thewitness
Latest
Some of the best Batman games are coming to EA's Origin Access on PC
Homegrown games on EA's Origin Access service are getting some company. Starting today, your subscription will also include, erm, access to titles from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment including a trio of the Batman: Arkham games. Unfortunately we can't trade Arkham: Origins for Arkham Knight (above), but that's just how things work out at the moment.
Stunning visual puzzler 'The Witness' arrives on iOS
After months of teases and rumour, striking 3D puzzle game The Witness has finally landed in the App Store, for both iPhone and iPad. Likened to a modern-day Myst, the open world game sees players wake up on a strange, colorful island with no memory of who they are or how they got there. Only by exploring the vast island, discovering clues and completing curious puzzles can they hope to regain their memory and somehow find their way home. With dozens of locations to discover and more than 500 puzzles to solve, The Witness is a beautiful beast of a game, available now for $10/£10.
Indie game award finalists include 'Hyper Light Drifter' and 'Inside'
Now that media outlets have handed out awards to blockbuster games, it's time for the indies to shine. The Independent Games Festival has posted the finalists for its main competition's 2017 awards, and there are a few competitors who clearly stand out from the pack. Both the retro hack-and-slasher Hyper Light Drifter and bleak side-scroller Inside are nominated not only for the Seumas McNally grand prize, but also the audio and visual design awards. Other titles receiving multiple nods will definitely sound familiar if you've been following the scene, including the hacking-themed puzzler Quadrilateral Cowboy and the chaotic food hit Overcooked.
Jonathan Blow's 'The Witness' gets the PlayStation 4 Pro treatment
The Witness, Jonathan Blow's latest release, is getting a special patch for the PlayStation 4 Pro to augment its visuals since it's coming to a brand new home. Blow's team at Thekla, Inc. is making it possible to enjoy the game at a higher resolution than ever before, offering an upgrade in visual fidelity over an increase in frame rate. The announcement comes right after Sony's special PlayStation event, where the PS4 Pro was officially unveiled.
Explore indie puzzler 'The Witness' on Xbox One in September
"Ideally we want the game to be in as many places as we can get it, but since we are a small developer and it's a complicated game, we can only do so much at once." That's The Witness developer Jonathan Blow describing to us his desire for the indie puzzler to be available on more than just PlayStation 4. All the way back in February 2013. Now those dreams are coming to fruition as The Witness will make its way to Xbox One on September 13th -- two and a half years after that interview with my coworker Jessica Conditt and six months after its debut on PS4 and PC. In a post on Xbox Wire, Blow lays out what new players should do when they get their hands on it.
Capture 'The Witness' with NVIDIA's Ansel camera
The Witness drops you on a beautiful island full of mind-melting puzzles that subtly feed into one another. It's a relaxing, picturesque locale that you can now photograph with NVIDIA's Ansel in-game camera. Unlike a regular screenshot tool, which simply captures what you're looking at, this software allows you to reposition the camera almost anywhere. That freedom can produce some incredibly artistic shots -- to get an idea of what's possible, just look at these screenshots taken with a similar system inside Uncharted 4 (courtesy of Engadget's own Tim Seppala).
Artists explain how 'The Witness' got its special look
As you walk through The Witness, solving puzzles and taking in the island's natural beauty, you might wonder how it all came together. Did gameplay take precedent, followed by artistic flair? Or were the two developed and balanced simultaneously? To shed a little light, artist Luis Antonio has written a series of blog posts that go into fascinating detail about the game and its development. From specific areas to teaser trailers and posters, it offers a rare look into how Antonio, alongside Eric Anderson and Orsi Spanyol, helped Jonathon Blow develop the look of the game.
Virtual reality support for 'The Witness' sounds shaky
Your brain might be sore from The Witness' puzzles but you won't have to worry about motion sickness from playing it in another format on your PlayStation 4. We've confirmed with developer Jonathan Blow that the gorgeous brain-bender won't be making its way to PlayStation VR; there are no plans for it "at this time." The game was simply in development for far too long (possibly even before Sony had a working Project Morpheus prototype) and Blow has said that to support Sony's VR headset, the game would had to have been designed for it from the outset.
'The Witness' causes motion sickness in some players
Some first-person games -- including Skyrim, Fallout 4 and The Talos Principle -- trigger motion sickness and nausea in certain players, and The Witness is the latest addition to this list. The Witness is Braid creator Jonathan Blow's latest game, and it's a vast, introspective puzzler populated with pastels and intricate, physical riddles. While the puzzles are designed to induce figurative headaches, some players have taken to the game's Steam page, NeoGAF and Reddit complaining of queasiness and dizziness while playing.
What's on your HDTV: 'X-Files,' 'Suits,' and 'The Witness'
You've had 24 hours to absorb the return of The X-Files, and now it's time for episode number two. The other big highlight for this week is Jonathan Blow's new game, The Witness, arriving on PC and PlayStation 4. Suits fans can also expect their show to return on USA, while The Magicians airs on Syfy. Look after the break to check out each day's highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).
Traveling through time with 'Braid' creator Jonathan Blow
In the world of independent games, there is "before Braid" and "after Braid." Before this game hit Xbox Live Arcade in 2008, "indies" were barely a blip on the industry's radar -- but Braid landed in players' living rooms like an atomic bomb. It helped shake up the status quo and proved that one game made by one person could change the industry. Braid also changed its creator, Jonathan Blow, into a millionaire and a living legend. Blow hasn't released a game since Braid. But, he's about to: The Witness is a mysterious exploration and puzzle experience coming to PlayStation 4 and PC on Jan. 26. Once again, Blow has invested everything -- years of energy and millions of dollars -- into his new project. Unlike last time, he now has a small studio, 84,000 followers on Twitter, he's a documentary-film star, and speculation about his next game has been swirling for nearly seven years. "I don't feel accountable to the world to make things for them," Blow says. "I look out there at the games that are really popular and they're not really usually the games that I'm excited about. It's fine if it's somebody's job to make the biggest hits, and apparently that job is for Rockstar or Ubisoft or something. ... I'm doing something different."
Explore a beachside desert in a new video for 'The Witness'
The Witness' release date is coming in hot -- the Myst-inspired exploration game is due to hit PlayStation 4 and PC on January 26th. That's the launch date for digital distribution, though it's "likely" that The Witness will be available as a physical boxed product, too, creator Jonathan Blow writes on his blog. Blow and his team have been in talks with a few companies about a boxed version, he says.
'Myst'-inspired game 'The Witness' hits PS4 and PC in January
The Witness has been cloaked in a fair bit of mystery since Jonathan Blow started working on it in 2009, right after the rabid success of his first game, Braid. Now, we finally have some concrete information: The Witness will launch on PlayStation 4 and PC on January 26th, 2016. Blow and his team announced the release date in a new (4K, 60fps) trailer that shows off the game's latest graphics and a bit of puzzle-based gameplay.
The next game from Braid's creator supports the Oculus Rift
After indie game darling Braid's mass popularity, creator Jonathan Blow didn't go crazy and buy a Lamborghini or something. He started a game studio instead, to create his next big thing: The Witness. Blow was on-stage at Sony's big PlayStation 4 announcement event back in February (that was this year!), where he announced The Witness as headed to the PlayStation 4 as a "console exclusive" -- a coup for Sony's PlayStation 4 after Braid initially debuted exclusively on Microsoft's Xbox 360 in 2008. Since that announcement, Blow's been in development mode. The Witness was featured at Sony's PlayStation 4 review event, as well as trade shows like E3 and Gamescom, but he and his team have otherwise been pretty quiet. A few weeks ago, however, Blow posted a duo of enticing images (one of which is seen above) with the headline, "What could it mean??" The internet answered with the logical response: "Jonathan Blow possibly teasing Oculus [Rift] support for The Witness. This game seems like a perfect fit." is Reddit's headline. Surprising no one, The Witness -- at least the PC version -- will support the Oculus Rift. "The main work we are doing is not for the Oculus," Blow told Engadget. "But then, since we are doing 3D it is not that big a step to support the Oculus also, so we are implementing support for it." In other news, apparently The Witness will support 3D televisions! It's not clear how the headset will interact with the game in terms of gameplay input, but we're thrilled enough by the thought of exploring The Witness' first-person open-world using the Oculus Rift. And hey, maybe there'll be a consumer version in sight by the time The Witness launches in 2014!
The Witness is headed to PlayStation 4, the next game from Braid creator Jonathan Blow
Nothing could've been more delightful than Braid creator Jonathan Blow suddenly walking on-stage at Sony's big PlayStation 4 reveal only to make fun of all the explosions the event had already featured. Oh sure, he was also at the event to reveal that his latest game, The Witness, is headed to Sony's PlayStation 4 (as well as to PC and iOS, as the reveal trailer elucidates), but the first statement was much funnier. Anyway, the game looks much, much better than the various demos we've played across the past few years -- Blow's been developing The Witness for quite some time, and showing it publicly, albeit never on a PlayStation 4. We'll hopefully hear more in the coming days, so keep an eye out. Update: This post originally stated that The Witness was heading exclusively to the PlayStation 4, when in fact it's only "console exclusive" to the PlayStation 4. It will also launch on iOS and PC. We've added the new trailer below the break.
