VG247:
The Witness highlights an industry-wide issue of privilege and thoughtlessness. Let’s try to do better. The Witness gets away with its colour and audio issues, but it’s only comfortably able to do that if it’s an outlier. We can accept that not every game is right for us when there are plenty of others that are. And that’s not necessarily the case.
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The Witness might be one of the best games ever made. A fun, frequently frustrating study on mysteries, humanity and a love of true magic.
The Witness is pure brilliance. I platinum'd it on PS4 and recently replayed it on PS5. It's definitely an incredible experience that requires no spoilers so just let the island guide you. Yes, the puzzles can get tough but they are never beyond completion so take come back and go see other things. There is also a ton of storytelling and mystery in the visuals. The Witness is the first game I have played that really took my mind to new heights of creative thinking and perspective. This game is more than meets the eye and 100% a masterpiece.
100% agree! This game offers such a unique challenge.. growing up I used to think that Midnight Resistance was tough, then Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts.. fast forwards to Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, Destiny's Raids.. but this game was on another level. And when you finally finish it you feel great satisfaction! Trippy ending too 👌🏻
Everyone should also try Superliminal.
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I know someone that has only one hand, so when you review Street Fighter, make sure you mention that you need both hands to play and to actually enjoy yourself playing the game. It'd be a bit hard with only one hand. But you can definitely play The Witness with one hand, so I'll be recommending it to my friend.
The talk of 'privilege' instantly turns me off but then I DO have some of the issues talked about in this article. I do tend to get motion sickness from many games, especially ones with this kind of bright textureless style, strangely I can play this game for at least half an hour without feeling too bad but one quick play of a Katamari game will ruin me for the night.
I also have red/green colourblindness which I'm still not sure is an issue with this game for me but I'm willing to use it as an excuse for sucking at the more difficult puzzles.
I also have been playing the past hour or two while listening to an audiobook on headphones, I normally consider listening to anything other than the game audio while playing a game sort of a gaming sin but in this case I'd decided the lack of any music or audio storytelling meant I didn't need to listen too closely. I suppose I should've guessed there'd be some subtle clue I'd miss while not listening.
I can't exactly claim a lack of privilege on the audio front but as far as the colourblindness and motion sickness go, it does suck that I have those issues with games, it would be nice if I could get some kind of guide as to which games I might have those issues with and games that take steps to help with those issues (such as the unbelievably helpful colourblind Witcher senses option in the Witcher 3) are greatly appreciated but I really can't blame any game for the issues I have.
Maybe I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't have the very mild disabilities mentioned in this article (colourblindness and motion sickness) and instead had the truly serious, life affecting one (deafness) but I can't help but think that not being able to enjoy sensory experiences as well as others is just what it means to be disabled. For a creator to hold back from exploring the potential of certain sensory experiences because not everybody can enjoy them, in a sense makes us all disabled. I do appreciate when games include help for people who suffer the very minor problems I have but even when they don't I can't really bitch at them and I certainly wouldn't want it to affect review scores on any site that wasn't specifically catered towards disabled gamers. To demand that the issues I and a minority of other gamers have with these games affect the score for everybody WOULD seem like privilege to me.
Disabled people cannot do everything that those who are not can. That's a fact of life.
They are a small minority, and so the cold reality is that they don't matter much. Time spent accommodating the 1% is time lost fixing bugs and adding features for the 99%.
It's a kindness when Devs do accommodate them, but it should not be expected.
I think developers should say what the game doesn't cater too before launch. Subtitles, audio, color blind etc. It's just courteous. I remember playing a ps3 Game which puzzle needs vibration to feel the key and I had an old ps3 controller with no vibration. Had to trade it in and pay extra for a ds3 to pass the puzzle. They should have said before hand, sixaxis won't work, ds3 needed. Its annoying and lazy.