The Witness Review

Posted: 10 months ago, last updated 6 weeks ago.

Overview

The Witness combines maze puzzles in an abandoned world with its own mythology, secrets, themes and story. It’s a game with puzzles at the core, but the real mystery is solving what has happened in the world you find yourself in.

You play the game in first-perspective as an unnamed character exploring an island roughly divided into eleven regions, arranged around a mountain that represents the ultimate goal for the player.

To progress through these regions you need to solve maze-like puzzles. A path is drawn on a grid that must satisfy certain rules taught to the player by exploring the island. There is no text or dialogue directly explaining a puzzle's rules so it's an unusual combination of observation, intuition and then the application of logic.

Details

Rating: PEGI 3+, ESRB EVERYONE

Release Date: 14/12/2015, updated in 2018

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and iOS.

Genres: Narrative, Open World and Puzzle.

Tips

View our choice of games like The Witness.

This game is good if you want to:

Commitment

Duration: This game will take between 18 hours and 30 hours to complete.

Players: This is a single player game. Because the game wants you to discover answers for yourself the time to complete it can vary wildly depending on your intuition, good fortune, observation and perseverance to solve each puzzle.

Costs

Does not offer in-game purchases, 'loot boxes' or 'battle/season passes'.

Age Ratings

This game was rated PEGI 3 because it contains scenes of partial nudity of a non-sexual, natural nature. The examiner's report expands this rating with the following: The game features a statue which shows a bare-chested female. The bright and colourful surroundings give a warm and friendly feel to this island. Even though the island is completely abandoned and you venture in broken-down structures, the game never wants to scare you. The game is an open-world adventure which revolves around puzzles which become increasingly difficult. Because of this the game might not be suitable for the youngest of players.

This game has been rated ESRB EVERYONE.

Accessibility

Accessibility for this game is as follows:

System Settings

Windows has extensive accessibility features. Some, like colour correction, work with games. Lots of accessibility software can be used with PC games, from voice recognition to input device emulators. PlayStation 4 has a range of accessibility settings. Some are system only, some work in games (invert colours and button mapping). Xbox One has a system features, the excellent co-pilot share controls mode and adaptive controller support for all games. iOS has a very extensive suite of accessibility settings including ways to navigate with voice and comprehensive screen reading, though most of the features don't work with games... read more about system accessibility settings.

Games Like The Witness

The following games are like The Witness. They address a similar topic or offer a similar way to play. They are good options to play next and also good alternatives to The Witness for younger age ratings.

Tint

Sable

Pushy and Pully

A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build

Everything

Fling Smash

Carto

Baba is You

Traffix

Heaven’s Vault

A Dark Room

Braid

Grindstone

The Forest

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