The Sojourn is a rather pleasant experience, all told. The puzzles are smartly designed, offering a decent challenge without being too obscure – for the most part. The calming backing audio and colourful visuals make it easy to get sunk in, too, with even harder areas a joy to just be in. While the story side fell flat for me, at least it keeps out of the way of the puzzling action.

The Sojourn’s stakes aren’t so dire, but it still has something to say if you’re ready to listen. Put on some headphones, turn off your phone, and let The Sojourn wash over you. It’s an experience you won’t soon forget.

By their very nature puzzle games are meant to be mysterious and that is no more true than with The Sojourn. It looks beautiful, it plays out super smoothly and the audio kick hammers home the immersion that ensures you will keep getting dragged in.

The Soujourn is a beautiful game with great puzzles and ideas. However, it lacks more innovation in its mechanics towards the end, which might make it feel a little bit tedious.

Lame story aside, The Sojourn is a satisfying puzzle game. This debut effort from Shifting Tides isn’t going to reinvent the genre, but it certainly has a place for fans of puzzle games and The Talos Principle.

At best, it feels like a well-made rehashing of much of what’s come before it, with a slightly harder difficulty level. There’s nothing wrong with that, to be sure, but it makes it hard to recommend The Sojourn unless you’ve exhausted most other possibilities of the genre already.

The Sojourn is an average, middle-of-the-road puzzler, that struggles to be memorable after the first few hours. There are interesting ideas here, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetic. However, they both suffer from the same problem, which is unfortunate repetition.