The Witness is very pretty. Even if the puzzles turn out to be absolutely guff – which Jonathan Blow’s walkthrough suggests is far from the case – it will still have that going for it. The enigmatic island that players will need to navigate and solve conundrums in is so pretty, in fact, that even its marshes are drop-dead gorgeous.
In an update from designer Orsi Spanyol, she teases us with this luscious area’s vistas in some new screenshots. This is no boggy, smelly thing, that’s for sure. Well, it might still smell. It’s hard to tell from a screenshot. But given the abundance of flowers, it’s probably a olfactory delight.
“The marsh had been left unresolved for a long time, so we decided to tear it apart and finish it as a team,” says Spanyol. The structures, catwalks, vegetation and colours were all reworked.
“Color was a big challenge in getting the area to look nice, since it is a marsh research facility with lots of crazy colored algae pools…there was a high risk of making it look like a clown exploded on it,” she continues. “With some careful color choices, attention to every detail and blocking in the views on a step by step basis, however, I think we managed to avoid that risk and succeeded in creating a pleasant, colorful area.”
I’ve got to agree:
The Witness is due out later this year, according to Blow, and should launch simultaneously on PS4 and PC. So we won’t have to wait while people explore it on their consoles.
Cheers, CVG.