In development from Thekla, Inc., led by award-winning game designer Jonathan Blow Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness), Order Of The Sinking Star is a huge and innovative puzzle game designed to put your intellect to the test that’s been in the making for 10 years since the release of The Witness.

You are transported to a realm of curious magic, dangerous contraptions, and vicious monsters. You'll explore four distinct worlds, each with its own mechanics, characters, and stories, and then watch as they all collide. As the worlds merge, and characters meet one another, puzzle systems intertwine, creating surprising new possibilities. Explore at your own pace, revisit worlds and return to challenges as you see fit. Discover unique playable characters, master evolving gameplay mechanics, and decipher the deep mysteries of a sprawling, interconnected game world.

Blending exploration, storytelling, and ever-progressing mechanics, Order Of The Sinking Star invites you into a mysterious, living puzzle unlike anything you've played.

The latest trailer, “Explore the Realm,” highlights the game’s Overworld (the realm), its non-linear exploration structure, its four distinct worlds, and the twist that eventually collides those worlds together. Bringing this epic world filled with unique heroes to life is an all-star ensemble of professional actors, with the full voice cast set to be unveiled closer to the game’s release.

In Order of the Sinking Star, players are transported to an enigmatic realm packed with curious magic, dangerous contraptions, and vicious monsters. Featuring over one thousand handcrafted puzzles, dozens of distinct game mechanics, and hundreds of hours of unique gameplay, Order of the Sinking Star invites you into a mysterious, living puzzle unlike anything you've played.

The Overworld – The Realm of Magic & Enigma – Overview

At the heart of the game lies the Overworld – a sprawling central hub that offers total player freedom with no single "right way" to proceed. From the starting point, four distinct paths branch out across the cardinal directions, each featuring its own unique characters, mechanics, hazards, and secrets:

• The North (The Hearty Heroes of Hauling): Follows an eclectic band of fantasy adventurers – including a Warrior, Thief, Wizard, Bard, Cleric, and Druid – who run a local moving company. Each hero possesses a unique ability to manipulate objects and navigate different puzzles. When the party comes together, players must treat their team like a Swiss Army Knife, mastering what each hero’s unique action does—like pushing to clear lanes, pulling to move objects, or teleporting past blockades. Players will discover the key isn't just knowing what an ability does, but understanding how to combine those distinct actions to set up multi-hero chain reactions.
• The East (The Mirror Isles): Centers on a wealthy Trader embarking on a voyage across a pristine archipelago, navigating islands where magic mirrors instantly swap him and objects with their reflections. Players must treat their reflection as an active tool rather than a passive copy, lining up angles to project themselves onto distant islands. By leveraging spatial awareness – such as stepping back from a mirror to gain distance and project even farther – players can master the unique position-swapping logic required to clear each puzzle.
• The West (The Promise): Stars a solitary Explorer delving deep into vast, subterranean cavern networks. To extract precious gems and navigate these depths, players utilize giant gems to channel colored light beams that unlock dynamic abilities—like phasing through solid walls, smashing boulders, and triggering long-distance teleports. The key to mastering this world is paying close attention to how beam colors open up opportunities across distant environments, as powering up the right combination of beams simultaneously is essential for clearing blocked paths.
• The South (Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes): Follows a marooned Sailor who must cross open waters and travel from island to island. Traversal relies heavily on precise
  route-planning, river redirection, and stone-skipping logic. Players must analyze where it is possible for massive skipping stones and rideable lily pads to travel, carefully mapping out where stones land across open water and determining which directions to send lily pads gliding along rerouted waterways.

If players encounter a difficult puzzle on one path, they can freely backtrack and explore another region at their own pace. As players progress, the Overworld drastically expands – fading away the map's fog to reveal even larger areas and more complex, interwoven puzzle mechanics.

The Gold Rooms: Merging the Worlds Within the Overworld

While Order of the Sinking Star begins as an anthology of four separate worlds, reaching the "Gold Rooms" will trigger a dramatic structural shift that causes the worlds to collide. Clearing a Gold Room bridges two distinct realms together, bringing their characters face-to-face and unlocking six massive, dual-combination areas. These hybrid zones intertwine entire narrative threads and puzzle systems—such as pairing the Explorer’s light beams with the Trader’s magic mirrors, or bringing the moving crew to the Sailor's skipping stones—creating wildly surprising, multi-layered gameplay possibilities that prove there is far more to the Overworld than meets the eye.

Players who want to try out the beginning of this puzzle-solving adventure early can play the Steam demo now -- and any progress you make in the demo will carry over to the full game at launch this year!

Key Features:

• Master a Thousand Interwoven Challenges – Embark on an innovative puzzle adventure with dozens of game mechanics and hundreds of hours of unique gameplay. Each puzzle builds on the last, introducing new game mechanics that reward curiosity and persistence.
• Choose Your Path, Roam at Your Pace – Explore four expansive, mysterious game worlds, each with its own characters, rules, dangers, and secrets waiting to be uncovered. Come and go as you like, you are free to take on the puzzles you discover at your own pace.
• Take the Helm of Some Unlikely Heroes – A queen, a thief, a warrior, a wizard, and a talking boat are just some of the heroes of this tale. Each character wields complimentary abilities and has captivating stories to tell.
• Decipher an Epic Tale – As playable characters begin to meet and worlds collide, the mystery untangles. Through gameplay and notes you collect you learn more about this enigmatic realm. Piece by piece and clue by clue, you’ll uncover the secrets of the Order of the Sinking Star.

Order Of The Sinking Star is coming to Nintendo Switch 2, PS5 and PC (Steam) on October 8, 2026.