Thekla and Arc Games have confirmed The Order of the Sinking Star for PS5 in 2026, tying its reveal to a decade-long development cycle, Jonathan Blow’s post-The Witness return, and hands-on reports of a huge, interlocking puzzle adventure.
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Store links: Order of the Sinking Star on Steam
A PS5 version joins the 2026 plan, with the exact date still missing
The Order of the Sinking Star is now confirmed for PlayStation 5, giving Thekla’s long-gestating puzzle adventure a wider console launch after its previously announced PC and Nintendo Switch 2 versions. Arc Games and Thekla announced the PS5 version on July 21, 2026 through a press release hosted on Games Press, while PlayStation Blog published a hands-on report the same day saying the game is arriving on PS5 later this year.
That is the concrete news: The Order of the Sinking Star PS5 is real, it is planned for 2026, and it is part of a simultaneous platform push that includes Steam, Nintendo Switch 2, and Steam Deck support according to Arc Games’ announcement. The unresolved part is just as important for anyone planning a purchase. The publisher has not provided a specific release date or price in the supplied materials. GamingBolt also noted that the game still does not have a release date, despite the same reporting pointing to a launch later this year.
That gap creates the tension around the reveal. This is a game being sold on scale, craft, and lineage, but for now players have a window rather than a day. A Steam demo is available now, according to Arc Games and GamingBolt. Arc Games says demo progress will carry over to the full game at launch, while GamingBolt says the demo includes more than 100 puzzles.
A decade after The Witness, Jonathan Blow is returning with a different shape of adventure
GamingBolt reports that game director Jonathan Blow described Order of the Sinking Star as ten years in the making in the new overview trailer. The timing gives the PS5 reveal its real weight. Not counting Braid, Anniversary Edition, GamingBolt frames this as Blow’s first game since 2016’s The Witness, the minimalist island puzzle game that made Thekla a permanent reference point in modern puzzle design.
Arc Games is leaning directly into that connection, calling Order of the Sinking Star a puzzle adventure led by Jonathan Blow, whose previous work includes Braid and The Witness. Push Square similarly introduces it as the next game from The Witness studio Thekla. For search-minded players asking about The Witness developer new game, this is the answer, but the early reports make clear that Thekla is not simply returning to the same silhouette.
PlayStation Blog contributor Corey Brotherson writes that Order of the Sinking Star has a more explicit story presence than Braid or The Witness because it immediately uses talkative, controllable characters. At the same time, Brotherson says exposition in the demo arrives in small, sporadic chunks and remains secondary to introducing mechanics. That balance matters. Thekla’s new game appears to be chasing narrative momentum without abandoning the studio’s preference for player discovery, mechanical implication, and the slow realization that a simple rule has sharper edges than it first appeared to have.
The hands-on reports point to a puzzle adventure built around escalation
The PlayStation Blog hands-on begins with the Queen, who is lost in what initially appears to be a strange palace before the space opens into the overworld. Brotherson describes this opening as a tutorial for pushing blocking objects through grid-like locations and for learning the rewind or undo mechanic, which lets players step back when a puzzle state collapses. For a puzzle game with branching areas and layered interactions, that undo function sounds less like a convenience and more like the rhythm section holding the whole composition together.
After the tutorial, Brotherson says he was offered three different areas. In The Hearty Heroes of Hauling, he controlled Valens, Tif, and Isidore, characters with distinct manipulation rules: Valens can push blocks and crystals, Tif can only pull them, and Isidore can swap places with them on line of sight. In The Promise, an explorer navigates a maze-like mine using gems that emit colored beams. In Mirror Isles, a wealthy trader uses mirrors to swap places with a projected reflection while crossing a waterlogged archipelago.
Those examples suggest a game whose adventure pacing comes from mechanical handoffs rather than combat encounters. The set-piece is not a collapsing bridge or boss arena, at least from what has been shown. It is the moment a once-contained rule meets another rule and the room changes under your feet. Brotherson says the Sokoban-like puzzles begin simply but escalate quickly, especially when the Hearty Heroes meet up and their abilities must be combined. He also notes that a druid who can transmute blocks later joins that group, increasing the complexity again.
The endgame pitch is where the decade-long build starts to show
Arc Games’ press release says the new trailer showcases Order of the Sinking Star’s true endgame, where characters and mechanics from different worlds collide into a new layer of puzzle design. The publisher describes four unique worlds, each with its own stories and methods of solving puzzles, eventually interacting so that their systems combine into new puzzle styles.
GamingBolt adds more specific examples from Blow’s trailer comments. The outlet reports that the Heroes of Hauling are six characters rather than three, and that their abilities can combine with teleporting mirrors. GamingBolt also says Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes and The Promise’s colored beams can be combined, and it points to an end-game that may reveal more about the mysterious Order. Separately, GamingBolt says PlayStation Blog’s preview revealed multiple endings.
Those are meaningful promises because they turn raw puzzle count into structure. A thousand isolated rooms can become fatigue. A smaller number of rules that keep crossing over can become drama, if the game teaches cleanly and resists burying players under exceptions. The hands-on material supports the idea that Thekla is building toward collision, but it cannot yet answer how readable that collision remains after dozens of hours. That is the central design risk behind the Order of the Sinking Star release: scale is confirmed, but the long-term pacing still has to prove itself outside a demo and preview setting.
Scale is the marketing hook, but clarity will decide the PS5 audience
Arc Games describes Order of the Sinking Star as a massive adventure with more than one thousand hand-crafted puzzles. Push Square reports that the game promises over 1,000 interconnected, hand-crafted puzzles from top-down and isometric perspectives, spread across multiple worlds. GamingBolt’s report also references 1,000-plus puzzles and more than 900 levels.
The practical expectation, then, should be closer to a long-form puzzle campaign than a compact weekend adventure. Push Square says players will have freedom to explore and may encounter puzzles they do not yet have the knowledge to solve. That structure can be rewarding for players who enjoy leaving a locked mental door behind and returning later with a new verb. It can also be punishing for players who need a clearer critical path.
The Steam demo is the best current filter. Arc Games says Order of the Sinking Star was among the most-played demos in Steam Next Fest this past June, and the demo remains available on Steam. Because Arc Games says demo progress carries into the full release, trying it now is unusually useful for PC players. PS5 players have no confirmed equivalent demo in the provided materials, so the smartest approach on console is to watch for whether Thekla announces one before launch or whether PS5 buyers will need to wait for reviews and platform-specific impressions.
The sensible PS5 read: watch the date, try the demo if you can, and expect a demanding adventure
For now, the confirmed platform picture is straightforward. Arc Games and Thekla say Order of the Sinking Star will launch on PS5 later in 2026, alongside Nintendo Switch 2 and Steam. Steam Deck support is also named in the publisher’s announcement. The unannounced details are equally clear: no exact launch date, no price, and no PS5-specific performance information are included in the supplied sources.
Players coming from The Witness should expect a shared design lineage rather than a repeated format. The hands-on report describes a more character-forward structure, an overworld, named sub-adventures, voice over and narration, and a wide range of Sokoban-inspired interactions. Players who bounced off The Witness because of its austerity may find the explicit characters and world structure easier to enter. Players who dislike box-pushing logic should pay attention to the PlayStation Blog’s repeated emphasis on Sokoban-like mechanics before assuming the Blow pedigree alone will carry them.
As a PS5 adventure game 2026 prospect, Order of the Sinking Star is one of the more unusual entries on the calendar: a decade-scale puzzle project arriving with publisher backing from Arc Games, a direct line to The Witness developer, and an endgame built around system crossovers rather than spectacle. The reveal answers the platform question. The next reveal needs to answer the calendar question, and eventually the reviews will need to answer the harder one: whether ten years of accumulated puzzle design can still move with momentum when players are deep inside its maze.