Outer Wilds (2019)

I really enjoyed my time with this, though I'm predisposed to time loop/limit games in general. It's excellently designed, especially when you find yourself naturally piecing things together, even if I found some of the later puzzles to be more obtuse than necessary. That might be part of the reason why I didn't ever fully connect with it on an emotional level.

Glad I finally cleared it from the backlog either way, and I'd recommend you give it a go if you haven't yet.

Played as part of the Millennium Challenge 2026 (2019).

Considerado por muchos uno de los grandes años del cine, 2019 también fue capital en el panorama videolúdico. Sirvió de cuna para el aclamadísimo juego de puzles Baba is You (Arvi Teikari), la experiencia rítmica Sayonara Wild Hearts (Simogo), el completo RPG Disco Elysium (ZA/UM) y las dos reafirmaciones de grandes maestros de la industria: Hidetaka Miyazaki con Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (FromSoftware) y Hideo Kojima con Death Stranding (Kojima Productions). Los fans de Kingdom Hearts y Metro recibieron esperadas secuelas, Kingdom Hearts III (Square Enix) y Metro Exodus (4A Games). No debería de sorprender que este mismo panorama, tan repleto de experiencias frescas, pudiera convertirse en un involuntario tapadillo para experiencias jugables como Outer Wilds.

RESEÑA COMPLETA EN RIRCA

The graphics in OW can be impressive such as when on the Giant's Deep, but overall are very simplistic and childish. This is not a problem in itself but it does make for a very one-dimensional feel for a game that touts itself as thinking outside the box.

The gameplay of OW is downright awful for me. First off, we have the time loop mechanic. Thank God it doesn't take long to discover this as it was the final nail in the coffin for me. I'm not sure if they were aiming for replayability here, but it just created an awful amount of tedium and repetition for me to do the same things over again. Speaking of tedium, the game seems to pride itself on not telling you where to go or what to do. There is a difference between open-ended exploring and just plain obtuseness and pretentiousness, the latter of which this game unfortunately falls under. I suspect the rave reviewers are a bit like Dark Souls reviewers - they use guides. I found no intuition in my 30+ years of gaming experience to be of use here.

To add to this, the physics and controls are awful too. Early in the game you control a little drone-like device that's basically harbinger of what's to come as it handles terribly and flops about before smashing into the ground. When I visited each of the planets, I didn't find much of interest. Then I learned the game is a bit like piecing together a most annoying and tedious jigsaw where you have to hunt down the pieces.

As for the story, well I'd need to actually make progress in the game to learn the story or what the point is. I am clearly biased as I absolutely loathe the laziness of time-loop mechanics, so perhaps I was never going to enjoy this game. Overall, Outer Wilds isn't enjoyable. It's a pretentious indie game that tries too hard to be different and forgets to be enjoyable.

Roll Credits?: Yes!

Surprised/Let Down/As Expected: As expected

Favorite Mechanic or Narrative Moment: The developers' ability to create what boils down to a giant puzzlebox in space and (mostly) logically place clues to let you organically solve it is awe-inspiring. Being able to just look out at the expanse of space and know that every little thing you can see has some greater purpose was uniquely great.

Least Favorite Thing: Some of the time-based puzzles were frustrating since you would "waste time" while experimenting or exploring them when not 100% sure what to do. Basically, it would feel bad when you'd have to burn a handful of minutes just getting somewhere to test out a random theory only to get nothing in return.

Steam Curator

If only I was stuck in a time loop like Outer Wild's protagonist, maybe then I could go back in time and experience this game for the first time.

Outer Wilds' greatest virtue is simultaneously its greatest vice: by making all of the progression tied to the knowledge and learning of the player, doing a true replay of this game practically demands enough time has passed that you've forgotten all about it.

So take it from me: Play this game. Enjoy this game. Don't read anything about it, don't watch anything about it. It's a game that was begged to be experienced first hand.

If you're still unconvinced, watch my spoiler free video below and learn more about what makes this game so damn special.

Intro

OW is a game in which you get lost in some frankly rather ugly environments and either die or try to kill yourself.

Review

During my last run the autopilot crashed my ship into a planet. I had to get out and repair it. When i was done repairing my ship the autopilot flew it to my destination without me. This was the most fun i've had in Outer Wilds.

Mostly this game is just frustrating. I get to some spot on some desert planet with instructions to go somewhere. I try to follow them. After a few tries i ran out of oxygen and died. Apparently there is some stuff "behind the curtain" but i never found much of it, really.

The immersion in this game is pathetic as well. Fallout 4 has voiced lines for the extremely unlikely circumstance that you find Paladin Danse after destroying the Institute. This game not only completely lacks voice acting, they don't even have an option to tell the guy at the observatory that the statue you just walked past turned and had glowing eyes. You can only tell one other guy. The same goes for the loop. After about 2 hours i talked to every character again hoping to find some new dialogue. Nothing.

Conclusion

Move over The Witcher 3, this is now officially the most overrated game of all time. I often just ended up trying to kill myself because i got so bored and frustrated. Haven't Alt+F4-ed any game as often as this turd.

3/10

The Outer Wilds is game about exploring a miniature solar system. Instead of millons/billions of kilometers between planets, these distances are reduced to just a few kilometers. The planet sizes are also scaled such that one can walk around an entire planet in a few minutes while the day and night cycles just fly by. Even with this rescaling, the gravity, physics and navigation all feels realistic and all work together really nicely with transitions between space exploration and planet exploration being almost completely seamless.

I initially thought I would get bored with the exploration fairly quickly since I tend to dislike very "sandbox" like games. The game has a kind of directionless structure that doesn't really give any clear objectives and leaves it up to the player to decide what to do and where to go. However, the main driver behind the exploration is solving the several mysteries that are scattered throughout the solar system. Each clue one finds typically links to additional clues that eventually form into a larger picture and will allow the player to figure out what is going on. Eventually, when one has enough pieces of the "puzzle", the final ending of the game can be reached. Following these trails of breadcrumbs kept me coming back for more and interested in continuing my exploration of the beautifully crafted planets and moons.

The gameplay itself includes a few survival and navigation mechanics. There is piloting the ship between planets as well as extravehicular activities both in space and on the planet surfaces. One has to mind one's fuel and oxygen as well as not getting stranded on occasion, but on the whole these mechanics are relatively forgiving (most of the time) leading to a more relaxed game experience.

To top this off, the soundtrack, graphics and art design are great... Each planet has some specific theme or feature that makes it stand out with respect to the others. As soon as I saw that this was published by Annapurna Interactive, I directly went for it... Everything I have played from them so far is beautiful in one way or another and this did not dissapoint.

You can also roast marshmellows over the fire!

Finished the game last night and contemplated writing a full review but ultimately decided I better not because it will inadvertently spoil something.

Outer Wilds is an ambitious game with a full dynamic and realized solar system. While the game lacks enemies to fight, the space and planets themselves are more than dangerous enough as it is. This game will not hold your hand, give you a nice big objective marker and tell you exactly what to do. Part of the fun is discovering and learning about the solar system on your own.

I have two gripes about the game. The first gripe is in the late-game. Once you have explored all that you think you can, the game does a poor job on sign-posting the route to the ending. I knew there were areas that I haven't reached yet based on the ship logs, but I didn't know when and where I had to be to access them. I ultimately resorted to using a guide.

My second major criticism is that there is one planet that I found painfully exhausting to navigate. I learned the "trick" to navigating on it from a log I obtained on another planet, but I was still struggling. I wasted real-life hours traveling to the planet and dying because of bad luck or an accidental controller press.

Simply perfect. I loved this game from start to finish and I'm so glad I plunged into it knowing next to night about it. The sense of exploration, the dynamic solar system, the rich lore and attention to detail.

The only downside is that the controls failed me sometimes. Specially in the section when I was forced to throttle the ship very precisely. Either my controller's analogue stick doesn't work properly or I'm very clumsy, but either way, I couldn't do it. Also that mechanic is literally impossible with mouse + keyboard and probably not feasible for people with motor difficulties. I honestly think the devs should patch some kind of manual throttle. Also, the game is really missing a map system.

But aside from that, this game is a master piece. Is one of those games for which I would eternal-sunshine myself in order to replay it.

As an aside, it's hard for me to think about this game without contrasting it with No Man's Sky. NMS, tries to lure the player with functionally infinite universe to explore just to fill it with static carbon-copy completely static planets with slight alterations. Outer Wilds shows how far you can push exploration and the wonders of discovery in a ridiculously small, but hand-crafted, dynamic, solar system.