Outer Wilds (2019) is a game about many things. But perhaps the most central of the themes on display is [[knowledge->Knowledge]], and crucially, the idea that there is something noble, fulfilling, and special about the pursuit of said knowledge.
In this review, I'll be exploring the narrative design of the game. How discovery is the core gameplay mechanic, unfurling the narrative gradually, until it reaches a conclusion. How miraculously, those pieces fit together from every angle, in almost any order, forming a seamless experience that rewards curiosity and exploration.
There will be spoilers. If you've yet to play the game, I recommend playing it before reading this review.
|link>[[[Continue->1]]]While I intend to focus on the story, I also want to review the game as a whole - discussing the [[gameplay->Gameplay]], [[graphics->Graphics]], [[audio->Audio]], and more.
Because information in Outer Wilds is something you gradually discover, over a series of time loops - the game world literally blows up every 22 minutes - the details of this review will also be something you gradually discover against the clock too.
Which means, just like in the game, you're now in a timeloop. This review will explode 10 times as often as the game does - every 2.2 minutes.
So, here's your first bit of knowledge: Some words are [[in italics]] for a reason. The clock is ticking.
You better [[get started]].
|link>[[[Continue->get started]]]That's right. Any words in italics can be clicked.
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|link>[[[Go back->1]]]Let's back up a bit. Outer Wilds is played from a first-person perspective, and your character is a "Hearthian", living on a small planet called Timber Hearth. When I say small, think "bigger than Super Mario Galaxy", but still small enough to explore mostly on foot, if you so choose. Hearthians love roasting marshmallows over a crackling campfire (turn on sound in the top right corner for an ambient experience!), and they love science.
In the night sky, this species can see their sun, but also a number of other planets in their local solar system, and they've developed a space program to begin exploring them.
This solar system is really well simulated, with a complex physics system that plots orbits, emulates local gravity when you get close to planets and moons, and melts ice when it gets close to the Sun. In fact, if Outer Wilds did nothing else, this would still be a fascinating simulator in it's own right - fun to examine, and poke, and prod.
Having walked around Timber Hearth a bit, it's your turn to jet off into space and explore, for exploration's sake, and to enrich the lives of Hearthians everywhere by learning more about their world.
But before you go, an ancient statue transfers energy to you, trapping you in a timeloop. The board is set. The pieces are in place. The game is afoot.
Where you go first, is up to you.
|link>[[[Travel to Gameplay->Gameplay]]]
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|link>[[[Travel to Audio->Audio]]]There are a handful of things that you "do" in Outer Wilds, and all of them are abilities that are available to you from the start.
Firstly, you have a spaceship. It can be unwieldy, and difficult for some to pilot, but it allows you to thrust yourself off from any planet, and plot courses to new ones. On larger planets it can also be useful to hop from one location on the surface to another.
The ancient statue from the beginning of the game is a relic of the Nomai, a species that came long before Hearthians, and who also seemed keen on exploring the solar system around them. When you visit planets, you often find relics or ruins of their civilisation, and writing like this:
|nomai->[Read the audio page slowly.]
Your translator tool allows you to translate these symbols into text you can read, which is the primary method by which the game tells the story, and introduces clues as to how to progress.
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(set: $time to "1")While the graphical fidelity of the game might not be anything to write home about in isolation, the views of the solar system can be stunning.
Chunks of broken planet swirl into black holes, monstrous typhoons ravage the oceans, and comets streak across the sky. Most notably, when the sun goes supernova, it creates spectacular visuals that feel ripped from the cover of an old sci-fi book.
Blazing blue hues light up the blackness of space itself, and whether I was drifting in open space, or stranded in a shifting desert, I always made sure to look up at the sky to embrace those final few seconds. Because they are gorgeous.
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(set: $time to "1")(if:$time is "1")[Parts of Outer Wild require fairly specific timing. For example, one of the places you can visit is a binary pair of planets, and at the beginning of the loop, one of them is covered in sand. Over the course of 22 minutes, their orbit brings them closer, and gravity causes sand to flow from one of them, to the other. This reveals certain secrets, and buries others, unless you race to them at the start of the loop.
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](if:$time is not "1")[It may sound strange to say, but one of the strengths of Outer Wilds' audio design is that it knows when to be silent. Space is lonely, vast, and quiet.
But that isn't to say that there aren't incredible achievements of sound to enjoy too. Many of the special wonders of the solar system have their own themes to add extra atmosphere when you stumble upon something grand and meaningful.
And, you occasionally get to spend time with other Hearthians, who like to play musical instruments, which you can hear from afar using your Signalscope. That feature comes in handy when you want to track some of them down, so you can quiz them about their adventures in the cosmos.
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]
(set: $time to "1")You also have an imaging probe, which you can fire out in front of you, and take photographs from wherever it lands (or wherever it is, possibly still hurtling through space). The probe can help detect unseen danger in a hole you're about to jump into, and find clues in hard to reach places.
Lastly you have your Signalscope, a tool which can detect distress signals, music, and "quantum fluctuations". But more on those later.
Getting to planets without dying can be challenging, and it quickly becomes apparent that surviving on them isn't always easy either. You have a limited air supply in your suit outside the ship, although it can be replenished by canisters or plant life. The lack of strong gravity in certain places can allow you to make incredible leaps, but one wrong step can just as easily throw you off into space, where you will drift until you die.
And every death, whether by your own hand or because the local sun has gone supernova, will reset the clock. Your character remembers, but others do not. It's actually kind of an existential nightmare, like a focused, cosmic horror version of Bill Murray's Groundhog Day.
Unlike Bill Murray, you're not going to use this time learn to play the piano. You're going to use the loop to explore every part of the solar system, and find out how to stop this.
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|link>[[[Travel to Graphics->Graphics]]](if:visits is an even)[|quantumstate>[Most of space is... Pretty dark. Often, you explore the Nomai ruins by torchlight, casting long shadows into halls that haven't been tread in hundreds of thousands of years. Your torch also has some gameplay implications, when it comes to the game's unique take on quantum mechanics.
Certain objects in game are subject to macroscopic quantum rules, which means they have multiple potential locations, only fixing to one point when you observe (look at) them. This superposition behaviour means that certain objects literally vanish or change when you look away and then look back - the superposition collapsing to another state entirely.
Flicking your torch on and off in a dark room is one way to quickly "unobserve" and observe an artefact. But you can also just look in another direction, or leave and come back.
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|link>[[[Travel to Revelations->Key]]]]](if:visits is an odd)[Most of space is... Pretty dark. Often, you explore the Nomai ruins by torchlight, casting long shadows into halls that haven't been tread in hundreds of thousands of years. Your torch also has some gameplay implications, when it comes to the game's unique take on quantum mechanics.
Certain objects in game are subject to macroscopic quantum rules, which means they have multiple potential locations, only fixing to one point when you observe (look at) them. This superposition behaviour means that certain objects literally vanish or change when you look away and then look back - the superposition collapsing to another state entirely.
Flicking your torch on and off in a dark room is one way to quickly "unobserve" and observe an artefact. But you can also just look in another direction, or leave and come back.
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|link>[[[Travel to Audio->Audio]]]]Andrew Prahlow is responsible for the entire soundtrack, and the best part of all of it, in my opinion, is the composition of a track called End Times. It starts low, and ominous. And then it swells, becoming melodic and beautiful. It's the song that plays when your time is up, and the end is drowned out by the roar of the supernova as it overtakes you. If you're like me, you'll hear this song many, many times.
Even hearing it now, it still strikes a chord within me - for a brief moment still making me feel as if I have moments to live, and need to take in everything I've just learned, before time is reset.
The melody is revisited in a track called Final Voyage, which plays during your final loop, after you've figured out how to break it and you're on your way to the game's ending.
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This area contains major spoilers.
The story of Outer Wilds is, for lack of a better word, epic. It details the destruction of an ancient race, the death of a solar system, and the impending doom of the entire universe. It deals in cosmic horror, existentialism, spacetime, and the pursuit of science itself. And yet, it balances all this heaviness with smaller scale, relatable, and personal themes - legacy, endeavour, and adventure.
You meet a few Hearthians scattered across the planets, and have friendly fireside chats with them, but most of the characters are actually long extinct. By translating Nomai writing, you're able to read transcripts of their conversations. Highlight the Nomai writing below to read it.
|nomai>[The Nomai had some pretty big ambitions...]
These ancient scientists planned to use an artificially-induced supernova, to create a 22 minute timeloop, that would give them infinite opportunities to find the Eye of the Universe, the legendary source of the quantum powers seen in the game.
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|link>[[[Travel to Audio->Audio]]]This area contains major spoilers.
There are a number of mechanics in Outer Wilds, and it creates an incredible feeling of revelation when you piece together just how certain things work.
One of my favourites is the Quantum Moon - an entire planet that moves when you look away, snapping to one of several positions depending on how many times you look.
It's also shrouded in fog. So if you manage to spot it, you might try to head there without taking your eyes off it, aaaand... As you slip into the fog, you lose visibility of it, and it moves, leaving you drifting in space where it used to be.
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|link>[[[Travel to Audio->Audio]]]Before they could pull it off, a sudden, extinction-level event involving a rogue comet wiped them out, and now that the Sun is naturally going supernova and triggering the timeloop, you're the unlucky traveller who has to complete the mission.
By exploring the planets and piecing together the final clues, you're able to find the coordinates to the Eye of the Universe, and recover a derelict Nomai vessel that can take you there.
And by the time you've accomplished this, you've read the final conversations of the Nomai, and understand their relationships, their ambitions, and their fears. You've found your fellow Hearthian travellers, and exchanged ideas about what it means to be an explorer, and what we hope to find when we leave the nest, metaphorical or otherwise.
All that's left is to enjoy the ending.
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|link>[[[Travel to Knowledge->Knowledge]]](if:$key is not "1")[Although it is technically possible to end Outer Wilds in your first loop, it's extremely unlikely. It's also possible to stumble upon ways to get near the ending, without having all the pieces of the puzzle.
But you need to visit all the places, and crucially, have revealed all of their secrets, in order to reach the final destination.
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](if:$key is "1")[|endtext>[You've reached the end of the review! |inlinelink>[CLICK HERE] to stop the clock so you don't get reset before you've finished reading. ]
Outer Wilds is one of the best games that I've ever played. It's simulated so precisely, with puzzle pieces that interlock perfectly, regardless of what order you find them in.
And from a narrative design standpoint, it's a breath-taking achievement. Your character's abilities all make sense within the game world. You have them all from the very first moment. There's no weapons, no new abilities or moves, no levelling up, and aside from the ship piloting, no need to improve your gaming skills.
The only inhibitor to progress, the only method by which new areas, information, and story are unlocked is knowledge. Each thing you learn gives you more of the story, and more opportunities to progress. This dovetails perfectly with the overarching themes of the game - the value of exploration, and the pursuit of knowledge. The journey is dangerous, and ambition can make you reckless, but the experience is worth it.
It provides beautiful, emergent, moments of adventure. It delivers mind-boggling high-concept sci-fi. It's impecably designed, well thought-out, and fulfilling.
It's a 10/10 game.
]
(set: $time to "1")Now, maybe someone smarter than me would have figured this out instantly, but the trick to getting there turns out to be using your imaging probe - essentially, if you take a photo of it with your probe, it's still being observed, and thus doesn't move as you descend.
I remember pulling it off for the first time. Actually landing on this moon with a heavy thud, and realising I'd finally got there, having seen it pop up and vanish many times in my many journeys through space, is one of my fondest memories of my playthrough.
If someone tells you how to solve this riddle in advance, it isn't fulfilling at all. But finally figuring it out, and realising you could have solved it from the beginning, is such a powerful moment. And it's one of several to be found in Outer Wilds.
The journey is an essential part of the experience.
And inspired by that, you can only reach the end of this review if you come through here first. When you're ready for it to end, make sure you swing through this page on your final loop.
(if:visits % 3 is 0)[|nomai>[Did you find the slowly revealed link on the Audio page yet?]
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(set: $key to "1")↶↷Outer Wilds (2019) is a game about many things. But perhaps the most central of the themes on display is knowledge, and crucially, the idea that there is something noble, fulfilling, and special about the pursuit of said knowledge. In this review, I'll be exploring the narrative design of the game. How discovery is the core gameplay mechanic, unfurling the narrative gradually, until it reaches a conclusion. How miraculously, those pieces fit together from every angle, in almost any order, forming a seamless experience that rewards curiosity and exploration. There will be spoilers. If you've yet to play the game, I recommend playing it before reading this review. Continue