Available now! Check the app store.

love the witness. Bought it for my cheap laptop in beg of the yr, but could not enjoy the experience with the perf limitations, so did not get far. Planning to buy it again for my xbox one, though I don’t see it displayed on the xbox store to-date, I hear it should release next week. Really impressed by some of your speaches and presentations on your games and enjoying it all. Have a great day.

It looks unlikely at this point. If we ever do one it will be a small-scale release pretty far in the future.

What about the physical version on PS4, I’m still waiting for it to play the game, what about it Mr Blow?

We are working on the iOS version actively, but we don’t have a release date yet. (It’s a bunch of work.)

I’d vote with my wallet and buy a copy immediately if I knew OS X support was coming!

I really do sympathise; as a programmer, those kinds of issues are pretty much the last thing I’d like to spend time working on. Do you anticipate lower support costs for a hypothetical Mac version, given that there should be a LOT less platform variation?

It’s difficult for us Mac owners, but don’t forget all the other advantages we get! In my opinion, they outweigh even the massive disadvantage of not having this game available. I’ve had to wait for other games to play catch-up in the past, although this is the first I’ve seriously considered buying an iPad for.

Maybe the explanation for higher relative OSX sales is that market share in offices is tilted towards PCs, so Macs would then have a higher (relative) home share.

Yay for you figuring it out. Good job.

PS4-version runs smooth without glitches!

(i.e. this is just another voice voting for iOS/MacOS, please!) :)

I can’t tell if you’re being serious right now. If you are: examine the environment, like you were taught to do in the temple. If not: Well played.

Based on his reaction I’m betting that’s not a software problem at all. I bet it’s something that can be fixed in-game. I haven’t played the game yet so I could be wrong but you being the only one with this problem makes me wonder.

Best of luck.

Not a bug, dude.

Sigh.

Just got to the ‘endgame’ but I think there’s a lot still to do.

One of the best games I’ve played, great job to all involved. A lovely and interesting game and one I’m sure I’ll be thinking about for some time.

Been loving my time with the game so far, really forces you to look at things from lots of different angles and just generally lots of lateral thinking. Plus it’s just beautiful, visually and otherwise.

Glad to hear you’re working on technical issues though, because it’s been crashing a lot for me, so much so that despite having a blast with it, I’ve put it on hold until some patches come rolling in.

Keep up the good work in any case and thanks for a great experience for our brains.

But the bills have to paid, and if that means not having it on OS X, I respect that.

I’d rather avoid buying an entirely new computer just to play this but, considering how long I’ve waited for this game, I might do just that.

This game is worth every dollar at full price, IMO.

Also, does the PS4 version support mouse and keyboard? I just bought that version for my mom due to her long love of Myst and puzzle games in general.

[sarcasm]
The only quandary of The Witness is the apparent lack of an armored transport vehicle with a mounted turret. This way, the player has to make the very difficult decision of a) solving the puzzle panel or b) blasting the puzzle panel to smithereens with a heavy machine gun.
[/sarcasm]

The Witness, in my mind, has solidified its role as the de facto epitome of excellent game design.

Bought it for PS4, locked myself away from all stupidass walkthrough scripting hell going around internet these days and I have all lasers except one. Once I get that, I’ll enter the mountain.

btw, I watched the credits already. Once I learned to watch around, I remembered the initial area. I tried, but to no avail, so I started a new game and, lo and behold, it worked. did you hurt yourself? lol

I love this comment

Linux is missing! It must be a typo though :-)

It will be released on the PC and the PlayStation 4 on January 26, 2016.”

Noticed this when i wanted to order my second copy, now DRM-free in addition to Steam :)

We really really wanted it to be a financial success just for you people to keep creating. We all have that friend who gets single player games through… well… backdoors for which they have a “free pass”. With this game, we’ve managed to show people that this endeavors have to be fully supported. I’m glad I know people who have played it for 2 hours, told me “Alecs, you’re right man”, and went and bought the game. And I’m really happy to be part of your success.

All the best from Catalonia, and thank you for a great game.

Just not another 7 years please

Low performance of 3D Drivers? Umm, Kevin, are you thinking of, like 10-15 years ago, before the OSX drivers were optimized? Looking at benchmarks today, I don’t see a difference in median performance: https://gfxbench.com/result.jsp?benchmark=gfxgen&test=544&text-filter=780&order=median&ff-desktop=true&os-OS_X_gl=true&os-Windows_gl=true&pu-GPU=true&arch-ARM=true&arch-x86=true&base=device

As for market share, OSX market share is about 6 times Linux. A large fraction of those Linux systems are things like chromebooks that are never going to run any games. In addition, I’ve heard several game devs report in the past that their Mac sales were far higher than predicted by the relative Windows/Mac market share – maybe it has something to do with the large numbers of Macs used by college students and families with teens?

Anyway, OSX seems like a more profitable platform, although if it’s ported carefully it could probably run on Linux too with little extra work – it might be a fun game to play on a steam machine!

Great game, best of luck with your future projects.

Thank you.

I’m about 10 hours into the game now and I’m loving it. I’m proud to have supported such a thoughtfully made game. Thank you again and best wishes on your continued success!

Did anyone here ever play The Witness any of the times it was available at game shows, press previews, etc.? Now that I’ve seen most the game, I can imagine why Blow didn’t make a free demo for the Witness, but I really wonder what part(s) of the game were made available for those early looks at the game from years ago. No doubt the game has changed somewhat since then, but now that it’s finally released, I’m really interested in finding out what it is people got to see of the game back in the day.

Was it playing from the start and seeing what they could stumble into after they made it out of the starting area? Was the demo set up at the beginning of a more linear series of puzzles (like the Tetris piece swamp or the mirrored line area)? I can see how it would be very difficult for someone to see what The Witness is “about” by just being sat in front of a demo and only playing the game for half an hour, but a lot of people came away with very positive impressions so I’m really curious what it was they were able to play through.

android here as well. seriously – I have 4gb ram and 8 cores on my phone !

Preorders were very small compared to sales of the game once it was released … up until the day before release, when reviews came out, then we got a big healthy day of sales. But these are probably mostly people who would have bought the game the next day anyway.

None of this is a surprise, even Valve tells developers not to expect much in the way of preorders; I just did it mainly as an experiment (and because a lot of people were asking for it).

Sadly I have been stuck on the challenge ever since and I fear my old fingers are simply not up to the *ahem* challenge. I am just not good enough with a controller to run around that fast and I may have to admit defeat.

It has been interesting to look back now at all of the old island snapshots and early reveals as to what elements were important right from the get-go like the windmill and mountain and to see how things developed over the years.

Congratulations again. The success is well deserved.

The aha sensations i got from this game has been by far the most rewarding I have ever experienced. From other puzzle games to literature or really anything come to think of it this game beats it by far. Those sudden bursts of understanding and feeling of intellectual competence are precious, since they really do require a very thoughtful approach to game design which few games manages to do without being too obscure or too patronizing in it’s way to guide a player. The fact that this game manages to evoke those kinds of responses without any cheesy “you win!” fanfare says it all. That subtle rumbling click that informs you that you unlocked another part of the bigger puzzle is more rewarding than any slot machine jackpot spectacle would be.

My only real complaint is the puzzles inside the mountain after all the lasers are activated. These literally gave me a headache, and yes i do know the proper use of the word literally. I also imagine they could cause problems for people with epilepsy. It feels like a shame when the other puzzles around the island all use so finely crafted and clever mechanics. Comparatively the mechanics in this area; using disorienting movement and flashing lights, feels cheap and breaks with the otherwise serene nature of the game.

But that really is a very minor complaint in the big picture. You have created a masterpiece, and I for one thank you for enriching my life with it.

I am already looking forward to the next one. Take as long as you need to make it great as well

I would like to +1 my support for an OSX release – I went through the effort of setting up a Bootcamp partition so that I could play this game on release, but I have many friends that I’ve recommended the game to that only have a Mac and aren’t willing to go through the effort of setting up Bootcamp to play this one game. It’s great that it’s appealing to everyone I’ve shown who doesn’t usually play video games, but it’d be better if they could actually play it for themselves!

Also, just out of curiosity, can you release figures for preorders? I’m curious how many people took you up on your offer of “absolutely nothing” extra for buying the game early.

I was surprised to see consideration for OS X but not Linux. Both require an OpenGL renderer. Both have fairly small market size. I realize that OS X marketshare tends to be a higher than Linux, but given the high system requirements of the Witness and the relatively low performance of 3D drivers on OS X, are there that many more OS X users with PCs that would be able to handle the game than Linux users? I can see the reason for supporting neither OS X nor Linux, but don’t understand only doing one and not the other given the similar challenges and market size of each. Can you explain further, please?

Some of the leaps I’ve had to make to complete a puzzle have made me feel smarter than I have a right to but that’s the fun of the game.

Thank you to the whole team. Looking forward to whatever you do next. Now back to the game!

I have followed this site for the past year (checking in every other month), waiting for the release date.

I am trying very hard to resit watching anything that may spoil the game while I play through but at the same time, I am very happy to see that others are also enjoying your game.

Congratulations.

Thank you for all the hard work and toil in making this game. I’ve followed news on The Witness since the beginning and am so happy to see that it is successful.

My wife and I started playing last night and I can’t wait to get out of work tonight so we can jump back in! Good luck porting to the other platforms.

: )

really interested on playing this game but i’m hoping you really go forward with an iOS version.

The game has the feel that it will do amazingly well on mobile and for a guy that has to travel a lot on my free time it would be the perfect way to play it

It’s a fond and distant memory of mine, I’m sat in the ballroom of Nottingham City Council house, not that long after the release of Braid, at GameCity, listening to you talk about the concept behind your next game… That of epiphany.

For all these years I’ve remained as excited as I was in that room, charting your labour of love, and sometimes pain.

It’s a wonder full game, and you have stayed true to that concept of epiphany. I don’t think I’ve ever said “wow” out loud as many times in a week before…

Glad to see that you can continue The Work :)

Rob.

Wondering that too. Maybe it’s just because of the marketshare, but then how many OS X users have hardware to run the game 60fps@1080p or higher. Not many, and the OpenGL is bad in OS X.

I read somewhere that the game will come to retail for PS 4 and I am really eager to know when that will be, since I am a collector of video games and don’t want gems like these to remain as 1:s and 0:s on a harddrive, so please say you will release it on disc in the near future.

Thank you in advance :)

Congrats on those figures! Im still enjoying the game. I had to put it down for a few days because my dreams consisted mostly of solving puzzles….yikes!

Probably tablets rather than smartphones ;-)

It makes me happy that games like this exist and happier to see that it looks like it will be a financial success as well. Maybe prove to the industry that games like this can be profitable so more thoughtful games get made.

Thanks for the wonderful journey. Congrats to you and your team. ( ps. I see puzzles everywhere now. )