Order of the Sinking Star Review: Jonathan Blow's 500-Hour Sokoban Odyssey Divides Critics

Thekla’s massive new puzzle game, Order of the Sinking Star, is drawing early review verdicts that range from sheer awe to profound cognitive fatigue. Headed by Braid and The Witness creator Jonathan Blow, the project is officially touted as a "500-hour" game ahead of its launch—a runtime that reads less like a feature and more like a gentle threat to anyone with a day job. The review embargo for press and content creator coverage lifted on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, at 6:00 AM PT / 9:00 AM ET.

Reviewers spent a month with the game only to find they had barely scratched its surface. "If you gave me five years to review Order of the Sinking Star, I still don’t think that would be enough time," one reviewer noted, describing a month-long experience that yielded more questions than definitive answers.

The game's central design involves remaking and combining the mechanics of four distinct indie Sokoban (box-pushing) games: Alan Hazelden’s Mirror Isles and Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes, Silver Spaceship Software's Promesst, and Jonah Ostroff's Heroes of Sokoban. While the early hours let players tackle these reworks individually, the mechanics eventually cross-pollinate across a sprawling, top-down grid, forcing players to combine disparate rules to solve complex hybrid puzzles.

The details

• Developer: Thekla Inc.
• Core genre: Open-world Sokoban puzzle hybrid
• Promoted length: 500 hours, according to the developer
• Remixed indie games: Mirror Isles, Promesst, Heroes of Sokoban, Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes

The mental marathon

While the game’s structural design is being hailed as brilliant, the sheer mental endurance required has proved polarizing. Reviewers point out that unlike The Witness, which offered a gentle, intuitive learning curve through tactile line-drawing, Order of the Sinking Star relies on relentless, expert-level box-pushing logic. Without a traditional ebb and flow to the challenge, players may find themselves staring at the same layout for hours, only to find that the reward for a breakthrough is an even tougher obstacle.

This extreme complexity is amplified by mechanical friction. In segments like the underground Promesst adaptation, a single mistake made thirty minutes prior can render an entire sequence unsolvable, forcing a complete restart of the puzzle.

Outside the grid

The complexity isn't limited to the gameplay. Ahead of launch, the game's background has been complicated by real-world friction. Several of the original indie creators whose works were licensed and remixed for the project have publicly distanced themselves from it, citing outspoken public statements made by Jonathan Blow.

Ultimately, Order of the Sinking Star presents a massive, uncompromising challenge designed to be picked away at over years rather than cleared in a single season. Whether that sounds like a masterpiece or a second job is entirely up to your appetite for digital gridlock.