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The Witness may hit retail shelves as new 'long screenshot' is released

Creator Jonathan Blow has released another long screenshot for The Witness, while also addressing whether his game is destined for retail shelves.

Ozzie Mejia

December 23, 2015 9:00 AM

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It's almost time to marvel in the visual majesty of Jonathan Blow's massive puzzle game, The Witness. The game is set to arrive in January and that means Blow is putting the finishing touches on his game, revealing some new details and offering another glimpse at its gorgeous world.

While Blow has previously indicated that The Witness will not feature an in-game soundtrack, he is including voiceovers. Today, he has noted that voiceover work is just about finished, with voice actors set to be announced after the new year. In addition to that, Blow has indicated that there's a good chance a physical copy of The Witness will be released, but it won't be ready for the January 26 release date.

"We've had some people asking us whether there will be a physical retail release of The Witness," said Blow. "It's seeming likely, as we have been in talks with a couple of parties for a while about that possibility. However, it looks like if there is a retail release, it won't happen until a little bit after the digital release. The reason is just that we need all the time we can get up until the release date in order to get all the finishing touches into the game; but because of the lead-time involved in physical manufacturing and distribution, we would have to freeze the game right about now in order to have it on store shelves for the release date. Or we could delay the digital release date in order to wait for the physical. But I don't see a good reason to do either of those things. I would rather just focus our energy on making the game as good as we can make it, and a retail version can lag behind by a little bit."

About a month after its first long screenshot, a second long screenshot has been taken of the beautiful island used in The Witness. Check it out below.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?