This review contains spoilers
…….Wow
Outer Wilds is beautiful, plain and simple, it is a one of a kind experience that you truly can’t get in any other piece of media out there………and I absolutely love it.
Before I say anything else though, let me make one thing clear, PLAY THIS GAME BEFORE YOU READ ANY REVIEWS, the less you know, the better it is, come back here and read once you’re done
This is a game that truly does not tell you anything, other games elude to this idea, but most of them do have something that clues you in, even the soulsborne series has some general pointers and some sort of indicators on where you should go.
This game doesn’t even have that, it lets the player discover things completely on their own, it lets us go do anything on our own accord, want to go to those two planets circling closest to the sun? Go for it, want to go to the planet with a black hole in the center, sure why not? Want to go to the giant green planet with tornados and a massive ocean, do it! Want to go to hell, oh I’m sorry, I mean Dark Bramble, why not? It goes so far with not telling you anything that the game doesn’t even tell you about the supernova that occurs every 22 minutes…………WAIT WHAT. dies in a blinding blue light
………….wakes up huh, that’s neat, I guess this brings me around to the time loop mechanic, which I think is very well utilized, 22 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot, shit it’s the amount of time it takes me to get up and get coffee in the morning, so I can only imagine what our 4 eyed buddy has to go through when searching for ancient artifacts of a long dead civilization.
However, despite how short it sounds, it’s almost always enough time to do things in the game, much like Majora’s Mask, every loop basically forces you to make a plan to explore something, whether that be the hanging city in Brittle Hollow, the quantum training tower thing on Giant’s Deep, the sunless city on the ember twin, there’s a lot to do and you most plan accordingly, of course your first few loops, you’ll have no idea what you should do, hell most of my early loops were either me careening into the sun on accident, me crashing into planets at a very fast speed, or falling into brittle hollow’s black hole over and over again, but no matter what happens to you, you learn, you learn how to avoid the sun and careen into it, you navigate around the black hole in brittle hollow, you learn that you should STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM GIANT’S DEEP AND ESPECIALLY DARK BRAMBLE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME, and a lot of other lessons, skills and smart thinking are what you’ll need in order to explore this solar system…….ah, a nice bright day out isn’t it……………wait, it’s the evening, why is it bright our?……….OH SHIT dies again in a blinding blue light
…………wakes up WHATAHAT………very odd, very odd indeed, anyways, speaking of the solar system, let’s talk about it, the game’s separate planets and worlds are just perfect, holy shit I love each of these places, each one serves a vital role in the game’s story and role, and it makes use of all of them, the hourglass twin planets are fantastic, I love the rising sand mechanic on ember, and the uncovering of ash that happens throughout the current cycle, Timber Hearth is a cozy little starting area, it’s a nice little planet that still has plenty of secrets to uncover, brittle hollow is a very interesting planet, the discovery of the planet slowly falling apart as the cycle goes on, it’s very cool, and that’s just the beginning, there’s so much to explore underneath the surface, and I’ll just leave that discovery to you all, Giant’s Deep is probably my favorite of all the planets, a planet that’s 80% ocean, 20% land, 1000% tornadoes, visually it’s just gigantic, completely daunting, but you start to pull back the layers and see more, whether that be the islands that frequently launch into space, the tower hidden in the planet’s largest tornado, or the cannon hidden in its core, you certainly have a lot on your plate in this place…………..and finally there’s Dark Bramble.
Dark fucking Bramble, I love this place but I also hate it, it’s a fucking terrifying planet, like giant’s deep is scary at first but then the fear kinda goes away, but with Dark Bramble, nah, fear is constant here, why is it terrifying, I’ll tell you, out of every place in the ENTIRE (base) GAME, this is the only one that has enemies, not just any enemies, giant fucking anglerfish, let me tell you about the anglerfish, they hide very easily with the lights emitting off the nose entrances, so you never see one until it’s too late, and once you’re near them, let me tell you even more, they’re 1. Bigger than you and your ship, 2. Faster than you and your ship, and 3. Can very easily swallow you and your ship whole, leading to instant death…….but they do have one weakness, they can’t see shit, so just be quiet around them……….Dark Bramble is fucking scary and it is a great addition to the solar system.
There are other small things too, the sun station is a cool lore place and pretty terrifying being that close to the sun, the interloper is in the grand scheme of the game’s story, completely optional, but it does show how the nomai ultimately went extinct so that’s cool, another completely optional thing that I only realized was optional after beating the game was the Quantum Moon, a moon that teleports around the various planets in the solar system, and served as a trial for the nomai to go through, you can barely count it as optional considering how much the wall tablets mention it, so naturally you’d become morbidly interested in it like me………..dies again in a blinding blue light
………..wakes up I BARELY EVEN SAW THAT ONE……………anyway, I guess I’ll get into major spoilers now, I recommend really clicking off, there’s been a spoiler here and there but I’ll be talking about the deeper lore and the game’s finale, so click off now.
This game’s lore is fantastic, the story of the nomai is super captivating and phenomenally told, basically these guys came to the universe seeking refuge and after a thing later dubbed the “eye of the universe” had called out to them, however their Vessel ended up crashing into Dark Bramble, as it was going in, three escape pods launched out, one landing in a different node of Dark Bramble, another landing on Ember Twin, the last one landing on Brittle Hollow, the nomai on the Dark Bramble escape pod eventually perished, but the other two pods of people flourished, making multiple things in an attempt to reach the eye of the universe, stuff like the ash twin project, the black hole forge, the probe cannon, the sun station, and many other things.
Through the writings left behind by the nomai, you learn about what they built, their dreams of reaching the eye of the universe, and ultimately finding out why they were drawn here……….however failure struck them multiple times, the ash twin project and sun station were a dud since the sun couldn’t be manually supernova’d, and that made the ash twin project basically useless to them, and alas, they ended up meeting their end when the comet dubbed “The Interloper” came into the solar system, and when they tried to explore it, it ended up releasing ghost matter across the solar system, and wiped them out.
But, ultimately with all their information at hand, you push through, ultimately putting the pieces together where the nomai couldn’t, and you find out that with the warp core of the ash twin project, the coordinates inside the probe cannon, and the power of the vessel deep in Dark Bramble, you finally learn the way to the eye of the universe.
Now here’s my experience with my final loop of the game, I rushed over to Ash Twin to get into the project and get the warp core, after several minutes of waiting, I got into the project and took the core out, once I got back to my ship, a triumphant mix of the time loop near end theme started playing, with that burst of motivation from the song, I quickly flew to Dark Bramble, said fuck it and went straight into the nest node without even marking the vessel location, after a very close call with the anglerfish, I made it to the vessel, put the core and the coordinates in, and was taken to the eye of the universe……….I get off the vessel and go to the eye’s surface, and………..what’s that blue light in the distance? OH SHIT THE SUPERNO—………oh wait, that ain’t reaching me now, HAH!
I continue on into the darkness, I will say that along with the discovery of the anglerfish and the first time entering the quantum moon, this is one of the most ominous parts of the game, but I push through and fall into the giant………hole? I think, in the sky, leading me to what I think is the insides of the eye…………then I’m transported out of the universe…….or am I? Cause next thing you know, you’re in a forest…….you end up exploring a bit until a campfire appears, and one of your friends along with it, you explore the area more and get more of your friends to join around the campfire, once all are there, a song is played, which creates this……..uh, circular vortex? Which then blasts you and your friends far away, and after a bit of silence and pitch blackness………BOOOM, a Big Bang basically happens.
Over 14 billion years later, it shows a new solar system forming, and with that, the game ends.
Ah……it’s simply wonderful, Outer Wilds is a one of a kind experience, I didn’t even talk about everything I adored, the game’s art style is beautiful, the soundtrack is just so fucking good, the atmosphere is top notch, and much much more man………..but I’ll end it here, now I sit in my room, with a bittersweet feeling, while there’s a sadness knowing I can’t experience this game a second time, there’s an ultimately happy feeling as well, one that’s so happy that he got experience a piece of media like this one.
Outer Wilds is beautiful, plain and simple, it is a one of a kind experience that you truly can’t get in any other piece of media out there………and I absolutely love it.
Before I say anything else though, let me make one thing clear, PLAY THIS GAME BEFORE YOU READ ANY REVIEWS, the less you know, the better it is, come back here and read once you’re done
This is a game that truly does not tell you anything, other games elude to this idea, but most of them do have something that clues you in, even the soulsborne series has some general pointers and some sort of indicators on where you should go.
This game doesn’t even have that, it lets the player discover things completely on their own, it lets us go do anything on our own accord, want to go to those two planets circling closest to the sun? Go for it, want to go to the planet with a black hole in the center, sure why not? Want to go to the giant green planet with tornados and a massive ocean, do it! Want to go to hell, oh I’m sorry, I mean Dark Bramble, why not? It goes so far with not telling you anything that the game doesn’t even tell you about the supernova that occurs every 22 minutes…………WAIT WHAT. dies in a blinding blue light
………….wakes up huh, that’s neat, I guess this brings me around to the time loop mechanic, which I think is very well utilized, 22 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot, shit it’s the amount of time it takes me to get up and get coffee in the morning, so I can only imagine what our 4 eyed buddy has to go through when searching for ancient artifacts of a long dead civilization.
However, despite how short it sounds, it’s almost always enough time to do things in the game, much like Majora’s Mask, every loop basically forces you to make a plan to explore something, whether that be the hanging city in Brittle Hollow, the quantum training tower thing on Giant’s Deep, the sunless city on the ember twin, there’s a lot to do and you most plan accordingly, of course your first few loops, you’ll have no idea what you should do, hell most of my early loops were either me careening into the sun on accident, me crashing into planets at a very fast speed, or falling into brittle hollow’s black hole over and over again, but no matter what happens to you, you learn, you learn how to avoid the sun and careen into it, you navigate around the black hole in brittle hollow, you learn that you should STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM GIANT’S DEEP AND ESPECIALLY DARK BRAMBLE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME, and a lot of other lessons, skills and smart thinking are what you’ll need in order to explore this solar system…….ah, a nice bright day out isn’t it……………wait, it’s the evening, why is it bright our?……….OH SHIT dies again in a blinding blue light
…………wakes up WHATAHAT………very odd, very odd indeed, anyways, speaking of the solar system, let’s talk about it, the game’s separate planets and worlds are just perfect, holy shit I love each of these places, each one serves a vital role in the game’s story and role, and it makes use of all of them, the hourglass twin planets are fantastic, I love the rising sand mechanic on ember, and the uncovering of ash that happens throughout the current cycle, Timber Hearth is a cozy little starting area, it’s a nice little planet that still has plenty of secrets to uncover, brittle hollow is a very interesting planet, the discovery of the planet slowly falling apart as the cycle goes on, it’s very cool, and that’s just the beginning, there’s so much to explore underneath the surface, and I’ll just leave that discovery to you all, Giant’s Deep is probably my favorite of all the planets, a planet that’s 80% ocean, 20% land, 1000% tornadoes, visually it’s just gigantic, completely daunting, but you start to pull back the layers and see more, whether that be the islands that frequently launch into space, the tower hidden in the planet’s largest tornado, or the cannon hidden in its core, you certainly have a lot on your plate in this place…………..and finally there’s Dark Bramble.
Dark fucking Bramble, I love this place but I also hate it, it’s a fucking terrifying planet, like giant’s deep is scary at first but then the fear kinda goes away, but with Dark Bramble, nah, fear is constant here, why is it terrifying, I’ll tell you, out of every place in the ENTIRE (base) GAME, this is the only one that has enemies, not just any enemies, giant fucking anglerfish, let me tell you about the anglerfish, they hide very easily with the lights emitting off the nose entrances, so you never see one until it’s too late, and once you’re near them, let me tell you even more, they’re 1. Bigger than you and your ship, 2. Faster than you and your ship, and 3. Can very easily swallow you and your ship whole, leading to instant death…….but they do have one weakness, they can’t see shit, so just be quiet around them……….Dark Bramble is fucking scary and it is a great addition to the solar system.
There are other small things too, the sun station is a cool lore place and pretty terrifying being that close to the sun, the interloper is in the grand scheme of the game’s story, completely optional, but it does show how the nomai ultimately went extinct so that’s cool, another completely optional thing that I only realized was optional after beating the game was the Quantum Moon, a moon that teleports around the various planets in the solar system, and served as a trial for the nomai to go through, you can barely count it as optional considering how much the wall tablets mention it, so naturally you’d become morbidly interested in it like me………..dies again in a blinding blue light
………..wakes up I BARELY EVEN SAW THAT ONE……………anyway, I guess I’ll get into major spoilers now, I recommend really clicking off, there’s been a spoiler here and there but I’ll be talking about the deeper lore and the game’s finale, so click off now.
This game’s lore is fantastic, the story of the nomai is super captivating and phenomenally told, basically these guys came to the universe seeking refuge and after a thing later dubbed the “eye of the universe” had called out to them, however their Vessel ended up crashing into Dark Bramble, as it was going in, three escape pods launched out, one landing in a different node of Dark Bramble, another landing on Ember Twin, the last one landing on Brittle Hollow, the nomai on the Dark Bramble escape pod eventually perished, but the other two pods of people flourished, making multiple things in an attempt to reach the eye of the universe, stuff like the ash twin project, the black hole forge, the probe cannon, the sun station, and many other things.
Through the writings left behind by the nomai, you learn about what they built, their dreams of reaching the eye of the universe, and ultimately finding out why they were drawn here……….however failure struck them multiple times, the ash twin project and sun station were a dud since the sun couldn’t be manually supernova’d, and that made the ash twin project basically useless to them, and alas, they ended up meeting their end when the comet dubbed “The Interloper” came into the solar system, and when they tried to explore it, it ended up releasing ghost matter across the solar system, and wiped them out.
But, ultimately with all their information at hand, you push through, ultimately putting the pieces together where the nomai couldn’t, and you find out that with the warp core of the ash twin project, the coordinates inside the probe cannon, and the power of the vessel deep in Dark Bramble, you finally learn the way to the eye of the universe.
Now here’s my experience with my final loop of the game, I rushed over to Ash Twin to get into the project and get the warp core, after several minutes of waiting, I got into the project and took the core out, once I got back to my ship, a triumphant mix of the time loop near end theme started playing, with that burst of motivation from the song, I quickly flew to Dark Bramble, said fuck it and went straight into the nest node without even marking the vessel location, after a very close call with the anglerfish, I made it to the vessel, put the core and the coordinates in, and was taken to the eye of the universe……….I get off the vessel and go to the eye’s surface, and………..what’s that blue light in the distance? OH SHIT THE SUPERNO—………oh wait, that ain’t reaching me now, HAH!
I continue on into the darkness, I will say that along with the discovery of the anglerfish and the first time entering the quantum moon, this is one of the most ominous parts of the game, but I push through and fall into the giant………hole? I think, in the sky, leading me to what I think is the insides of the eye…………then I’m transported out of the universe…….or am I? Cause next thing you know, you’re in a forest…….you end up exploring a bit until a campfire appears, and one of your friends along with it, you explore the area more and get more of your friends to join around the campfire, once all are there, a song is played, which creates this……..uh, circular vortex? Which then blasts you and your friends far away, and after a bit of silence and pitch blackness………BOOOM, a Big Bang basically happens.
Over 14 billion years later, it shows a new solar system forming, and with that, the game ends.
Ah……it’s simply wonderful, Outer Wilds is a one of a kind experience, I didn’t even talk about everything I adored, the game’s art style is beautiful, the soundtrack is just so fucking good, the atmosphere is top notch, and much much more man………..but I’ll end it here, now I sit in my room, with a bittersweet feeling, while there’s a sadness knowing I can’t experience this game a second time, there’s an ultimately happy feeling as well, one that’s so happy that he got experience a piece of media like this one.