Outer Wilds

Originally Posted 7/19/23

Brief Overview

Quick Overview

Outer Wilds came across my radar with this post on Cohost (if you want to go into the game 100% blind, do not read that post, it contains an extremely minor spoiler you'd figure out early on in the game). Similar to what that poster said, my biggest recommendation would be to play the game as blind as possible. Don't look up any guides online, play it as far as you can before looking anything up. Because of that though, this post is going to seem really vague, as I'm going to do everything I can to avoid any sort of spoilers.

In Depth Review

The general gist of Outer Wilds is you are exploring the solar system you're in, trying to find clues about what happened long ago, and what's happening now. You'll pilot a space ship, meet some interesting characters, and go to some really unique worlds. Using the information you find, you'll be able to figure out how to get to new areas, to get to more information, and onwards you go.

For me, I constantly had a feeling of "OH! Okay let me go there next to try to get that piece of information" and then, once I had that piece of info, I'd feel like "okay, now that I have that, I'm kind of curious about this other thing". This type of game play might not be for everyone. It's open world and there's nothing forcing you to do anything in the game, outside of the desire to find more clues and piece together what happened/ is happening.

With that, I'm not terribly sure what the replayability of this game is. There is some DLC which I have not played which seems to add additional clues to figure out. Also it's possible to not uncover every clue and beat the game, so if you're the type of person who wants to do *everything* you could go back and find the clues you didn't have before. That said, once you beat it, I don't think there's anything stopping you from loading up a new game and beating it almost instantly. The clues you find are there to help you beat the game (or learn about the world in general), but I'm not sure if there's anything you have to do for story progression. Also, on the note of being a person who wants to do everything, I only unlocked one achievement during the entire play through of the game. There are a lot of hidden ones too. So if you're someone who lives for achievements, it might be hard to get many on a first run through.

That said, there is a *lot* of story and world building to discover, and so if you're someone who absolutely loves world building or figuring out how different pieces of a puzzle fit together, then this is definitely something you should check out! Thankfully there's a computer in your ship that keeps track of notes and makes a web diagram of how things fit together, so if you're like me and either forget or don't *quite* understand how something fits with something else, you can take a look at the computer. I basically played through this game within a week, and it was on my mind almost constantly - thinking about what I wanted to explore next, or how something fit with something else.

On the subject of me not getting things - I typically don't like puzzle games. I'm much more willing to look up guides and see spoilers so that I can experience the story rather than struggle for a long time on what to do. As the game went on, and I had only a few clues left to discover, I felt for a lot of the puzzles I had an understanding of what I think the game wanted me to do, or how the puzzle should be completed, but just couldn't figure out the last piece. So I would end up looking up a guide, and sure enough I was usually pretty close but just forgot/ missed one piece of key information. There are also some parts of this game that can be maze like, and I'd not want to be stuck going in circles for a long time.

When I would look up guides, this seemed to be a controversial topic with this game. One of the sort of core concepts of this game is that it urges you to explore, make discoveries, make hypotheses, test those hypotheses, and if you succeed great! But if not, try, try again. Obviously, looking up a guide with the answers, goes against this. I however feel like people should be able to play a game however they want - if they want to figure everything out on their own then that's great! If they want some help, that's good too! I will say the times I was able to figure things out on my own did feel great. However yeah... I rather be able to progress a story than get stuck on something for a long time.

With that, I will give you some advice that I wish I knew as I started playing the game. I will put it in a toggle list below so that you don't accidentally read it if you don't want to. I would consider this advice on the level of knowing the controls of the game, but if you really want to go in completely blind, skip the next part.

Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoyed the game and the story! The world building was on my mind constantly. There's a lot of environmental story telling, with plenty to find and figure out, which keeps the game interesting. I find myself wishing I had more friends who had played the game so I could talk to them about it. That said, the reason I gave the game a 7/10 is because I have a hard time thinking about who I know who I'd recommend this game to. It didn't hit me as a game where I'm dying to tell people to play it, like Titanfall 2 or even High Fi Rish. However I do think if someone is looking for a story rich, relaxing (for the most part) game, then this is an excellent choice.