The Witness Reviews

The Witness is ranked in the 95th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
VideoGamer
Top Critic
10 / 10
Jan 25, 2016

I'm so caught up inside the world of The Witness that it's hard to think about anything else. It is one of the best games I've ever encountered.

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70 / 100
Jan 25, 2016

I admire a lot about The Witness. It is a beautiful game. It is a clever game. It is a big game. But all of its elements, mazes, exploration, and philosophy didn't really come together to express some greater theme. Unless I was meant to question why I hurt my brain to solve a series of difficult mazes for no real award.

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Unscored
Feb 4, 2016

The Witness is one of the most fulfilling games I've played in yonks and it accomplishes a rare feat. It's varied, playful, elegant, mysterious, challenging, and intensely focused all at the same time.

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10 / 10.0
Jan 25, 2016

First-person puzzler set on an abandoned island is about perspective and perception, logic and learning, and applying an analytical eye to the world

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90 / 100
Feb 9, 2016

The Witness is a profound experience, unlike any other and certainly intimidating in its refusal to give away its secrets for free. However, those with the inclination to buy-in and delve deep will find a trove of excellence, in the way it utilizes simple mechanics to convey greater themes. One of the most cohesive and intricate releases you can find, but not for the faint of heart.

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Game Rant
Top Critic
Feb 3, 2016

Following on from the massive success of Braid, The Witness is an engrossing and hugely satisfying experience that should solidify Jonathan Blow as one of the very best active game designers.

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Telegraph
Top Critic
Jan 25, 2016

The Witness is a game that will genuinely have you punching the air or laughing out loud, just from correctly drawing a line on a grid. If that isn't the mark of a truly special game, I don't know what is.

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Jan 26, 2016

Some fans of Blow's earlier work seem to have been hoping that the mazes they saw in the trailers are just a veneer for a deeper, mind-blowing experience, but really the world and whatever narrative you can find in it are dressing for an incredibly impressive collection of puzzles. Whether or not you find a deeper meaning at the end, the journey will have been worth it.

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Drew Leachman
Top Critic
9 / 10.0
Feb 3, 2016

If you have any interest in logic puzzles and want to explore a pretty interesting world, the Witness is a must own.

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9.5 / 10.0
Sep 23, 2016

They really don't make 'em like this any more. The Witness is an amazing game that you'll love to hate for its challenge, cursing it, wondering why you made the purchase, and then something will click for you, and it'll become one of the best games you've ever played.

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Ken McKown
Top Critic
9 / 10.0
Sep 16, 2016

The Witness is an example of superlative game design. Carefully crafted and mentally challenging. Everyone should dive into this world, it is the perfect game for several players to sit on a couch and solve. It will make your head hurt, it will tease your brain more than any game before it, but it also delivers satisfaction in solution better than anything else before, and perhaps after it. Play this game.

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9.2 / 10.0
Feb 6, 2016

The Witness is an excellent puzzle game, featuring many complex yet fair puzzles, a great atmosphere, an interesting narrative method and a lot of content. With no handholding whatsoever, The Witness certainly is not a game for everyone, but those who are up to the challenge will feel enriched once they solve most of the puzzles included in the game. After all the delays, Jonathan Blow and his crew fully delivered.

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95 / 100
Feb 1, 2016

The developers have managed to impart the rules of the game without a single bit of text other than the controls for interacting with the mazes and how to sprint.

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Jan 30, 2016

With the involvement of Jonathan Blow, there's been a lot of chin-stroking and borderline pretentious articles going up about The Witness - understandably, given it's such an arthouse project. But there's no need for that here: the game is very good, and if you've even an inkling you might enjoy solving 600-plus puzzles in a gorgeous island setting, we'd heartily recommend The Witness.

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Jan 25, 2016

The Witness revives the puzzle-solving portion of your brain that's lain dormant since Braid.

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6.5 / 10.0
Jan 25, 2016

The Witness, at the end of the day, revolves around one's ability to interpret and solve complex puzzles. The island is gorgeous and memorable while the gameplay itself is as smooth as silk, but there's no way around the constant need to solve the next puzzle. It is the ultimate stonewalling challenge rewarded only by rare success.

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9 / 10
Feb 27, 2019

The Witness is an intelligent, expertly crafted puzzle game with ceaselessly satisfying gameplay. It becomes bafflingly complex, yet the free-roaming nature of the island means that you'll never be stuck for long. In addition, the way in which it communicates new elements is nothing short of masterful. All in all, Jonathan Blow's latest is an enormous triumph.

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Jan 25, 2016

When I step back and think about The Witness, it is a game that challenged me more than any has before. No matter what though, the challenges were always worth pushing through to find a solution because of the rewards that were hidden behind them. There will be a group of people who love this game for how rewarding it is, and at the same time, there will be a group that loathes it for how frustrating it is. All I know is I fell in the group of the former.

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8.3 / 10.0
Feb 3, 2016

The Witness is one of the most elegant puzzlers around. It'll make you think, it'll make you laugh, and it'll make you yell. Above all else, though, it'll take you on one memorable journey that will stay with you for a long time.

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9 / 10.0
Jan 25, 2016

It's a brilliant, beautiful, masterfully crafted work, and the more you discover, the more apparent it is.

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