Order of the Sinking Star Review
Consensus Review · 18 independent sources
Order of the Sinking Star
Highly rated. The price doesn't draw much complaint.
⚡ The Short Version
Order of the Sinking Star is a massive, ambitious puzzle game that delivers a huge amount of content for your money. You'll find brilliant, interconnected mechanics that reward discovery, though the lack of hints and a cryptic story can make it a challenging experience. It's a solid pick for puzzle enthusiasts who want to test their skills, but casual players may find the scale overwhelming.
Things to weigh: Performance (reviewers disagree)
Versions reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PlayStation 5 and 2 more
Reviews by market: US 4 · 14 without a stated market. Prices, mileage and range figures follow each reviewer's own market.
Confidence: high · 18 reviews · 18 hands-on
👍 Order of the Sinking Star pros and cons
👍 Pros
- Soothing music speakers
- No tutorials software & Features
- Brilliant puzzle design
- Thousand puzzles gaming Performance
- Over 1
👎 Cons
- Frame drops performance
- Atrocious framerate in puzzle sections
- Colorblind accessibility issue
- Complex logic
- Unable to play in docked mode due
💰 Value for Money Analysis
The price is reasonable given the extensive content, with most reviewers finding it offers good value.
14 of 18 sources commented on price or value.
📊 What Reviewers Say — Feature by Feature
6 features discussed across 18 sources. Each score blends what reviewers said about that feature with the overall score, so a feature with few mentions stays close to the overall verdict.
🔀 Rivals to compare
- Baba is You (named by 1 of 18) [rival] An older puzzle game fitting a similar style of obsession.
- Blue Prince (named by 1 of 18) [rival] Another puzzle title that warrants obsession and trial and error.
- Braid (named by 1 of 18) Jonathan Blow's earlier straight-laced platformer.
- Patrick’s Parabox (named by 1 of 18) [rival] Another acclaimed and challenging puzzle game in the genre.
- Stephen’s Sausage Roll (named by 1 of 18) [rival] Known as a great, highly challenging puzzle game in the genre.
- The Witness (named by 1 of 18) [rival] Shares similar puzzle design and potential progression roadblocks.
Reasons are the reviewers' own. Spellings of the same product are merged.
🛒 Is it right for you?
✅ Buy this if…
- You love deep, challenging sliding-block puzzle games.
- You want a vast world with hundreds of varied puzzles.
- You enjoy discovering puzzle rules without tutorials or guides.
- You want a massive collection of handcrafted puzzles for a low price.
⚠️ Skip this if…
- You're looking for an engaging narrative or interesting worldbuilding.
- You prefer guided puzzle adventures with clear instructions.
- You get easily frustrated by dead ends without hints.
- You easily get overwhelmed by massive puzzle counts.
Is the Order of the Sinking Star worth buying?
Strengths, weaknesses and who it suits
🎯 Who This Product Is For
Reviewer recommendations for different target audiences and use cases.
Real-world findings
Test results, marketing claims and known problems
🔍 Claims vs real life
| Claim | Claimed | Measured by reviewers | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Development Time | 10 years | not measured | Not independently tested |
| Gameplay Hours | 100 h | not measured | Not independently tested |
| Time To Beat | 50 h | not measured | Not independently tested |
Claims are the manufacturer's figures as quoted by reviewers. Measured values are what reviewers recorded themselves; test conditions differ between sources.
⚠️ Things to Check Before Buying
- These reviews cover different versions (Nintendo Switch 2; PC; PlayStation 5), so check which one you are buying.
⚠️ Known problems
Reported by one source (not confirmed)
- Atrocious framerate in puzzle sections and hub world (major · unresolved · 1 source)
- Colorblind accessibility issue with colored beams (major · unresolved · 1 source)
- Complex logic with no hints can entirely prevent progress (major · unresolved · 1 source)
- Significant performance drops on PS5 (major · unresolved · 1 source)
- Unable to play in docked mode due to aspect ratio glitch (major · unresolved · 1 source)
- Battery getting drained quickly due to CPU-intensive nature (moderate · unresolved · 1 source)
- Framerate took a very noticeable hit when quickly moving between areas or zooming out (moderate · unresolved · 1 source)
- Launches in a frozen state with a black screen on PC (moderate · unresolved · 1 source)
- Narrative beats can be hard to follow if progress is slow (moderate · unresolved · 1 source)
- Odd bugs can halt progress and force a puzzle reset (moderate · workaround · 1 source)
How it compares
Alternatives and the previous model
Order of the Sinking Star is a brilliant, massive puzzle experience for dedicated fans, though performance issues and a lack of accessibility features hold it back from perfection.
Nerd corner
Feature-by-feature chart, measurements, specs and the score maths. Skip this part if you only want the answer.
Technical note: Performance is inconsistent, with reviewers reporting frame rate drops and overworld stuttering despite some finding it runs well on weaker hardware. Play time ranges from 35 h to 50 h depending on how you approach the puzzles.
⚙️ Performance
While the puzzle count is high, performance varies significantly between users.
| Measurement | Result |
|---|---|
| puzzles in the game | 920 (one review) |
🔬 Technical takeaway
- Play time: 35–50 h across 3 reviews. Results vary a lot, probably because the tests differ [US].
- Finish time: 40 h (one review).
- Framerate: 30 fps (one review).
- Playthrough hours: 40 h (one review).
Numbers come from the reviewers' own tests and spec lists. Test conditions differ between sources.
⚡ Where Reviewers Disagreed
Reviewers differ on the performance, with opinions ranging from smooth to stuttering, and play time varies from 35 h to 50 h.
- Performance: 2 praised it, 2 criticised it, 5 were mixed (9 sources evaluated it).
- play time: 35–50 h across 3 reviews. Results vary a lot, probably because the tests differ Test conditions differ: photos taken over course of.
🧩 Other Things Reviewers Mentioned
Play Time (3 of 18 sources)
| Measurement | Result |
|---|---|
| play time | 35–50 h across 3 reviews. Results vary a lot, probably because the tests differ [US] |
🧮 How We Got This Score
In short: each of the 18 reviews is turned into a 0 to 10 number, stronger evidence counts for more, and the numbers are averaged.
- 13 reviews gave their own numeric score, and those count extra. The others are scored from their overall tone.
- First impressions and reviews without hands-on testing count less.
- If 80%+ of reviews lean the same way, the score moves by 0.5. This time: +0.5 (89% of sources positive (threshold 80%)).
- 89% of reviews lean positive, and scores are close together (spread 1.2). Agreement: High.
- How we got there: score 8.7/10, value signal 6.7/10 from 14 reviews, evidence strong (18 reviews, 18 hands-on).
- Reviews are dated Dec 2025 to Oct 2026.
The arithmetic, for the curious
| Review type | Reviews | Avg value | Total weight | Value × weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Numeric reviewer score | 13 | 8.3 | 19.05 | 159.30 |
| Strongly positive review | 2 | 8.5 | 2.00 | 17.00 |
| Mildly positive review | 2 | 7.5 | 1.70 | 12.75 |
| Mixed review | 1 | 5.0 | 0.50 | 2.50 |
| All reviews | 18 | 23.25 | 191.55 |
Raw average = 191.55 ÷ 23.25 = 8.2. Consensus adjustment +0.5 gives the final 8.7.
Calculated in code from structured data, with no manual adjustments.
How much to trust this
What these conclusions are based on
Based on 18 usable reviews: 18 hands-on, 2 first impressions, 13 with a numeric score, 6 with measured results. Evidence strength: strong.
Versions covered: Nintendo Switch 2; PC; PlayStation 5; PS5; PC with a controller; AMD Ryzen 3 3200U, Integrated Radeon Vega 3 graphics with 2 GB of memory, 20 GB RAM. These reviews mix variants or markets, so check which one you are buying.
Reviewer recommendations: 13 recommended, 4 conditional, 0 not recommended.
How sources were chosen: every matching review in our collection is used, newest first.
No source rated it negatively, so the weak spots listed on this page are where the real differences show up.
Reviewers who gave a numeric score averaged 8.3/10, ranging from 6.0 to 10.0.
📚 Sources Analysed
17 of 18 reviews could be matched to a site (17 in total).
Reviews by market: US 4 · 14 without a stated market. Prices, mileage and range figures follow each reviewer's own market.
Last updated: 7 Nov 2026 · based on 18 reviews dated Dec 2025 – Oct 2026.
