"The pain of your absence is sharp and haunting, and I would give anything not to know it; anything but never knowing you at all (which would be worse)."

sexy mutyumu recommended this to me as part of this list thanks dude

possibly the greatest metaphor of life every time you get closer to the end of the world the game makes you embrace your death and still makes you willing to live those last seconds to the fullest

sometime ago i started outer wilds and dipped almost instantly when i got into the solar system gameplay because whatever i felt so overwhelmed that my most authentic reaction was to close the game and never touch it again

i booted it again some days ago and ended up addicted to it to the point that i would play it for hours and hours straight until i uncovered all the secrets of this stupid fucking solar system i cannot tell you how much cocaine they put in this game to get me THIS hooked honestly

outer wilds base premise is as simple as absolutely effective and wondrous . youre a space explorer from a little village in a small world you get to know its fellow inhabitants and begin to learn the characteristics of the world around you and whats incredible is the fact that all this actually acts as a tutorial for what youre gonna do for the rest of the game playing hide and seek with the kids helps you understand how to use the frequency sensor you can use a little space ship model that acts the same as your space ship you can go to the cave to help repair some parts of an inner equipment stuff that makes you accustomed to both zero gravity movement and your jetpack and how to repair your ship you can begin to use the multipurpose probe and translate some forgotten language stones and use the inside of the museum to get to know some particular stuff that you wont know until later how actually useful it is and this is only the BEGINNING of the incredible variety of stuff you get to do in this fucking game

the synopsis is this you go to the museum and the historian there introduces you to a lost civilization that disappeared some time before for some unknown reasons and also some other explorers of the space company who went missing for some other reasons and while you ask some other stuff you go get the codes to begin your trip in the outer space and when you do that a nomai statue at the entrance of the museum opens its eyes stares at you and you get back to when you wake up like it was all a dream

after this weird shit you get to finally begin this endless travel in your galaxy to discover the secrets of the nomai and where they have gone

now i will talk about some in depth not super spoiler heavy stuff and then some heavy story stuff so if you want to go completely blind stop now since i only talked about the beginning

MILD SPOILER AHEAD

as soon as you go travel and do your stuff you get to know your surroundings theres some different planets with different qualities and quirks and while you travel you understand something very grim as soon as you reach 22 minutes the sun goes supernova and will explode and gorge on every single molecule of the solar system causing your death and making you realize that youre in a neverending loop due to something out of your control you will always begin your travel again at the campfire and from there begin your exploration anew

understanding how the planets work is something so thrilling in this game i cannot even begin to tell you every single one is an incredible discovery i dont know the names in english so i will talk about them in italian sorry yall

cuore legnoso is the first planet you get to visit because its also the home of the teporiani and you will also begin to understand that this is also the only planet with some good atmospheric conditions for life to thrive and although its fairly resembling earth its actually full of geysers all around that conceal some incredible secrets too whats also cool is that some of these planets also got some satellites like cuore legnoso got sfrido where you can fine one of the stranded explorers and thats freaking fun i love these 2 planets

gemello cenere and gemello brace really push forward the concept that youll get to understand throughout the game some planets change aspect and theres some limited time events in these 22 minutes and no other planet has more drastic transformations than these 2 they basically become completely different due to the fact that most of the sand from one planet gets to the other one and whatever and yeah these two are basically interconnected and one is more of a cavern mass and the other is ruins below sands kind of vibe also love them

vuoto fragile is also kind of weird because its entirely hollow apart from the surface the center hosts a black hole that will eat whatever gets close to it and the near satellite will get some vulcano debris on it and slowly the surface of the planet will fall in the black hole in whatever other part of the galaxy also interesting

profondo gigantesco is full of tornados and islands getting thrown left to right and has a distinct thick atmosphere and has a electromagnetic core that also has some weird consequences to the entire planet

rovo oscuro is the most hostile of them all some intergalactic plant took control of a planets life and crushed it and now sits on the center of it if you enter youre gonna be welcomed by foggy environments spaces that have no sense and contrast the basic rules of space and time and some huge monstrous anglerfish floating around and giving you the worst panic attack on existence i kid you not

l’intruso floats around the galaxy and as the name implies its not really part of the solar system you can see that its orbit is actually off centered and is completely entirely frosted

believe me or not you will get to know the entirety of all these planets how their different gravities work and at some point youll begin to move so fast because youre going to travel to these places so many fucking times its gonna be implanted in your brain trust me

all these planets have some places of interest that can give you hints on some different mysteries youre gonna look for and the ship log is gonna help you with that

the ship is full of stuff like tutorials and different equipments and even this mythical ship log thats gonna give you a map of the stuff you have discovered or that you have yet to discover now my recommendation is just to go fuckinf blind and fail and die and do all your stuff until youre ready to get into some deep lore territory and also you have to understand how every planet works and how to exploit their characteristics to your advantage

the ship log got some different threads to let you know which one youre following like theres a log group for the quantum moon or a log for the eye of the universe or a log for the twin project so youre gonna know what to do next somehow i mean it can feel kind of daunting in the beginning but slowly you will get the hang of it because this game is designed to hell and back for fucking christ

before delving into spoiler territory some more stuff about the game

the fact that they managed to create a seamless miniature solar system in a game working in real time and with so many different aspects working at the same time is something i wont ever understand how they managed to do something like this is beyond me like theres some teleportations devices that work when some planets align like how do you even DO that its fucking insane what the hell

and yknow using the jetpack and the ship can feel pretty difficult to use but traversing the deep space begins to feel easier and easier after playing for some time so you dont have to worry about that

the puzzle designs of this game also took me by surprise im not a huge puzzle guy yknow that but i was astounded by the fact that they managed to put some great puzzles that dont go into the frustration territory but actually reward you if you get to explore a bit of the surroundings or if you have explored another planet before that actually got something to do with the puzzle at hand and somehow they dont feel overwhelming theyre the environmental kind of puzzles like idk portal or shit like that but they really make you feel good about doing them because you get to piece together some stuff yourself or get to know how precisely something works like probably the greatest example is the quantum moon which is by itself a big ass puzzle level and to complete it you have to get some intel about the quantum stuff from other planets and actually experiment with quantum objects yourself thats fucking clever kudos to you designers

the art design is kinda streamlined if you ask me theres nothing really outstanding about it apart from the individual character designs which actually feel intelligent and look really nice even though teporians look pretty different from your usual design for some obvious reasons again the art style is going for the kind of not too realistic kind of cartoony vibe and somehow really work with this over realistic solar system and then again the art style there is not about the art itself but how they space and use the different models and quirks of the planets to make them feel alive and breathing like theyre living beings in this galaxy too

SFX obviously got implemented to the story like a shining jewel it would not feel the same with the incredible work put in that department water sand fire every natural element is speaking to you and still as soon as you begin to translate the words of the nomai youre struck with sad fucking piano oooooooooooOOOOOOOO youre in for an emotional ride

and the music in itself is pretty scarce and simplistic but boy when it hits IT HITS the melody you hear whenever the sun is approaching its end is some of the most haunting beautiful tragic warm whatever other adjective tune you will hear in the entirety of the game and when you connect the fact that this is the tune of the end of the galaxy it gets so much more emotional thats basically the song of “thats it bro . youre dead accept your demise and try again next time” its absolutely beautiful and the fact that you can see the sun slowly dying and exploding is so beautiful that i would just sit and stare at the end of it all while there was a spectacle of colors eating the life out of the planets you cannot escape

some other music plays out in different points like when you discover some nomai settlements or read some very bad stuff on the walls or when you travel to some special locations really the music in this game really add to the atmosphere which is already pretty rich and particular really theres no game that made me feel like this like just wandering around the galaxy and either fear the endless void or just vibe with its beauty but nothing will ever beat the somber and emotional track that plays out right at home this is possibly the most powerful music in the game and it only gets even better when you just sit there in front of the campfire and taste some marshmallows or like when you get to the sun station and you realise the incredible jump you have to make to unravel its secrets and this plays out or the tune you get to hear throughout the game that really gives you the chills because it feels like home or like this fucking theme that plays out whenever something sad to the nomai happens and particularly i think about the scene where you get to the escape pod 3 in rovo oscuro and you find them just dead floating around looking miserable and the log turns into nomai grave and THAT THEME PLAYS and one of the most beautiful one of all the theme that plays when you get the last piece of the puzzle that is a remix of the theme of the sun exploding and thats pretty breathtaking if you ask me

last but not least the UI design in this game is absolutely incredible from the simple buttons you have to press to the detailed yet easy to use ship log to the different ingame aspects that reflect what youre doing like the light sticks (i dont know how to call them) of the ship lighting in the direction youre doing or your jetpack giving you some tridimensional arrows to tell you where youre going and what movement youre doing or like the different objects youre gonna use or even something so stupid as the nomai speech reading thats something that you will do for the entirety of the game and its pretty interesting how the nomai got this written form that develops in spirals or like even the fact that youre gonna use some scrolls or some plates to read what they are saying this game really is incredible what the fuck

and the fact that you make yourself this game you can take your time you can explore what you want in what order you want thats absolutely top notch game design no achievements no rewards no objects no new abilities no linear exploration NOTHING its just you the space around you and your neverending curiosity to discover whats happening to you and the world around you

ok anyway HEAVY SPOILER TERRITORY

getting to slowly understand the nomai whereabouts is absolutely terrifying and beautiful at the same time like theres this distant civilization that got a reading somewhere in the galaxy of an object that for them is like a god a supernatural being they really begin to do everything in their power to get closer to this thing that they also hypothesize it could not even care about them like it could be a random object that randomly sent a wave in their direction and they thought it was a message from a messiah or something like thats a banger incipit and all of this you get to know by reading their scrolls around the worlds

a thing that really got to me is when you see murals about how the nomai found a species of non intelligent beings in cuore legnoso and how theyre actually gonna develop into the teporians making you REALLY understand how distant in time these beings really are and slowly you will also get to discover and understand and also use their different constructions and devices since theyve been in this galaxy for a long time they actually left some many different scrolls around the planets even some villages and even constructed some hi tech stuff for the purpose of finding this fucking eye and yknow whats really incredible ?

the nomai wanted to send a probe through an orbital cannon into space to actually get to find this eye but since its an infinitesimal chance to find it in the outer space but to actually do that they actually created the twin project to send the result of the probe back in time of 22 minutes to reuse it an indefinite amount of time so to find this object in the outer space but the power that would take to use this device amounts to the power of a supernova and what the nomai wanted to do is actually cause a supernova so they tried to make the sun explode but were unsuccessful and then died out before the project could be set in motion and thats where you get back to the players time and now the 22 minutes rule all of the sudden makes sense because when the supernova happens the consciousness of the player is sent back in time for another probe to be shot out and as i was saying yknow whats incredible ? the fact that whenever you wake up you see the cannon in profondo gigantesco shoot the probe THIS IS FUCKING INCREDIBKE PH MY GOFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

due to the connection to the statues of memories the player and another guy are the only one that can actually remember what the shit happens in this time loop and thats also the reason for the player to understand how to stop this from happening and what better way to actually find the eye of the universe oh yes baby

DISCLAIMER if you arrived here you probably have finished the game or else youre fucking stupid so im not gonna talk about all the other plot points because it would take so much fucking time to tell you how massive this games story actually is but the segment in the quantum moon where you talk with solanum using plates due to language barrier is probably one of my favourite stuff in the universe and anyway every single thing of this game is incredible exploring the ghost cities the laboratories get to piece together clues to get to the eye UGH i love this

after exploring the twin project and the core of profondo gigantesco you will get all the stuff to actually make the right thing to close this incredible game thats right getting jumpscared in rovo oscuro by the anglerfish

after getting there and finding what remains of the vessel with which the nomai got into this galaxy you put back the battery to where it belongs and input the coordinates of the eye of the universe and let the vessel take the reins

you finally get to see the eye of the universe which is nothing more nothing less than a huge as fuck mass of quantum energy that actually looks like a black hole and thats the thing that the nomai actually chased after just an unemotional aseptic huge piece of molecules and thats it they died for this because they were convinced it was some kind of ungodly being wandering around the universe just giving important signals to space races for some whatever reason

i cannot understand how they managed to create such a powerful segment in the videogame media and just then followed it with some of the most haunting segment ever

you get to see your friends again or better the quantum version of your friends again and also understand that its not only your star that is dying every single star in the universe is dying and everything is going back to 0 and actually this is something you can see if you zoom in the sky during your playthrough theres an explorer you encounter that tells you he saw 2 supernovas in one day and if you actually look for yourself the sky is FULL of supernovas so thats whats gonna happen youre gonna search for your friends and regroup the band for the last time playing the jingle you know too fucking well from your countless loops and then you create a big bang giving rise to another univers

the fucking end

after the credits you can see that 14 billion years later a solar system similar with the one youre living in is thriving and new life forms are idling in front of a campsite

i dont know what happened in me but i just started uncontrollably crying after finishing this game i swear it was like experiencing something so grand and so incredibly profound that the only thing i could do was contemplate stuff and cry about it this is just how powerful the message of this game is im not joking this is so much more than a solar system simulator and a puzzle game and a flight simulator this is a larger than life tale with messages that resonate with every human being something like hope or lack thereof struggle or relief in front of your death the concept of time and space and what it means to break it how important it is to cherish life and not be sad about it ending because thats just what happens in this vast universe

this could be one of the greatest games of all times for themes alone the legacy of the nomai and the meaning they gave to a life towards something that was actually meaningless really hurts me to talk about and i cannot stress enough how everyone should push through this game and complete it blind you wont regret it

this made me actually less afraid of death said another comments and i can really relate to that

talking about how powerful this game is would not even give it 1/100 of the justice it deserves and what you really need to do is get it boot it up and experience it first hand this is an experience like no other i have ever had and im pretty sure this review didnt really put into words how monumental this game really is but i sure know in my heart what the truth is and the truth is life is meaningless i would love to have 4 eyes

SIDENOTES OR AFTERTHOUGHTS

I think its really cool the developers thought of other endings that are influenced by what you actually do and do not do in the game if you get the core our of the twin project you will not be connected anymore to the memory mask which means if you wait for the sun to explode you will be dead for good this time game over ending BUT if you instead get out of the galaxy because there's no loop you will get the isolation ending

you can even break space time with the scout and the black and white hole warps or you can jump into the black hole in the twin project when the sun explodes and talk to yourself in the next loop (and the character actually looks beefy take that suit off pardner) or even removing the warp core and bringing it to solanum on the quantum moon and just live there as a quantum being forever I swear to fucking god the developers of this game thought of EVERYTHING

I JUST FOUND OUT THE THEME THAT PLAYS OUT DURING THE 14 BILLION YEARS LATER SCENE IS THE SAME THAT PLAYS OUT WHEN THE SUN COMES UP IN CUORE LEGNOSO NOOOOOOOOO

its also interesting to say that for the most part of the game i skimmed through the ghost matter tutorials so i didnt know i needed to use my scout but i wanted to rely on nomai because they usually have the answer for everything but nowhere do they talk about ghost matter and then i realised that 1) they tell you about ghost matter in the first 5 minutes of the game and 2) the nomai could not tell me of the ghost matter because THEY WERE FUCKING KILLED BY THE GHOST MATTER IM SO STUPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID

just found out theres a meditate option to skip to the next loop and i just discovered it WHERE THE FUCK IS IT

the fact that theres laws of physics theres planets doing their thing theres spacetime paradoxes how can you even create something so beautiful and something that feels so alive

recently i had to process a loss in my family and as childish as it may sound like im really glad i got to play something like this that helped me an atheist to actually make some sense of life loss and love and i think i will take the messages of this game with me forever