The Witness

You wake up, alone, on a strange island full of puzzles that will challenge and surprise you.

The Witness is a puzzle, exploration and first-person game developed and published by Thekla and Inc..
Released on January 26th 2016 is available on Windows and MacOS in 15 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Polish, Portuguese - Portugal, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean and Hungarian.

It has received 18,065 reviews of which 15,334 were positive and 2,731 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.3 out of 10. 😎

The game is currently priced at 9.24€ on Steam and has a 75% discount.

The Steam community has classified The Witness into these genres:

Puzzle Exploration First-Person Open World Singleplayer Colorful Indie Atmospheric Difficult Walking Simulator Adventure Mystery Nonlinear Relaxing Philosophical Surreal Casual Great Soundtrack Story Rich Beautiful

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at The Witness through various videos and screenshots.

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Requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

OS *: Windows 7
Processor: 1.8GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD 4000 series
DirectX: Version 10
Storage: 5 GB available space

MacOS

OS: 10.11.6 (El Capitan)
Processor: 1.8GHz
Graphics: Intel HD 4000 series
Storage: 5 GB available space
Additional Notes: Metal support required

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Nov. 2024

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.

July 2024

The best puzzle game I have ever played in my life. Found out about this game through Achievement Hunter's Let's Play of it back in 2016 and I was hooked . I remember beating it back in 2019; only now in 2024 did I come back to this game and realize that there is more that I have missed. [*]I like how no words explain what you need to do and that the only clues you get are visual-wise. The entire environment is pretty relaxing to listen to and can help you calm down. I remember closing my eyes during one puzzle to help me concentrate on some puzzles and I felt at complete Zen ; such a beautiful feeling. This game is definitely not for everyone; but for those that can be patient enough to breathe deeply and focus, definitely check out this game.

May 2024

most of the bad reviews seem to be people who simply dont enjoy puzzle games and thought for some reason they would enjoy this. this game is NOTHING but line puzzles. it does lots of cool things with line puzzle yes, but at the end of the day if doing line puzzles for 10-15 hours + doesnt sound fun to you, spare yourself the frustration and just dont get it.

Feb. 2024

This game is not for everyone. If you don't like experimental weird shit games, don't get it. The Witness is hard to describe. A large open world that you wander around in solving puzzles. Why do you solve the puzzles? Some times you can see that they lead to something, some times you do them because, well, this is a puzzle game and you found a puzzle. The entire game is built upon a slowly increasing knowledge base, where you solve an extremely simple puzzle, then a slightly more complex one, until you learn the rules of that type of puzzle. You might need to look at the puzzles from different angles, or listen carefully to sounds, but you can't even carry objects so don't worry about fetch quests. Every puzzle in the game is totally self contained, once you understand the rules. Like a Myst game, keeping a notebook is a must. It has no characters in the traditional sense. No big face slaps of "I AM TEACHING YOU PHILOSOPHY" like The Talos Principle. But it has strong theme, expression, and intent. Cons: -Dear god the motion sickness. I don't get motion sickness from games, but hooooooly crap did I have to stop playing this multiple times because it made me sick. This is especially true with some of the very late game puzzles. The worst part of the game by far for me. -Difficulty that can be frustrating. Almost nothing in the game is difficult in the traditional sense. What makes the game hard is figuring out the rules, and if you don't know a rule it becomes next to impossible. Figuring out some of them can be a challenge. -Nothing is explained in the traditional sense. The reviews that say there are no tutorials are wrong; the entire game is a giant set of tutorials. But you need to pay attention to every thing you do, in every puzzle, and what it means. Woe to you if you didn't write down your discoveries. -It's slow. Think Myst, if you played that back in the day. Moving through spaces, exploring them, piecing together from the environment what you are supposed to even do there, if anything. Pros: -Do you like learning through doing, rather than having something explained to you? That's the game. That's literally the entire game. And I mean it. It is 30+ hours of tinkering and experimenting and OH SHIT I GET IT! moments where suddenly 3 of the puzzles you left behind, stuck, suddenly make sense and are child's play. Along each of those you will discover something else and another puzzle you couldn't figure out just clicks into place. Or maybe what you discover is a puzzle you didn't even realize was there, but you were staring at the whole time! And you get lost in it. -It's beautiful. Incredible art direction with layers and layers and layers. -It has a hard to quantify human "art feel". The frustrations, and the journey. The realizations about the game and about yourself. It'll do things to you that suck, and it'll do things to you that are wonderful. When I beat one of the endings I literally had to stand up and walk away from my computer. A few ending notes Looking up almost anything immediately breaks the game. This can be extremely hard to deal with in a context where the answer to not understanding something is to just look it up. A few times in the game I "solved" things a bit faster than the game intended and had to slog through a dozen puzzles of ramping difficulty. If you just look up how a mechanic works, all you're doing is slogging through puzzles that take longer to walk between than to solve. There are multiple endings, and at some point you will probably want to look up some of that because... Well, you probably will. I can't tell you if that is the right or the wrong move. It will make a radical impact on your entire game experience though, and I'm not sure which way is better. Do I recommend? For me, yes. I also know people that would hate it, and I totally understand why.

Jan. 2024

I've been playing this game since 2016 – yes, I'm one of those who have played this game for the longest time – and only now have I decided to finally finish it (of course, there were long periods when I just put this game aside). I like the visuals and the puzzles. However, in my view, the environmental puzzles are the weakest part of this game. They don't require logic; instead, they demand a keen eye and pixel hunting, which quickly becomes tedious. In my opinion, the author is a very talented person, but he failed to realize the difference between SOLVING and SEARCHING. Searching and pixel hunting quickly become boring and tiring. I'm a big fan of puzzle games, but there's a limit to how much time I'm willing to invest in a game. The Witness requires an excessive amount of meticulous exploring and peering into the landscape if you aim to complete it 100%. So, here's my advice for all newcomers to the game: try the minimal walkthrough on your own (you can finish the game without completing all puzzles), and resort to guides if you aim to finish it 100%. This approach will unveil some interesting endings and game content. Trust me – it doesn't make sense to finish it 100% on your own because it will take an enormous amount of time on average. Plus, you will clearly see (if you follow the guides on environmental puzzles) how much time a puzzle would have taken you if you attempted it on your own. To sum it up – overall, I like this game; perhaps only Myst surpasses it. But what I don't appreciate is that it becomes tedious at some point, and we, as human beings, just don't like to hit our head against the wall without making any progress. Being unable to solve a puzzle doesn't make you stupid; spending hours and days trying to solve a puzzle that you cannot solve does.

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Data sources

The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.

Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.

Last Updates

Steam data	20 November 2024 00:00
SteamSpy data	18 December 2024 20:09
Steam price	23 December 2024 12:46
Steam reviews	23 December 2024 01:50

-75% 36.99€ 9.24€

8.3

15,334

2,731

Online players

236

Developer

Thekla, Inc.

Publisher

Thekla, Inc.

Release 26 Jan 2016

Platforms