The Witness Reviews
The Witness is an expansive and wickedly smart follow-up to Braid, with puzzles to test even the brightest minds. Its mental gymnastics are well worth the occasional frustration, and you'll come out feeling like a genius.
Somehow Jonathan Blow has once again managed to prove that his elevated opinion of his own abilities is 1000% justified. Though I am admittedly well within his target demographic, it is hard to shake the feeling that The Witness was a game that was made specifically for me.
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.
If you have any interest in logic puzzles and want to explore a pretty interesting world, the Witness is a must own.
The Witness is a very interesting game, when you first hear the premise for it. You're just a person going around an abandoned island, solving puzzles, and learning the story along the way. How that is portrayed is wonderful, but the execution is downright sloppy.
Thought provoking and challenging, The Witness is a game that really depends on the player's perspective to reach full enjoyment.
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.
The Witness, then, is an exploratory puzzle game with very limited mechanics and has the tendency to make you pull your hair out in frustration as you begin to reach the limits of your own comprehension. In spite of this, it is an excellently crafted world, with a huge amount of brain teasers to attempt. Some people may not like the lack of immediate feedback when making your way through some of the areas, but the varied nature in solving the puzzles that ultimately combine with each other in such a way make figuring out The Witness an experience without parallel.
A truly unique experience that challenges everything you know about games. This is a game that respects the player and pushes them to do their best, with no handholding whatsoever. Frustration is likely, but when you do solve a particularly challenging puzzle, the sense of achievement is unmatched.
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The only question gamers will have to answer is if they're okay with playing the game for its own sake, not necessarily to have their questions answered. Thinking back on those overbearing in-game quotes, perhaps that is the point.
A daunting, confounding, maddening, and beautiful game
This review is slightly vague, but that's for the reader's benefit. "The Witness" is at its best when it's discovered within an isolation chamber. It's not going to be a game for everyone. For those who are impatient or who are unwilling to test your mental moxie, then steer clear of "The Witness." If you're looking for a beautiful brain teaser that rewards as well as it punishes, this should be the next game you play. It's unlike anything else out there.
This is an intricate, beautiful, masterfully crafted game that surprises and delights on several fronts. Unfortunately, it also becomes incredibly and relentlessly punishing in a way that could put many off.
The game allows players to learn and wonder at all the symbolism at their own pace, to draw their own conclusions.
The Witness is an outstanding game, one that slowly reveals its brilliance and assumes the players intelligence rather than guides it. It is an absolute must play for puzzle fans.
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.
The Witness is perhaps the best example of a puzzle game I have seen yet, and it is also one of the most effective instances of interactive storytelling that I can recall. For this game, I have nothing but the utmost respect.
Video games are unequivocally a form of art. But like all art, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. With 'The Witness' I feel like I'm in an art gallery watching a gaggle of admirers who are looking at a piece together, commenting on its style and how it makes them feel. I'm the guy standing off to the side, not with them but looking at the same painting. I can admit that it's pretty, but it doesn't really evoke a significant response, and so I shrug and move on to the next.
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.
The Witness might be one of the best games ever made, but there's no denying it's also infuriating in equal measure.