My seemingly unpopular opinion based on this thread: The Witness is the greatest puzzle game of all time. My spouse agrees. You either get it or you don't.
Let's dilute the thread. I did half the game and stopped playing. Not really got stuck, just got exhausted. It is a chore, I get what it is doing, the progression and addition of new mechanics while preserving the old ones yeah great whoopdi do.
But there are games which are a lot more immersive and have an actual point and have better physics based puzzles and an actual story like portal and talos principle that don't make you feel like you are remotely debugging a crash on saturday night while everyone else is having fun. You either get that or not.
Portal is trivial and Talos Principle is good but a bit contrived. I have never played a puzzle game that I considered a chore. The puzzles are the game. You don't need a story or a point in them. I also play chess and there is certainly no immersion or physics in that.
The Witness also has the sublime revelation in it that makes it more memorable than most games. I don't even remember the god's name in TP, but I can envision clearly every Witness locale.
I guess crosswords, chess, sudoku, solitaire, and competitive programming need to add plots and narratives to their next editions, lest they be thought to have pretensions! (Of what?)
I enjoy all of the above and not the bland, droning, tasteless, pointless "learn the next mechanic" JB games. YMMV.
BTW the talos principle AI referred to itself as yahweh, if you ever read the bible.
Edit: and chess is uniquely lore-heavy. Even the openings have openings and everything is tied to history. I'm surprised it is even brought up in comparison at all.
