to question how you see and understand reality. From the moment I set foot on its mysterious island, I knew I was in for something profound, but I never anticipated how deeply it would rewire my thought processes.

As you progress, The Witness steadily expands your mind. Each puzzle is a test of perception, and the beauty of the game lies in its quiet, yet full of beautiful sound design and ambience, elegant genius. The further you go, the more you realize that the only thing limiting your understanding is your own perspective. The game doesn’t hand anything to you; it gives you the tools to succeed in a non-verbal way, but you have to be willing to look closer, to notice the subtle, intricate patterns hidden in plain sight.

The feeling of solving each puzzle is euphoric, but it’s more than that—it’s a revelation. You begin to understand that you aren’t just solving puzzles; you’re learning to observe, to pay attention to details that seemed irrelevant before. The more open you are to seeing beyond the surface, the more the world of The Witness reveals itself to you. And it’s not just about the puzzles themselves—it’s about how the game makes you realize that in life, too, we often only see what we’re willing to see.

Every area of the island is coherently themed around a specific idea. Each zone feels distinct, with its own set of rules, visual cues, and atmosphere, subtly guiding you to grasp the concept it’s trying to teach. Each area "is about something". The architecture, the unique artistic visuals and colors, and even the extremely well crafted sound design work together to gently nudge you towards understanding without ever spelling it out.

These areas aren’t just backdrops—they’re designed to suggest their secrets. As you explore, the way each space is crafted practically whispers clues to you, encouraging you to observe, experiment, and learn. The game operates on the principle that true understanding requires effort and introspection. If you rush through, you’ll miss the subtleties and nuances that make the experience so rich.

It’s this meticulous attention to detail that makes every part of the island feel alive and meaningful, pulling you into the game’s world and making each revelation feel earned.

And it never feels repetitive. Every puzzle introduces a fresh, new idea, challenging you in unique ways, and the game constantly forces you to think like a scientist. You’re not just guessing—you’re experimenting, forming hypotheses, testing them, and learning from each failure. Just when you think you’ve figured things out, it introduces a twist, or a partial carefully placed obfuscation, forcing you to adapt your thinking and test your hypothesis.

Puzzles don’t exist in isolation. Everything is connected to everything else. They build on one another, coming together in spectacular and often unimaginable ways. The process is methodical yet incredibly creative, as you're driven to break down problems, refine your approach, and discover the deeper logic behind each challenge. It’s like performing scientific experiments on your own perception. The further you go, the more you realize how the game’s mechanics compose a brilliant system that rewards careful observation and persistent curiosity. Each solution opens up new layers of understanding in ways that are mind-blowing.

In essence, The Witness teaches that meaningful insight is born from patience and curiosity, making every moment spent in its world incredibly valuable.

Thank you, Jon. :)

10/10, I love this. absolutely beautifully made game

I had a headache solving the puzzles and a migraine listening to the audios. Great philosophy lesson and game

I finally beat this game after playing it on and off for the past ten years. The game exists in a state of duality, it's both the most peaceful and frustrating thing. It allows you to explore the world at your own pace and yet you feel compelled to keep working on a puzzle until you crack the code. Very enjoyable, and I'm glad I can close the experience as a chapter of my life.

This game starts out strong and then crashes and burns rather unexpectedly. It really disrespects your time. The puzzles never evolve, even if they change. Its just exhausting honestly. After deciding to quit, I was informed about "late game" puzzles and am glad I stopped when I did.

8 years after it's release I still think of "The Witness" as one of the greatest puzzle games of all time. The fact that you have to figure it all out by yourself is really cleverly done, and it makes you feel like an absolute champ for every series of braintwisting puzzles you manage to complete.

at first, I thought this might be a fun game, but as the puzzles began to become increasing difficult and without any logical way to solve the puzzles, I attempted to use a "cheat walkthrough" file, but after being unable to pick up the strange logic of these puzzles, I quit. Maybe I am not smart enough to figure it all out, but I found the game without much else other than some nice scenery but impossible puzzles.