#TheWitness has many of the trappings of a narrative world, but the environmental detail isn't meant to convey a narrative. Or at least, the narrative seems to be a much simpler, smaller one.
The Island has no inhabitants. There is no clear story of events. The artifacts, trees, buildings, drawings, are there to provide a context to the puzzles, and perhaps to evoke a certain emotion, or to play with a theme, like "Perspective changes how you interpret something"