Symmetry Puzzle Solutions Guide for The Witness

Symmetry based puzzles are first introduced to the player once you reach the shore near the entry area of The Witness. As soon as you solve the first black/white dot squares puzzles you will have an option to go left, towards a boathouse. You will be introduced to a new type of puzzle here, based on symmetrical movement of two lines through a maze. Initial puzzles are not that hard, but, as always with The Witness, these mechanics will be used in the most devious ways later on. Boathouse is also used for creating pottery and sand castles. In the end you will also open up a dock for a boat to arrive to. Following the cliff next to the boathouse you will come across a peninsula with much harder symmetry puzzles and even the first perceptual puzzles in the game. Finishing this section gives you the Symmetry Trophy and you also activate one of the lasers required to reach the end of the game. Solutions to all of these can be found in the guide bellow. Check our guide for all puzzle solutions in the Witness if you need a hint for solving puzzles in other areas.

Boathouse puzzles

Boathouse is the introductory area for the symmetry puzzles. It also contains some strange pottery, some sand castles and what seems to be a pottery oven of sorts. In the end the important thing is that you will unlock a dock for the boat (although you will not be able to activate it just yet). Symmetry puzzles are based on the fact that you start with two symmetrical lines going through a maze. You have to get to two separate end points while avoiding obstacles or while collecting hexagonal dots. Following are the puzzle solutions for the boathouse area.

Symmetry Island

Exit the boathouse and go along the cliff until you reach the red branch door with a puzzle on it. There are two types of puzzles on this island so we will separate them into sections. Symmetry puzzles will require you to go through the maze while picking up the hexagonal dots. Go right of the first red branch door to finish the first set of puzzles. Follow the now activated power cables to get to the next set of puzzles. At the third set there is an audio tape on the ground next to them. Each set of puzzles gets more complicated. Once you have yellow and blue lines moving in symmetry, requiring you to pick up yellow and blue hexagonal dots along the way you are surely to get your patience tested. At one point you will come across puzzles with invisible symmetry lines of different color. All of the solutions to these can be found bellow.Solving the final puzzle of the symmetry series unlocks the laser needed for reaching the end of the game. Panels on the right are yellow without symmetry and are almost easy to solve. Panels on the left have no clue for solution. Remember that the theme is symmetry and mirror the yellow panel solutions on the blue panels.There is another audio tape to be found here. When you unlock the second red branch door, leading to the final puzzle, take a left instead of going for the location of the laser. Follow that path and you will find the audio tape on the ground.

Symmetry Island perceptual puzzles

There is an additional type of puzzles you can solve on the symmetry island. They do not seem to have a particular significance for unlocking the laser here, but they do teach you how to solve a new type of puzzle. After the third set of symmetry puzzles (the ones with disappearing yellow lines) keep going down a small path and reach the shore of the island. The puzzle there is solved by looking at the environment. At first I was puzzled (pun intended), because I did not encounter puzzles that required me to look at the surroundings before. Than I figured out that I need to look at the rocks in the water and outline their shape with the symmetrical lines. Some of these will require you to look at the rocks in the water from another perspective (not just straight ahead) to be able to solve them. Screenshots show all solutions.This concludes solutions to all the puzzles and secrets on the symmetry Island section of the game. Check out solutions to other areas and puzzles in The Witness.