Jonathan Blow, the mind behind the acclaimed puzzle games Braid and The Witness, has unveiled his next project: Order of the Sinking Star. Announced ahead of The Game Awards 2025, the game expands on Blow’s signature style of intricate, rule-bending puzzles with a meta-narrative that questions even the most basic meaning of existence.
The new title, developed by Blow’s studio Thekla, Inc., presents players with an overworld of interconnected islands. Each island contains unique puzzle challenges that grow in complexity, eventually bleeding into the overworld itself. The game draws inspiration from Japanese Sokoban puzzle subgenres, where players carefully move boxes around a room, but Blow and his team have expanded upon these mechanics with fresh twists. Players will navigate obstacles, control multiple characters with distinct abilities (including a teleporting wizard and a block-dragging thief), and even encounter puzzles involving dragons.
The Unexpected Genesis: A Game Engine Turned Full Project
Order of the Sinking Star started as a small proof of concept for Blow’s new programming language, Jai, and the custom game engine built alongside it. However, the team couldn’t resist expanding the project. As Blow himself put it, “It was supposed to be small… but for some reason, it’s kind of stupid to build a game that’s about a combinatorial explosion and expect it to be small.” The result is a sprawling, ambitious puzzle experience that Blow admits he might not attempt again without a much larger team.
Interlocking Puzzle Quadrants
The game features four distinct quadrants, each with unique mechanics and narratives. Players can travel between them using teleporters, but the real challenge lies in the borders where these quadrants collide. These merging zones combine mechanics, creating puzzles that demand creative thinking and adaptability. For example, players might find themselves manipulating fantasy heroes alongside mirror clones, forcing them to rethink how they approach each challenge.
Philosophical Depth: Post-Scarcity Existentialism
Blow’s games are known for their underlying philosophical themes, and Order of the Sinking Star is no exception. Set 500 years in the future, the game explores a post-scarcity society where basic needs are met, but deeper questions about purpose remain. Blow asks whether happiness still has meaning in a world without struggle, and how humans might fill their days when survival is no longer a concern.
“If you have no problems and everybody’s essentially infinitely rich, what is the point of life at that point? Do people still interact in a normal way? Do they even talk to each other? How do they feel from day to day about themselves?”
The game’s story unfolds through environmental details, audio logs, and character dialogue, gradually revealing a narrative that’s “way, way more” substantial than Blow’s previous works.
A Design Philosophy of the Unexpected
Blow is known for deliberately pushing beyond the boundaries of existing game designs. He believes that the most rewarding experiences come from games that defy expectations, and Order of the Sinking Star is built on that premise. He notes that successful games often surprise players, like The Blue Prince, which no one anticipated wanting to play in early 2025.
The game is slated for release in 2026, and while Blow has already prototyped his next project (which won’t be a puzzle game), he remains focused on delivering a mind-bending experience that expands on the themes and mechanics of Order of the Sinking Star.
Order of the Sinking Star isn’t just another puzzle game; it’s an experiment in how players interact with rules, meaning, and the fundamental question of what to do when all problems are solved.
