Arc Games and Thekla used a fresh overview trailer on Wednesday to drop the surprise of the day: Order of the Sinking Star, the massive narrative puzzle adventure from Braid and The Witness director Jonathan Blow, is launching on Nintendo Switch 2 this year. The Switch 2 version was not previously confirmed - the original December 2025 Game Awards reveal pegged the project as a Steam release with Steam Deck support, with no console targets attached. Today's overview trailer changes that picture entirely.
The Switch 2 announcement comes with a launch window of "this year" and no specific date. Thekla has not committed to a simultaneous Steam and Switch 2 launch, but the studio is calling parity the goal, with Switch 2's hybrid form factor specifically called out in the trailer as a fit for the game's bite-sized puzzle-cluster pacing.
The Thousand-Puzzle Pitch
The headline number on Order of the Sinking Star is more than one thousand hand-crafted puzzles. That figure is not a marketing flourish - it is the structural foundation of the whole game. Order of the Sinking Star spans four distinct worlds, each with its own mechanics, characters, and standalone story arcs, that gradually merge as the player progresses. Puzzle systems from one world become the unlock conditions for another. Characters from disparate plot threads start crossing each other in the same overworld. By the end, the four worlds are meant to read as one interconnected mystery rather than four parallel mini-games.
The roster of playable heroes is specifically named in the trailer: a queen, a thief, a warrior, a wizard, and a talking boat. Each has complementary abilities, each has a distinct narrative beat, and each unlocks new puzzle interactions when their progression intersects with the other characters'. The trailer's punchline - the talking boat - is also genuinely a playable character, which is exactly the kind of detail a Jonathan Blow project does straight-faced.
Why Switch 2 Specifically
Thekla's pitch for the Switch 2 version is built around the platform's hybrid form factor. The trailer's narration explicitly frames Order of the Sinking Star as a game that benefits from being able to dip in and out: "play either on-the-go for quick puzzle-solving sessions or in the comfort of their own home for longer sessions." That is a thoughtful design fit. The puzzle-cluster pacing - where players can dispatch one or two puzzles in a fifteen-minute pickup or settle in for a two-hour deep dive - maps almost perfectly to the kind of session play that built the Switch's reputation and that the Switch 2 is leaning even harder into.
The Switch 2 version is also a meaningful endorsement of Nintendo's new hardware in a corner of the market that has historically skipped Nintendo platforms. The Witness, Thekla's previous title, never shipped on a Nintendo console. Getting Jonathan Blow's next major project onto the Switch 2 at launch window is a real win for Nintendo's third-party narrative - and a tacit acknowledgement that the new hardware finally has the GPU headroom to handle Thekla's hand-crafted shader work and dynamic lighting without compromise.
Jonathan Blow, Eight Years Later
This is Jonathan Blow's first new project to reach a public trailer since The Witness launched in 2016. The intervening years have been spent on the Jai programming language project and on prototyping work that never resulted in a public-facing title. Order of the Sinking Star is therefore not just a new Thekla release - it is the single most anticipated narrative-puzzle game in development, and the studio's first commercial swing in nearly a decade.
The structural ambition shows. A thousand hand-crafted puzzles is roughly three to four times the puzzle count of The Witness, and four interlocking worlds with named playable characters is a much bigger narrative scope than the deliberately mute, environmentally-told story of the previous game. Blow is moving from minimalist isolation toward populated, story-forward design, while keeping the obsessive hand-built puzzle craft that defined the studio's identity.
What Comes Next
Order of the Sinking Star is confirmed for Nintendo Switch 2 and Steam (with Steam Deck support) in 2026. Both versions are now described as primary platforms rather than secondary ports. Arc Games is publishing, with Thekla developing. No PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series version has been announced, and the studio has historically been cool on multi-platform launches, so any additional platforms are likely to follow well after the Switch 2 and Steam release rather than alongside.
The Switch 2 trailer is live now on Arc Games and Nintendo's official channels, and the overview trailer is also available on Steam through the game's product page. A specific release date remains unconfirmed, but the trailer's "this year" window - combined with the depth of finished gameplay visible in the new footage - points at a Q3 or Q4 2026 launch.
For Switch 2 owners, this is one of the more consequential third-party announcements of the platform's first year. For Thekla and Jonathan Blow fans, it is the first hard confirmation that Order of the Sinking Star is shippable, scoped, and on a 2026 launch path. A thousand hand-built puzzles, four worlds, five characters including a talking boat, and a single overarching mystery - coming to the dock and the handheld this year.
