First details arise for Jonathan Blow's Order of the Sinking Star 

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Upcoming puzzle-packed adventure unveiled by the creator of Braid and The Witness

If you're a puzzle lover, chances are you're already a fan of Jonathan Blow, creator of the wonderful Braid and The Witness. Now, with ten years to think about how best to torture players with even more devious challenges, Blow has unveiled his next impressive gauntlet of intellectual brainteasers called Order of the Sinking Star.

Players find themselves transported to "a realm of curious magic, dangerous contraptions, and vicious monsters." There they will assume control of various unlikely heroes, including "a queen, a thief, a warrior, a wizard, and a talking boat," among others. Each has their own "complementary abilities and has captivating stories to tell," and you'll get to experience them all across four distinct worlds filled with – wait for it – more than one thousand "interconnected, hand-crafted puzzles." As you "master evolving gameplay mechanics" to progress through them all, you'll then "watch as they all collide," uncovering new layers of an "epic tale" in the process. Through notes you discover along the way, as well as the many gameplay obstacles themselves, you'll come to piece together the secrets of this "enigmatic realm" and the "grand mystery" that brought you here. 

Unlike the side-scrolling Braid or the first-person navigation in The Witness, Order of the Sinking Star is a top-down puzzle-adventure with charming graphics depicting the four realms, each with its own "characters, rules, dangers, and secrets waiting to be uncovered." In the north are ancient castles and a world of heroes filled with goblins and magic, such as a druid's ability to remotely transmute objects with his beams. The east is comprised of islands of mirrors whose reflective qualities are your keys to success. In the south you'll skip stones across unpassable waterways, while in the west you'll head underground to a series of "endless caverns" through which to carve paths. 

These worlds are based on four previously released games: Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes and Mirror Isles by Alan Hazelden, Promesst 1-3 by Sean Barrett, and Heroes of Sokoban by Jonah Ostroff, with gameplay enhanced in partnership with their original creators. On their own, however, these games represent only about "the first five percent of Order of the Sinking Star's gameplay," with the remainder comprising the "seemingly never-ending consequences of smashing these four game-mechanical worlds together." 

In practice, what that means is that initially the challenges of each separate realm should seem very manageable. But this is Jonathan Blow we're talking about, so as the worlds begin to "fuse realities" and "weave together their very laws of nature into a composite whole," the map will become "massive" and challenge will ramp up accordingly with – wait for it again – more than 500 hours of gameplay [that] await the most dedicated of puzzles solvers." Each puzzle promises to "build on the last, introducing new game mechanics that reward curiosity and persistence," and "as the worlds merge, and characters meet one another, puzzle systems intertwine, creating surprising new possibilities." Thankfully you're free to come and go as you please, to "revisit worlds and return to challenges as you see fit," as you slowly but surely progress through this "mysterious, living puzzle unlike anything you've played."

The release date is still something of a mystery itself, but Order of the Sinking Star is due to launch sometime in 2026 for Windows PC on Steam, with "additional platforms" to be revealed later on. To follow the game's progress, be sure to check out the official website where you can sign up for ongoing updates.