Jonathan Blow’s decade-long labor of love from Thekla has finally breached console shores, with Order of the Sinking Star landing on PS5 this year alongside its already-planned Switch 2 and PC releases. The PlayStation Blog hands-on dives deep into a sprawling puzzle adventure built on Braid and The Witness DNA but layered with controllable characters, distinct abilities, and four distinct worlds that eventually bleed into one another. What begins as simple grid-based block pushing with a rewind mechanic escalates into nested doll complexity: heroes who push, pull, swap, transmute, or charm monsters; gems emitting colored beams; mirrors for projection swaps; and late-game cross-realm puzzles requiring players to juggle multiple protagonists across realms.

The demo reveals a deliberate philosophy of discovery over forced progression, with environmental storytelling, voice-over exposition delivered in sparse chunks, and freedom to tackle areas in any order after the tutorial. A modest team of around twenty has crafted over nine hundred levels and hundreds of hours of content across multiple endings, with monsters that block paths or attack line-of-sight but can be manipulated or bypassed rather than fought outright. The big structural twist—worlds colliding so characters from separate sections must collaborate—arrives still relatively early in the full game, promising even deeper integration ahead.

Blow’s tweet teasing the announcement and the official account’s extended overview trailer both underscore the game’s scale and its chill, player-driven ethos: no pressure to solve anything immediately, just roam and experiment. After ten years, the title’s mystery remains intact even after several hours, which is precisely the point.