Outer Wilds: An Intriguing Mystery Among the Stars

[Author's Note: This game is best played as blind as possible. This review contains some spoilers for the story. Please only read this if you understand this and are willing to expose yourself to these spoilers.]

***

Excitement with a twist of nerves bubbles in a potent mixture in your belly, tickling the bottom of your heart. Today marks the first day of your voyage into the stars, an expedition you've been dreaming of ever since you can remember.

The launch code is the only thing standing between you and the cosmos, so, half-running, half-flying, you make your way to the observatory, where the code is kept. On the way, you pass a statue of a Nomai, the ancient race that lived before your own in the solar system, the race that inspired both the technology for space travel and the drive to explore other planets. You find out you will be the first to travel with a Nomai translator to help you decipher their curling script and puzzle out the question badgering your community: what happened to the Nomai?

Launch code memorized, translator in hand, you spare one last look at the statue.

The statue looks back.

A strange force arrests you and shows you your memories of that day in reverse--from that moment to the moment you awoke by the campfire.

No one else noticed what happened to you, no one else has an explanation.

It disquiets you, but you refuse to let the experience ruin your first launch, so you do your best to shove it to the side as you settle in the snug chair of your little spaceship. Orange lights paint the interior as the ship's bottom thrusters flare to full power--and suddenly, you're off into the world beyond your home, just another speck in the endless expanse.

Each new planet you walk on is a wonder; each new sighting of Nomai remnants a marvel. You read the curlicued writings left behind, taking diligent notes to send back home to your peers.

The Sun looks larger than usual, you might catch yourself wondering, but the thought is quickly dismissed; of course the Sun would look larger, this far out into space, this close to the massive star.

Some time into your journey, a darkness rushes over the universe.

Your head snaps to the sky, spots the Sun shrunken into an incandescent spark.

The brilliant blue wave comes, blinding. It consumes you, too quickly for it to hurt.

In the vast nothingness that should be death, you see a three-eyed mask, look through it. Witness your memories, just as you did with the statue earlier, all the way to your awakening by the campfire.

Then--you wake up. By the campfire. As if nothing ever happened.

But something did happen. You remember.

Questioning gets you nowhere. No one recalls the catastrophic explosion--some think you crazy.

So you set off on your own to find answers. You know it's connected to the Nomai; your experience with the statue, the three-eyed mask, tell you that much.

The race against time begins, you attempting to uncover clues about the Nomai before the blueness vaporizes all that you know. It happens, time and time again, and you remember each and every time, your memory somehow untouched by this never-ending loop. Yet you soldier on, uncovering new clues each time around, tucking them in the safe of your memory.

Through it all, pounding like a second heartbeat, etched vividly in your mind, is the single word you ask the universe over and over.

Why?

***

I'm a sucker for delving into a world and following the breadcrumbs of lore left behind by the world's creator. Outer Wilds scratches that itch and scratches it well. The solar system is wide open, allowing you to explore and piece together the mystery of the Nomai and the time loop at your own pace (more or less). There are a handful of planets to explore, all with their own unique environments that keep the gameplay fresh as you dig deeper into the story. There are also perils, to break up what might otherwise feel like a monotonous visual novel, though they are generally simple enough that players of most skill levels should have little trouble dealing with them.

The controller controls are intuitive and easy to grasp. (I played with a controller only, as the game heavily suggests you do so--it is the first thing you see upon opening the game.) Initially, I did have a problem initially with the jump--as you have to press and hold to increase your height. and that didn't make much sense for a landbound creature--but once I was in the suit and wearing a jetpack, I overcame that issue.

The breadcrumbing by the writers is very well done. I rarely felt stuck or confused about what to do; early on, you have a plethora of avenues to explore, and as you start approaching the final path, the facts make what you have to do apparent (if maybe not easy). The occasions I did feel stuck were more due to certain puzzles or dangers that I was able to solve or surpass given a few retries.

Because of the nature of the time loop mechanic, it can be difficult to remember what you've uncovered in prior loops (this I will touch on again later), but the ship has a feature called the "Rumor Log" that allows you to keep track of all the clues you've compiled, as well as hints to things you've partially figure out. This is a great feature, because repeated loops could certainly cause players to forget information found out a long while ago (I know I'm forgetful), and it reminds you of how certain pieces are connected. (This can also be disabled, if you desire more of a challenge.)

Each planet has its own mode of exploration and perils to consider, forcing you to adopt different strategies for different worlds. Some of these perils, even, turn out to be key to exploration, flipping the idea of "avoiding danger" on its head in an exciting way. Sometimes you will have to time your exploration carefully, for a piece of information available early on in the loop will become unreachable after a matter of minutes (or vice versa); this adds further depth to an already-compelling game.

The "Little Scout," a tiny, photo-taking robot you can fire, is a well-designed tool that helps you navigate difficult paths and identify dangers. You can shoot it through latticed windows to observe rooms that seem unreachable, fire it to look at things over the horizon, peek through its camera to glimpse hazards invisible to the naked eye. Remember to use it! I was forgetful about this tool early in my playthrough, and my progress suffered as a result.

The core pillar of the game--the time loop--also creates a host of frustrations, however. As each loop ends, you are warped back to where you started--that fireplace--and having to make your way back to where you were before can be discouraging, especially if you are struggling through several loops on end. (Also, that cutscene I hinted at in the opening story, where you watch your memories of the loop? You have to watch it every time, and as far as I can tell, it is unskippable.) Certain puzzles result in death if you fail, which means restarting the loop and having to make your way back to the puzzle (compounded further if the area where the puzzle is is not immediately reachable at the start of the loop). Some few puzzles, I put off because of this, which grew quickly frustrating the more loops I had to spend on one puzzle. I wish that, perhaps, there could have been some kind of fast travel implemented to ease this irritation. (The Nomai already had warping technology, why not have the player find a Nomai warp-point blueprint to build and place?)

In addition, the game does not remember across loops which Nomai scripts you've read. In one loop, if you read a section of text, the game will grey it out to mark it as read, but if you return to that location in another loop, the text will once more be purple or orange, as if you've never read it. Technically, yes, I suppose you never did read it, but if the ship's Rumor Log can remember everything you've found across countless loops, why can't the game grey out text you've already read in a past loop?

Lastly--and please do not read this paragraph if you don't want story spoilers--I found the ending of the Nomai's story to be rather anticlimactic. For a spacefaring civilization that mastered technologies we humans are still working to understand (including quantum physics and time travel), the fact that they were all summarily wiped out from a single explosion from a comet feels an unsatisfying end. Perhaps that was the intention of the writers, but I would have preferred if their end was more impactful, such as via the experiment they were so assiduously working on.

Overall, Outer Wilds is an immersive game that leads you well to its eventual conclusion, with twists and turns to keep you hooked throughout the experience. The puzzles never require more than a slight stretching of the mind, the dangers simple enough for players of most skill levels. However, the frustration of retracing your steps should you die during a loop or not finish what you were doing before the loop's end could be enough to drive some players to abandon the game.