Well, we still don't know when The Witness will release for PS4, but over on the PlayStation blog the game's creator, Jonathan Blow, provided us with a little update on the progress.
For starters, all of the gameplay along "the main line of the game" — things you do from the beginning to the end of a standard playthrough — is done, says Blow. "But," he notes, "this is a game that has a lot of extra things for players who are really into the game and want more; we’re still designing some of those extras."
Blow also says that most of the island where The Witness takes place is "fully modeled", but adds that "there are a few important locations that are still in a draft stage, and several others that could use another pass of detail."
On the topic of level-of-detail management, Blow says they are working hard to make the game run as smoothly as possible.
"For example, making sure that it doesn’t take too long to stream in new parts of the world as you move. When we do stream in higher-detail versions of far-away geometry, we don’t want the graphics to pop, so we’ve recently implemented a smooth blend between LOD levels. The Witness is an open-world game with no loading screens; the feeling of just walking around and looking at things is very important. We work hard to make this happen as smoothly as possible."
Lastly, Blow confirmed that they are planning to render The Witness on PS4 at 1080p and 60 frames per second. They are currently meeting this goal in many areas of the game, but not yet everywhere.
The Witness is a timed exclusive on PS4, and will release on iOS and PC shortly after Sony's console. Hopefully, we find out that date soon.
[PS Blog]
