Jonathan Blow’s new game, The Witness, will be 100 hours long according to a new interview published on Sony’s PlayStation Blog.
In a wide-ranging discussion Blow reveals that the massive size and scope of The Witness is due to his incessant desire for the game to be as good as it possible can.
“If you go to shows like GDC, you’ll see talks where people say ‘Oh, we had all these ambitious plans but then we scoped it down.’ That’s a very common thing, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to make the best game possible. That means it’s more expensive, but hopefully that means more people will want to play it. I need to be able to honestly go to people and say ‘This game is worth your time,’ and it’s easier to say that if I’ve worked as hard as I possibly can to make it good.”
Discussing the game’s 600+ puzzles Blow is also open about how he wants players to react to the game, hoping its design will allow for differing experiences.
“It’s so big and complicated… they can take away what they want, honestly. The design of the game is about giving people the freedom to approach it in their own way. I’ve spoken of some thematic things and what the game is about, and to what degree people get that will differ from person to person, and that’s totally cool. Which types of puzzles people like is going to be different, and that’s totally cool.”
The interview also looks at the game’s striking artistic direction and those oft-mentioned similarities to the classic Myst.
Read the full interview over on the PlayStation Blog.
The Witness will be released on PlayStation 4 in early 2016.
