Arc Games and Thekla have announced that Order of the Sinking Star, a new puzzle adventure led by Braid and The Witness creator Jonathan Blow, will launch for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via Steam on October 8, 2026. The PC version will also support Steam Deck. A demo is available now.
The project has been in development for roughly 10 years following the release of The Witness in 2016. Order of the Sinking Star features more than 1,000 handcrafted puzzles spread across four interconnected regions, with Thekla estimating hundreds of hours of gameplay for those who take on everything. A Steam demo is currently available, and progress made in the demo will carry over to the full game at launch.
Rather than centering on a single protagonist or puzzle mechanic, Order of the Sinking Star follows a group of playable characters whose abilities and stories gradually intersect. The cast includes a queen, thief, warrior, wizard, and talking boat. Each brings different abilities into the game’s puzzles, and those mechanics begin interacting in new ways as the characters meet and previously separate areas connect.
The adventure is structured non-linearly, so players who hit a difficult puzzle can leave it behind, explore another region, and return later. Each of the four areas has its own characters, rules, hazards, and puzzle concepts. The game introduces dozens of mechanics across its larger collection of challenges, with later puzzles building on ideas established earlier.
There is also a larger story connecting the four regions and their characters. Players can piece together the mystery surrounding the Order of the Sinking Star through exploration, cryptic notes, and professionally voiced narration alongside the puzzles themselves.
Blow isn’t the only puzzle designer involved in the project. Order of the Sinking Star includes design contributions from Alan Hazelden (Skipping Stones to Lonely Holmes, Mirror Isles), Sean Barrett (Promesst), Jonah Ostroff (Heroes of Sokoban), Zach Polansky (Enigmash), Patrick Traynor (Patrick’s Parabox), and Marc ten Bosch (Miegakure), among others. Thekla says some design contributions also came from Blow’s Twitch followers during the game’s lengthy development.
Order of the Sinking Star launches for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via Steam on October 8, 2026.
What do you think of Order of the Sinking Star? Does the prospect of more than 1,000 puzzles from Jonathan Blow and a group of established puzzle designers have you interested? Let us know your thoughts, and stay tuned to Noisy Pixel for more gaming news.
