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HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE
Just like there's more than one way to solve some puzzles in The Witness, there's more than one way to use this guide.
We begin with a series of hints designed to gently nudge you toward solutions. If you're looking for a complete walkthrough with solutions, those appear next, at a safe distance for those who wish to avoid spoilers. Because they often require you to solve the area's puzzles first, we end with a guide to finding collectibles. Whatever your choice, you can jump directly to each section using the table of contents below.
The Keep sits across from the Monastery and the Lake, sandwiched between the Shady Trees and the Treehouses. Inside its walls are two sets of puzzles, one comprised of hedge mazes and the other of pressure plates.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Hints
Use all of your senses. Pay attention to what's around you. The Witness excels at subtle communication.
Do not forget where you've been.
Do not forget what you've done.
We've said it elsewhere, but this may be the best example yet in The Witness: Get yourself a pencil and paper to work out mazes in the real world when you're having trouble in the virtual world. One puzzle in particular demands it.
The puzzles in the Keep are cumulative, just like way back at the Castle. The knowledge you gain in one puzzle carries over to the next. And the next. And possibly the next. And maybe the one after that, too.
Seriously: Use all of your senses, do not forget where you've been, what your senses tell you and what you've done.
Be sure to check out our beginner's guide for more general tips for the discerning island survivalist.
SPOILERS AND SOLUTIONS BELOW
Walkthrough and solutions:
hedge maze puzzles
Dark green hedge maze
This is as straightforward at the Keep's puzzles get. Make your way through, and then trace the path you took on the door puzzle.
Brown hedge maze
Look down and follow the dry grass to find the correct path. Trace it on the door puzzle to proceed.
Lime green hedge maze
Listen up: When you hear loud gravel crunching underfoot as you walk, you're on the wrong path. Walk a quiet path to the door, and then trace that path on the door puzzle to proceed.
Yellow hedge maze
There isn't a clue to be found on the ground or in the air for this last puzzle. But if you examine the hedge you walk through and the maze puzzle on the door, you'll notice a difference. Combine the two, and you'll find the correct path.
Tower puzzle
Ascend the tower that's … towering over the Keep, and you'll find two puzzles. One is activated. One isn't. Trace the paths you took through the hedge mazes to solve the powered puzzle. To solve the unpowered puzzle, you'll need to solve the Keep's four pressure puzzles.
Pressure puzzle door switch
From your perch stop the Keep's tower, walk back down the winding staircase, turn right and hug the right wall. Walk down another metal staircase and keep hugging the right wall until you find a door switch. Open that door to find the next series of puzzles.
You can safely ignore the puzzle you just walked past to open the door. You'll get there soon enough.
Walkthrough and solutions:
pressure plate puzzles
For the next four puzzles, you can't use the puzzle board to solve them. You'll need to walk on the pressure plates that replicate the mazes. As we mentioned in the hints section above, it's useful to sketch the solutions on a piece of paper before walking through.
Resetting puzzles
After you've solved a pressure puzzle, you're free to walk across it — even the areas that you didn't use to solve it. It won't reset the puzzle. However, if you do need to reset a puzzle, return to the puzzle board and trace the L-shaped path outside of the puzzle board. That'll reset the pressure plates.
Yellow pressure puzzle
The yellow pressure puzzle is relatively straightforward. It only requirement is that you create a path that covers the black dot in the maze's upper right corner, and that's a trick you learned way back in the Castle.
Purple pressure puzzle
The purple pressure puzzle requires you to draw a path that separates the black and white areas of the maze surface.
Green pressure puzzle
The green pressure puzzle requires you to blaze a path that includes the two Tetris-like tetromino shapes, which also appear in a puzzle on the Quarry's bridge.
Blue pressure puzzle
The blue pressure puzzle is a hybrid between the concepts you'll also find in the Glass Factory, Symmetry Island and the Quarry's bridge.
Tower pressure puzzle
Having solved the four pressure puzzles, you can climb the central tower and solve the final puzzle in the sequence. Just like the tower's other puzzle, the solution is linked to the solutions to the pressure plate puzzles.
ENVIRONMENTAL PUZZLES
In The Witness, the island and its structures can be puzzles, too. They aren't as explicit or obvious as the puzzle boards strewn about (which is a nice way of saying that they're easy to miss). You have to look for them, given that environmental puzzles often appear in unlikely places. The good news: If you know what to look for, they're fairly easy to find. They telegraph their presence with the same ball-and-path design as the game's ubiquitous puzzle boards.
The Keep holds seven environmental puzzles. They appear on the obelisk outside of the Keep's eastern walls, on the path between the Keep and the Treehouses. To solve then, you'll need to ascend the Keep's central tower.
HEDGE MAZE SIDE
Two of the puzzles appear on the hedge maze side. Given that you have to be in the tower, you have to have solved and made your way through those mazes first.
PRESSURE PUZZLE SIDE
The remaining five environmental puzzles are on the pressure puzzle side, and they require a bit of work on your part. From your perch atop the tower, you'll notice that you can't trace a path through most of the puzzles you've already solved. That's because of the debris that puncture the puzzle boards. You'll have to go back to the ground floor, reset the puzzles and walk a new path for each.
The solutions appear below, but if you just want a nudge in the right direction, study the obelisk. The Witness' built-in hints are etched on the side of the monument that points directly at the pressure puzzles.
Astute obelisk observers will note that there are five environmental puzzles on that side but only four pressure puzzles. Why? Because the blue puzzle in the southwest corner (from your vantage point in the tower) has two solutions.
COLLECTIBLES AND EXTRAS
Shady Trees door
There's a shortcut to the Shady Trees in the Keep. You can find it at the bottom of the staircase next to the blue pressure puzzle.
Audio logs
There are two audio logs in the Keep, both of appear among the pressure puzzles. Look for a stone man playing guitar in the area surrounding the yellow pressure puzzle and a stone woman carrying garbage in a hallway path between puzzles.
The path to the Shipwreck
The path to the Shipwreck lies within the Keep's northwest corner. We'll walk you through two ways to get there in the video below.
The Obelisk
Face the Keep's front door, and turn right, keeping the outer wall on your left. Turn the corner and you'll see an obelisk in the distance.
