Fans of Jonathan Blow and his critically acclaimed indie hit Braid will be pleased to know that his upcoming title, The Witness, will not be coming solely to PlayStation 4. The gorgeous puzzle game, unveiled at Sony's PlayStation 4 event this past week, raised as much concern as it did intrigue, as many wondered if the game would remain a PS4 exclusive, sadly breaking tradition of its successor's multiple platform availability.
Taking to his blog to clarify, Blow explains that the exclusivity is merely for the time being, and that eventually the game will come to other platforms as well:
"Our deal with Sony is a limited-time exclusivity that applies to competing console platforms. Basically it is that you will see the game on the PlayStation 4 for a while before you will see it on the Wii U or the rumored next Microsoft console…This exclusivity does not prevent us from being on the PC or iOS at launch, for example."
He goes on to explain that the studio naturally only has limited resources to publish the game and that the nature of his working relationship with Sony and their continued interest in The Witness led to his acquisition of the PS4 dev kit. These factors, plus a growing development time that was pushing the game towards the next generation of consoles, led to The Witness as a port to the PlayStation 4. He describes the agreement to keep the game as a limited exclusivity deal as merely a formalization of a situation that already had naturally occurred.
He wrapped up the blog post by saying there is not yet a formal release window for The Witness, but if you'd like to get an idea of what the Myst-like puzzle game is about, check out our gallery of screen shots.