If anyone hasn’t played this game yet: don’t read the article!
I highly recommend you experience this for yourself while knowing as little as possible about it. Top tier game.
A million percent agree. If you haven’t played it yet, look nothing up and play it as blindly as possible. I’m so glad I did and wish I could do it again.
My go-to game for the question: “if you could forget a game just to experience it all over again” such a perfect game
For real. It’s an amazing game that just can’t be the same again once you know all its secrets.
I bought it for two of my friends, and they both ended up hating it lol. I don’t blame them, but I think it’s very much to do with the mentality of how you approach the experience.
One friend just got plain stuck and gave up. The other found it frustrating that they were doing the same thing several times over, and just wanted to rush as quickly as they could to make progress.
Personally, I enjoyed the slow pace of discovery. I loved that feeling of being a true explorer, discoving facets of lost civilisation. Watching in melancholic awe as a world crumbled around me. Finding just a small piece of new information was always a joy, and made it feel worthwhile to get there, even if I’d done 90% of the journey before.
Slowly getting richer in a game where the only currency is knowledge.
This was the game where I couldn’t figure out how to fly the space ship properly, and then I went to land on a strange abandoned space station and couldn’t figure out what to do there beyond reading some alien text that didn’t make much sense, right?
I’m sure I didn’t give it a fair lick, it’s just it took up 2 hours of my time and didn’t hook or particularly engage me up to that point, so I didn’t feel like going back in and slogging through the slow burn to get to the good stuff.
That’s on me I suppose, I should try it again!
Does it pick up and get a little more interesting and robust, at least? I’m not looking for hardcore shooter action, but like, I dunno, interesting people, engaging quests and cool places to go whilst doing them, and such. Something to keep me interested, you know?
Everyone’s different, of course, walking simulators with the occasional small bit of world building text to read just aren’t for me is all.
Without giving any specific spoilers, the game has a primarily archaeological feel, you will be following breadcrumbs around to various places in the solar system (your journal is important!!!) and learning about the ancient civilization that mysteriously disappeared. finally piecing together the whole picture is one of the most powerful moments I’ve ever had in gaming. while there are some NPCs to talk to, the game is primarily driven by your own exploration and the knowledge you pick up along the way.
there’s no “correct order” to do things in, so if you feel like you’ve hit a dead end or you can’t figure out what you should be doing at a particular place, consider going somewhere else. and most importantly: follow your curiosity
There’s two essential ship functions, auto pilot and match velocity, it makes flying much easier
Don’t feel bad, on my first flight I ran into the sun by accident.
Kept working on it and was rewarded with the rest of the game. For real I continued to die to spaceship piloting issues but it didn’t ruin the game for me.
In your ship there is a computer at the back (to the right when you enter). That computer contains a digital investigation board - y’know, with the photos connected by string and stuff.
Once you find that, the game really starts to make sense. It’s not a walking simulator, it’s an active crime scene. I won’t say what “crime” (and I’m being somewhat metaphorical here), in case you didn’t play long enough (about 12 minutes after you encounter the statue in the museum) for The Event to happen (The Event will make you think very differently about what this game is, but I can’t talk about that. We don’t talk about The Event). But that’s basically what’s happening. There’s a problem, and you have to solve it, but to do that you’ll have to unearth years of lost history, piecing together the story of an alien civilization that has visited your star system. The gameplay is primarily about exploration, trying to figure out where to find and how to get to the clues you need to put everything together. Slowly, the murder board fills in, the pieces connect, the list of suspects narrows, and you spiral in towards a genuinely shocking and heart wrenching conclusion.
Does it get good? My friend, it gets EPIC. The sheer scale the plot operates on is mind blowing. The ending destroyed me; easily one of the best stories I’ve ever encountered in a video game.
The flight mechanics are intentionally fiddly. You will get used to them eventually. The gameplay is exciting, sometimes terrifying, but don’t expect them to like give you a gun or anything. It’s a puzzle game, but the puzzles are never a fucking Sudoku. If you can handle that, it’s one of the best games ever made.
The investigation board didn’t really help me. Basically just said somewhere on this planet is a clue, so spend several loops trying to get into the locked areas. I also got tired of the janky physics and quit, even after successfully navigating the portal bramble place
It really should be part of the title of the game. Outer Wilds: don’t look anything up, just play it.
I very nearly had to use a guide at one point but I stayed strong as everything I’d read said I’d regret it if I did. So glad I didn’t as the joy of discovery in this game is unparalleled. Top 5 gaming experience of all time, I reckon.
I tried, I really did. But a few hours in, I just didn’t like the gameplay even though I thought I would’ve loved it and the other new games I had waiting won.
Maybe I should grind through. Is there a point where it suddenly gets good a few hours in? Or is it just not for me, despite everything on the book’s cover?
If exploration, discovery, and puzzling out mysteries aren’t engaging for you, it might just not be your type of game.
I think it was the puzzles and lack of guidance. Not really knowing if I’m in the right place doing the right thing. Maybe I’ll try again with a bit of a guide until it hooks in and I get it.
If I could erase any game from my mind and experience it again for the first time, it would be this game. One of my favorites of all time.
One of those games you can only experience once. Such a masterpiece!!
Once you finish it, it’s actually really fun watching other people’s playthroughs as well - getting to relive some of the moments vicariously through other people’s eyes is almost as much fun as experiencing them yourself the first time.
It’s also quite amazing just how different each playthrough can be, since the game is so non-linear, people take some crazy paths to get to the end ! It can be frustrating as well when someone just can’t see what is in front of their face though :)
There are also so many subtle elements scattered around that most people miss on their first playthrough, and watching someone else play it really made me appreciate many of the details I missed on my own playthrough and even make connections I didn’t before, and understand aspects of the story that I didn’t fully get the first time.
I played this game and loved it but never finished it. I feel like I was either too dumb to figure out what to do next, or I could tell what I needed to do but couldn’t maneuver my ship/character well enough. Total skill issue on my part, though I intend to dive back in at some point.
Read a walkthrough if you have to. The ending is 10,000% worth experiencing, even if you need a little help to get there.
In fact, getting to the end with help from strangers actually feels more in keeping with the themes of the game.
Your ship computer shows hints and places you haven’t fully explored. Alternatively you could say where you are and helpful internet people can give you a nudge.
one of my top favourite games of all time! And one of the two narrative experiences on that list that I can’t talk about with the “uninitiated” (other is Inscryption)
if you like space, and you like thinking - don’t look up anything about this game. Watch maybe 5 minutes of some gameplay if you’re hesitant.
Though a word of warning, this is a game that’ll take all of your focus, it’s very hard to play it with a YouTube video or a movie in playing the background. And yes the ship movement can feel clunky at first, you’ll get used to it don’t worry - the story is worth it
In my experience, if people are going to bounce off the game it’ll come down to one (or more) of three reasons:
- They hate the flight controls
- They hate the feeling of being on a constant timer
- They hate the lack of explicit direction in what to do next
It’s one of my favourite games of all time, and it has good reasons for all of the above, but it’s definitely not for everyone!
And for anyone wondering, my counterpoints to the above would be:
- Learn to use the autopilot but don’t trust it; learning to manoeuvre precisely will come over time
- Don’t overthink the timer element; pick just one thing to investigate and focus on that, anything else is a bonus
- Use the ship’s computer and follow the unknowns; avoid walkthroughs unless you’re absolutely 100% stumped on what to do next
in my experience as a impatient person you simply need to make peace with the timer, it stings at first but then- i think thanks to Outer Wilds i can play souls likes now ::: spoiler because it shows clearly how death is simply a part of the learning experience, it’s not a failure :::
i have no idea if this spoiler is working
Whether or not it’s a failure, it’s a waste of time. Imagine if a relaxed open world game constantly interrupted you with cutscenes of your character falling over, slowly waking up, and trudging back to where they fell.
I have a friend who stopped for a whole other reason. But I can’t talk about it without revealing too much. But basically had to do with bramble and deep, things that don’t bother most people much, triggering some actual phobias.
I dealt with that too, sadly. Thankfully there is a mod that can alleviate it. (I’d link it but it’d also reveal spoilers…)
