It"s been a fortnight. The Witness is now free to claim on the Epic Games Store, taking the place of Oxenfree.
The Witness was envisioned and developed by Jonathan Blow following the success of Braid with an aim of exploring the connection a video game can forge with the player without verbal communication. “What I was doing all across this game was exploring the different flavors of non-verbal communication that games can have, which I think is important to understanding games as a medium,” Blow told The Washington Post in an interview.
Although the game is primarily focused on puzzle-solving, a lot of the puzzles rely on perception. It is also open-world, meaning that players aren"t forced into a puzzle and can come back to solve certain problems later, if they so desire.
Originally released in 2016, the game has been nominated for several awards, including BAFTA"s Game Design category. Here"s how the Epic Games Store describes the title:
You don"t remember who you are, and you don"t remember how you got here, but there"s one thing you can do: explore the island in hope of discovering clues, regaining your memory, and somehow finding your way home.
The Witness respects you as an intelligent player and it treats your time as precious. There are over 500 puzzles but no filler; each of the puzzles brings its own new idea into the mix. So, this is a game full of ideas.
Epic Games Store is offering the title at no cost for the next two weeks for players on WIndows and macOS. Here are the minimum requirements for the game:
OS: Windows 7 / macOS 10.11.6 (El Capitan)
Processor: 1.8GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD 4000 series DirectX 10 / Metal support required on macOS
Storage: 5 GB available space
If you wish to claim The Witness, here"s its store page. It will be free to claim until April 18, which is when Epic will put on offer Transistor for its next giveaway.