Loading

“ This is a game you'll want to play with paper and a pencil by your side.

the witness early screens 26 IMAGES

Video game worlds are often full of garbage.Lower the weapon and look near your feet. You’ll probably see splintered wood or scattered newspapers or empty soda cans. The trash helps cover up the seams of an otherwise perfect, digital world. But in The Witness , a tiny piece of junk on the floor can be just the hint you need. The hard part is knowing when to look.If you're unfamiliar, The Witness is about solving puzzles on a beautiful, mysterious island. And through exploring, you'll learn more about the world and what happened there before your arrival. I had a chance to play it on PS4 alongside its lead designer, Jonathan Blow, and check out about a dozen of The Witness' hundreds of puzzles. It expects things from you. It demands your attention, and unlike many adventure games, it places value on the player's knowledge, and not on which items you have in your inventory. This is a game you'll want to play with paper and a pencil by your side.The puzzle I opened this preview with was tricky. On the island is a room with a huge, red-leaved tree at its center. Surrounding the tree are a series of wooden panels, each letting light into the room through their intricately carved-out designs. The panels surrounding the building could be solved purely through guess work...or you could line up the puzzles at the correct angle behind the carved panels, and the solution will be revealed. Some of the wood was damaged, and after noticing broken pieces on the floor, I was able to figure out where in the pattern they had previously been.Many of the panels are connected by electrical wiring, which feels like an improvised objective marker. Though I often followed those to my next "goal," I was just as often lured away by a beautiful sight in the distance, like an abandoned dock, or a towering mountain. I mentioned this to Blow, and he said there's always something to find, even if you wander off what feels like the main path.The version of The Witness I played didn't include any of the audiobooks or story elements we'll see in the final version. But even without them, I was still drawn to the island's thoughtful puzzles and gorgeous, foreign environments. I clearly wasn't the first person on the island, but the whole time I felt like I was somewhere untouched and new.

Brian is an associate editor at IGN. You can follow him @albinoalbert on Twitter