The Witness

THE WITNESS (2016) was an incredible first-person problem solving/puzzle game and existential mystery with beautiful graphics. While there is narrative, it's somewhat well hidden and few and far between. The game really makes you work to unravel the overall mystery.

"You awake on a mysterious island with no goal but to simply traverse the area's multiple landscapes, unlock new pathways and solve all of the puzzles that prevent you from escaping."

There seems to be a lot of puzzles (and puzzles within puzzles) and areas to explore and some of the problems are very challenging, especially in the later areas you come across. Visually the game is hyper vivid, almost surreal in the bright color choices, but also very beautiful and appealing.

Overall this game is very lovely to the eye, filled with many challenging puzzles and encourages perception, perspective and observation in the player in order to solve the presented puzzles. I would recommend for fans of the thought-provoking puzzle genre (such as Portal series, The Talos Principle) and also for fans of walking simulators (Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, What Remains of Edith Finch etc.). Although this is definitely more a puzzle game than it is a full narrative experience, I feel the type of crowd might be similar (Curious, patient, explorative, and experience seeking). This was a really unique game.

STORY: 8/10 GAMEPLAY: 8/10 GRAPHICS: 8/10 ART DESIGN: 9/10 MUSIC: 3/10 OVERALL RATING: 8.

I want to start this review by saying that if you are here, you were lucky enough to find a review without any spoilers. Which is a really big deal considering the game.

Yes, I have read many reviews before writing this one and most of them contains spoilers. Kinda sad considering people read reviews to know about the game playing experience, not to !&%$ing ruin it completely. And it makes me wonder, do these people that wrote negative reviews really had The Witness gaming experience? Or maybe they just got their experience ruined by spoilers themselves... or maybe the game was just not meant to be played and liked by those people?

Two things you have to know about this game and this is where every negative review fails: This game is about exploration and puzzle solving. Nothing else really. What did you expect? Also, it does it perfectly. It does it in it's own way. There are similar games out there such as Myst, The Talos Principle and the Portal games, but it's still not even close to what I felt during my playthrough of The Witness.

It is an astounding puzzle game where you WILL have your mind blown in many different ways. Keep in mind that this is not your typical video game. It is a puzzle game, and a hard one. You will enjoy progressing if you enjoy learning stuff. It is a very mature game that almost feels like working sometimes, but who said working has to be boring? Everything, and I mean everything in The Witness is beautiful. Environment, puzzles, design, colors, sound, details, gameplay... Everything is there for you to admire, feel, experience and forget. To make you forget about your life for a moment and completely fill your mind and thoughts with puzzles. But after, when you will go out, you might end up seeing the real world differently, seeing more of it's beauty. That's just what The Witness does.

Nothing more has to be said and keep in mind that reading more reviews WILL ruin your experience. The game is all about it. And going in spoilers free is the way to go if you want to live something fun and worthy.

The game deserves 9.5/10 but you can't in here so it rounds up to 10.

Also, a little bit of precision for some of you that might now know : Jon Blow is the director of The Witness and his last game Braid came out more than 6 years ago. So I want to precise the fact that I did not like Braid that much. I am not a Jon Blow fanboy. I am not brainwashed of any sort. To me The Witness is a masterpiece and a very inspiring game. This game is so beautiful. It would inspire anyone that does art, or doesn't.