The Announcement Nobody Saw Coming
Jonathan Blow, the brilliant and controversial mind behind Braid and The Witness, just confirmed during a recent livestream that his long-in-development puzzle game will be shown at The Game Awards tonight. This isn’t some small indie project either. According to Blow himself, this Sokoban-style game represents the largest handcrafted, high-quality puzzle game ever created by a significant margin. After nearly nine years of development using his own custom programming language, fans will finally see what he’s been building all this time when The Game Awards starts at 4:30 PM PT.
The confirmation came casually during one of Blow’s regular Twitch programming streams, where he essentially validated speculation that his mysterious project would appear at tonight’s ceremony. For a developer who famously took eight years to make The Witness and spent years refining Braid, this timeline isn’t surprising. What is surprising is the scope. Blow describes the game as containing approximately 800 levels, potentially over 1,000 individual puzzles, and estimates that average players could spend 400 to 500 hours completing everything. That’s not a puzzle game, that’s a puzzle lifestyle.
What Is This Game Exactly
The project draws heavy inspiration from Sokoban, a classic 1981 Japanese puzzle game where players push boxes around warehouses to reach specific storage locations. Blow’s take expands that simple concept into something far more complex and ambitious. Instead of just pushing boxes, players control multiple characters with unique abilities in a fantasy setting. One character is a wizard who can cast teleportation spells. There’s a large crystal that needs moving through elaborate puzzle rooms.
The game features a level-based structure where players navigate an overworld and enter specific puzzle challenges. Many puzzles fit on a single screen, but some sprawl into more extensive and complex multi-screen affairs. The design philosophy mirrors what Blow achieved with The Witness, teaching players new mechanics through environmental storytelling and careful puzzle escalation rather than tutorial text boxes that hold your hand.
What separates this from typical Sokoban clones is Blow’s obsessive attention to puzzle quality. In recent interviews, he mentioned the team is currently editing and trimming levels, removing anything that doesn’t meet their standards. The goal is keeping only the best, most interesting puzzles rather than padding the game with filler content. That philosophy resulted in The Witness containing zero throwaway puzzles, with every challenge teaching something or building toward larger revelations. Expect the same ruthless curation here.
The game also promises a richer narrative than either Braid or The Witness, though Blow remains deliberately vague about specifics. He’s mentioned working on multiple endings, with at least one designed to elevate the experience beyond player expectations. Given how Braid’s final level recontextualized everything that came before and how The Witness contained hidden layers of meaning, whatever Blow has planned for this game’s conclusion is probably going to blow minds.
Built Using His Own Programming Language
Here’s where things get really interesting for developers and programming nerds. This entire game is written in Jai, a programming language Jonathan Blow has been designing and building since 2014. Frustrated with C++ during The Witness development, Blow decided the entire games industry needed better tools. So he spent years creating a systems-level programming language specifically optimized for game development, then used this Sokoban project as the real-world test case.
Jai is designed for low-friction development with features that directly support data-oriented design for high performance. Blow estimates that a well-designed game programming language could reduce typical development time by at least 20 percent while making the actual process of coding more enjoyable. The compiler is currently in beta with around 500 users, and Blow has stated he plans to make both the game engine and the Jai language public after this game launches.
This means Blow hasn’t just spent nine years making a puzzle game, he’s spent nine years building an entire technology stack from scratch, then using that stack to create what might be the definitive example of what it’s capable of. That’s either brilliantly ambitious or borderline insane depending on your perspective. Probably both. The fact that the game is close enough to announce suggests the approach worked, validating years of seemingly quixotic effort.
The Brutal Reality of Indie Development
This announcement comes at a particularly difficult time for Jonathan Blow’s studio Thekla Inc. Braid Anniversary Edition, released in May 2024 with fully repainted artwork and over 15 hours of developer commentary, sold extremely poorly. Blow has been brutally honest in streams about the situation, saying it sold like garbage compared to what the company needs to survive. The poor performance means Thekla can’t afford to pay anyone full-time to work on the Jai compiler right now.
That financial pressure adds extra weight to tonight’s announcement. This Sokoban game needs to succeed commercially, not just critically. Blow is betting his studio’s future on a massive, hyper-niche puzzle game at a time when even beloved indies struggle to find audiences. The game started as a small project meant to develop the engine for a separate third game, but scope creep turned it into something five to seven times larger than The Witness. Whether that ambition pays off remains to be seen.
Blow mentioned in interviews that he hopes for an early 2026 release, though he clarified there are no guarantees yet as negotiations are ongoing. That timeline suggests tonight’s Game Awards reveal will probably be a cinematic announcement trailer rather than extensive gameplay footage. Expect something that establishes the game’s aesthetic, hints at its mechanical depth, and gets people excited without revealing too much about the deeper puzzle mechanics Blow spent years refining.
Why This Matters Beyond Just Another Puzzle Game
Jonathan Blow occupies a unique space in gaming. He’s simultaneously one of the most respected and most controversial figures in indie development. Braid helped define what indie games could be artistically and commercially. The Witness pushed environmental puzzle design to places nobody thought possible. But Blow’s outspoken nature, frequent criticisms of other developers and industry practices, and uncompromising design philosophy make him a polarizing figure.
This new game represents a test of whether Blow’s uncompromising approach still resonates in 2025’s crowded gaming landscape. Puzzle games are no longer the hot indie genre they were when Braid launched in 2008. Players have more options than ever, and attention spans feel shorter. A 400-plus hour puzzle game sounds incredible to hardcore fans but potentially exhausting to everyone else. Can Blow find an audience willing to commit to something that demanding?
There’s also the technical achievement to consider. If Blow successfully created a new programming language and game engine that genuinely improves upon existing tools, that could have ripple effects across indie development. Making those tools publicly available could empower other developers facing similar frustrations with C++ and existing engines. The game itself might be niche, but the technology underneath could prove influential.
What to Expect Tonight
Based on Blow’s typical approach to announcements and the project’s current status, tonight’s reveal will probably include a cinematic trailer showcasing the game’s fantasy aesthetic and core pushing-objects-around-rooms concept. Don’t expect exhaustive gameplay breakdowns or deep mechanical explanations, Blow prefers letting players discover those things organically. There might be a brief developer message from Blow himself, explaining the project’s ambitions and thanking the community for patience.
The big questions are the official title, which remains unknown despite nine years of development, and the release date. If Blow is targeting early 2026, tonight’s announcement could include a specific launch window or even a firm date. There’s also potential for information about platforms, though given Thekla’s small size, expect a PC-first approach with console ports coming later if the game finds success.
What definitely won’t happen is a shadow drop where the game launches tonight. Blow has been clear that negotiations are still ongoing, which suggests the game isn’t in a shippable state yet. This is a traditional announcement meant to start building awareness and excitement for a game that will launch months from now. For Blow and Thekla’s sake, hopefully that excitement translates into actual sales when release day arrives.
FAQs
When will Jonathan Blow’s new game be announced?
The game will be revealed at The Game Awards 2025, which airs tonight at 4:30 PM Pacific Time, 7:30 PM Eastern Time, or 12:30 AM GMT on December 12. The exact timing during the show hasn’t been specified.
What is Sokoban?
Sokoban is a classic 1981 Japanese puzzle game where players push boxes around a warehouse to reach specific storage locations. Blow’s game is inspired by this concept but expands it dramatically with multiple characters, special abilities, and complex mechanical interactions.
How big is this puzzle game?
Jonathan Blow describes it as the largest handcrafted puzzle game ever made, with approximately 800 levels and over 1,000 individual puzzles. He estimates it could take average players 400 to 500 hours to complete everything, potentially making it five to seven times larger than The Witness.
What is Jai?
Jai is a custom programming language Jonathan Blow has been designing since 2014, specifically optimized for game development. The entire Sokoban game is written in Jai, serving as a real-world test case. Blow plans to make the language and game engine public after the game launches.
When will the game be released?
Blow hopes for an early 2026 release but has emphasized there are no guarantees yet as negotiations are ongoing. The exact launch date will likely be revealed during tonight’s Game Awards announcement or in follow-up communications.
How did Braid Anniversary Edition perform?
Very poorly. Jonathan Blow has been candid about the remaster selling terribly, describing the sales as like garbage compared to what Thekla needs to survive. The poor performance has put financial pressure on the studio heading into this new game’s launch.
Will this game be like The Witness?
Mechanically different but philosophically similar. Instead of The Witness’s first-person perspective and line-drawing puzzles, this game features a level-based structure with Sokoban-style pushing mechanics. However, it shares The Witness’s commitment to teaching through environmental design and avoiding filler content.
Who is Jonathan Blow?
Jonathan Blow is an indie game developer best known for creating Braid in 2008 and The Witness in 2016, both critically acclaimed puzzle games. He’s known for uncompromising design philosophy, technical ambition, and being an outspoken critic of industry practices, making him both respected and controversial.
Conclusion
Tonight’s Game Awards could mark a defining moment for Jonathan Blow and indie puzzle games as a whole. After nine years of development, working in a custom programming language he built himself, Blow is finally ready to show the world what happens when one of gaming’s most uncompromising designers decides to create the largest handcrafted puzzle game ever made. Whether the industry and players are ready for a 400-plus hour puzzle marathon remains an open question, but you can’t fault the ambition. Blow has never done anything small or safe, and this project represents his most audacious bet yet. The financial pressure from Braid Anniversary Edition’s failure adds stakes that go beyond just critical reception, this game needs to succeed for Thekla to survive. Set those reminders for 4:30 PM PT and prepare to see what nine years of obsessive puzzle design looks like. If nothing else, it’ll definitely be interesting, and in an industry increasingly dominated by safe sequels and live service games, interesting might be exactly what we need. Whether Blow can convince enough people to spend hundreds of hours pushing fantasy boxes around rooms will determine if his uncompromising approach still has a place in modern gaming.