Order of the Sinking Star is coming to PS5 later this year

Order of the Sinking Star is coming to PlayStation 5 later this year, Sony announced on the PlayStation Blog alongside a hands-on preview of the game. It is the next release from Thekla, the independent studio founded by Jonathan Blow and responsible for Braid and The Witness.

Sony's account describes a puzzle game structured around several controllable characters rather than a single protagonist. Story is delivered in small pieces through voice-over and environmental detail, with a rewind mechanic available throughout so players can step back from a puzzle state rather than restart it.

The first character, the Queen, begins in a palace that opens onto an overworld, from which three separate regions were available in the preview build. Each pairs its cast with a distinct rule for manipulating the game's blocks and crystals.

• The Hearty Heroes of Hauling: the warrior Valens pushes objects, Tif the thief can only pull them, and Isidore the wizard swaps places with them along a line of sight
• The Promise: an explorer works through a mine using gems that emit coloured beams
• Mirror Isles: a trader uses mirrors to swap positions with his own reflection across a waterlogged archipelago

Those casts expand as the game continues. A druid who transmutes blocks joins the first group, a bard can charm hostile creatures within an area, and a priestess is immune to enemy attacks and can shield characters beside her. Monsters appear, but there is no combat: goblins kill an adjacent character and other creatures attack along a line of sight, so they function as hazards to be routed around, or turned against each other.

The preview describes a structural turn several hours in, when characters from the separate regions begin solving puzzles together that none can finish alone. A fourth southern area, Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes, was not playable in the build; Sony's post says it features a marooned sailor and rivers that can be redirected.

Thekla has spent roughly ten years on the game with a team of about 20 people. The PlayStation Blog cites more than 900 levels, over a thousand puzzles and multiple endings. No release date beyond later this year has been given.