5 Best Games Like Islands of Insight

Fans of puzzle-adventure games have a new addition that fits their favorites list. Launched in February 2024 by Lunarch Studios, Islands of Insight is a puzzle-adventure game where players explore an island as a Seeker. The gameplay takes place in a shared world brimming with beauty, ancient wonders, and thousands of puzzles to unlock. Every corner of the map holds bewilderment, from environmental challenges to logic problems, but if you want to catch the thrill in a different title, here are 5 best games like Islands of Insight you can try. 

5. The Witness

Like the Islands of Insight, The Witness is a single-player game with gameplay in a puzzle-filled open world. Thekla Inc. released the game in 2016, providing fans with an exploration game that challenges and surprises them at the same time. You’ve just woken up alone in a foreign land and barely recall how you got there. So essentially, there’s only one way out. Explore the strange island, hoping to gather clues to restore your memory and possibly find your way home. 

The game’s map is enriched with locations with more than 600 puzzles to unlock, and you only progress by solving them. You will have no direct guidelines on how to crack the algorithmic time-based puzzles. Use your wits to figure out the meaning of the symbols and complete ‘The Challenge’ in seven minutes. It’s your moment to test how lucky you can be with trial and error. For players who love to put their minds to the test, The Witness’ puzzle mode will serve you right, but if adventure is your thing, explore the island in walking mode. 

4. Grace Online

Overlight Studio released Grace Online in March 2023, and the game is already a staple among exploration video game fanatics. You will love the game, from the visuals and the background soundtrack to the actual gameplay. It’s an open-world online role-playing game, and the 3D fantasy title offers an immersive exploration and discovery experience comparable to the Islands of Insight. You choose how to explore the world as a warrior with immense strength, a Mage with superpowers, an Ancher with arrows, or a Holy Knight with defense and healing powers.

You forge through the colorful and expansive world, unearthing the secrets, treasures, and unique creatures. Players also encounter numerous non-player characters; you can befriend them and earn rewards for the crawling monsters of the Goddess of Darkness. Use the crafting system to create unique and powerful items with the in-game resources and feel more connected to your world. 

3. Stray

Immerse yourself in the epic third-person perspective Stray gameplay. Blue Twelve Studio developed the adventure video game before being published in 2022 by Annapurna Interactive. In this game, you play as a stray cat that drops into a world of machinery like robots and mutant bacteria. Your goal is now a lone attempt to ascend back to the surface. With only a drone companion, leap across the platforms, climb objects, and interact with your new world, unlocking new paths. 

Find items in your adventure, store them, and solve the moving objects puzzles to progress. The drone helps you translate other characters’ languages, provide light, and hack into techs to unravel puzzles. You will run into multiple antagonists like the Sentinels and Zurks up to eliminate you, but some non-player characters still respond to your nuzzles. It’s among the rare video games you will find in-game activities like meowing and sleeping, perhaps to take a rest from roaming the open world unlocked on some levels. 

2. Outer Wilds

Enjoy Mobius Digital’s magnum opus in Outer Wilds, a 2019 mystery and exploration video game. It’s a highly acclaimed and award-winning title revolving around the open-world mystery of the solar system. The planetary world is trapped in a 22-minute time loop. Your goal is to explore and find out why you explore the world, gather clues about the cause of the time loop, and uncover the truth about the extinct Nomai race.

The Nomai race is believed to have colonized the planetary system hundreds of thousands of years ago and is linked to the bizarre time loop. The player links with a Nomai statute to acquire and store the information relating to each time loop as it occurs. The information, typically a set of codes, is useful in different parts of the game, such as to access the ship. Once you get the ship codes, you can access most of the areas on the map. However, protected areas are only accessible by uncovering more Nomai secrets or puzzles. Your health, fuel, and oxygen limitations add to the game’s adrenaline. Refill your meters by returning to the ship or finding refills or trees. Once you die, you awaken at your home planet at the beginning of the time loop. 

1. The Looker

The Looker is more of a mimic of The Witness, but for some reason, it also tops our list of the 5 best games, like Islands of Insight, and it’s free. The developer, Subcreation Studio, presents a puzzle parody video game filled with strong language, feeble jokes, and general goofs. Of course, not every joke will crack you up, but the creator does warrant some positive credit. The puzzles are all fun, though; you will solve a series of them. 

You immediately take control of your playable character, trapped in a futuristic hallway. You’ll probably want to move forward, but unless you want to start with the wrong moves, turn around to see a small room with the two pickup items that are your first achievement. You then figure out the ‘Start’ and ‘End’ puzzles to unlock the Garden. Once you’ve left the dungeons and entered the colorful Garden, begin to solve the series of puzzles that move from simple to more complex. There’s no particular order of solving the puzzles. Just ensure you’ve cracked each of them over the two-hour playthrough duration.

So, do you agree with our list of the 5 best games like Islands of Insight? Let us know your thoughts here on our socials or in the comments.