With Order of the Sinking Star two weeks out from its October 8 launch on PlayStation 5, Switch 2, and PC, Arc Games and Thekla have released a new trailer called Explore the Realm that walks through the game’s Overworld, its non-linear structure, and the four worlds that eventually collide across more than 1,000 handcrafted puzzles. This is Jonathan Blow’s first game since The Witness in 2016, and Thekla says it has been in development for nearly a decade. Arc also says an ensemble of professional actors voices the cast, with the full lineup being revealed closer to launch.
The Overworld is a central hub with four paths branching out in the cardinal directions, and there’s no set order for tackling them. The North follows a party of fantasy adventurers, including a Warrior, Thief, Wizard, Bard, Cleric, and Druid, who run a moving company, with each hero handling objects differently, whether that’s pushing, pulling, or teleporting past blockades. The East centers on a wealthy Trader crossing an archipelago where magic mirrors swap him and objects with their reflections, so lining up the right angle can project him onto a distant island. The West stars an Explorer in underground caverns who channels colored light beams through giant gems to phase through walls, smash boulders, and teleport, while the South follows a marooned Sailor crossing open water with skipping stones and rideable lily pads.
Players who get stuck on one path can leave and work on another, and the Overworld expands as you progress, with the fog on the map fading to reveal larger areas. The structural twist comes with the Gold Rooms, since clearing one bridges two of the realms together, putting their characters face-to-face and opening up six combination areas that mix systems, such as the Explorer’s light beams with the Trader’s mirrors, or the moving crew with the Sailor’s skipping stones. According to Thekla, the four starting worlds are built on four existing indie puzzle games: Jonah Ostroff’s Heroes of Sokoban, Alan Hazelden’s Mirror Isles and Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes, and Sean Barrett’s Promesst series.
Order of the Sinking Star was announced in December 2025, and a demo during Steam Next Fest in June ended up as one of the most-played demos of the event, according to Arc. The PlayStation 5 version was added in July, and the October 8 date followed in August. Blow has said a normal playthrough can run up to 250 hours, with more than 500 needed to solve every puzzle, though reaching the end of the story doesn’t require clearing all of them. The Steam demo is still available, and any progress made in it carries over to the full game at launch.
