Arc Games and Thekla announce narrative puzzle adventure game Order of the Sinking Star
Featuring over 1,000 hand-crafted puzzles.
Braid and The Witness developer Thekla has announced “massive” narrative puzzle adventure game Order of the Sinking Star, which will feature more than 1,000 hand-crafted puzzles and “hundreds of hours” of gameplay. It will launch for PC via Steam in 2026, with additional platforms and the exact release timing to be announced at a later date.
“Order of the Sinking Star is the biggest game I’ve worked on, and also the most collaborative,” said Thekla founder and game designer Jonathan Blow in a press release. “It’s a kind of game design supercollider that brings together ideas from many designers to create a puzzle landscape that’s much more intricate and vast than what has come before. We’ve successfully pushed the limits of what is possible in a puzzle adventure. The game is just incredibly complex and deep, and I can’t wait to show more as we move toward launch in 2026. The game showcases design contributions from Alan Hazelden (A Monster’s Expedition), Sean Barrett (Promesst), Jonah Ostroff (Heroes of Sokoban), Zach Polansky (Enigmash), Patrick Traynor (Patrick’s Parabox), Marc ten Bosch (Miegakure), and several others.”
Arc Games CEO Yoon Im added, “Announcing Order of the Sinking Star is a major moment for us, for Jonathan, and his team—it represents an exciting year ahead for all of us. It’s an honor to support Jonathan to make his most ambitious project yet a reality, as we believe Order of the Sinking Star is set to be the premier and innovative puzzle adventure of this generation. This announcement today marks just the beginning of what we have planned for a game-changing year for us next year.”
Here is an overview of the game, via its Steam page:
About
From legendary director Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness) comes Order of the Sinking Star, a massive narrative adventure featuring more than one thousand hand-crafted puzzles designed to put your intellect to the test. 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.
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.
Watch the announcement trailer below. View the first screenshots at the gallery.