Outer Wilds has been one of the most memorable games I’ve ever experienced. It has a truly graceful storytelling that not only encourages you to explore the different worlds in the solar system, but it makes it incredibly rewarding when you find new pieces of information by yourself. This game explores basic, yet often overlooked concepts like our curiosity, and the human urge to learn and understand their surroundings; the value of one’s time and life, and the future legacy you can leave.

It’s a combination of exploration gameplay, and a small but packed solar system with every planet close enough to travel quickly, where each planet feels completely unique. The lack of missions and clear objectives might seem deceiving at first, but with small pieces of information from the interactions with other characters and the environment, is enough to keep moving forward in the exploration, where the only thing driving you is your own curiosity.

Every time you start exploring a new planet, you learn to take advantage of the mechanics you already had, but adapting them to the new scenarios; you never get new tools or skills throughout the story, there is no inventory system or storage of any kind, which adds to the simplicity of the gameplay mechanics to highlight the story and exploration aspect even more.

The art and the soundtrack are essential for this game to feel as immersive as it does. The concept art is developed to such an extent where it feels like every single detail has a meaning behind it, and slowly connecting all the points between the mural paintings, scrolls, objects and characters makes for an incredibly engaging experience throughout the entire story. The soundtrack is arguably one of the most important pieces of the story itself. From the beginning you understand the importance of music for your species, the Hearthians. The way the music kicks in feels similar to the system in exploration games, where the music seemingly starts playing randomly, but more often than not your most memorable experiences in the game are accompanied by an emotional track that makes the exploration that much more impactful.

It goes without saying that I totally recommended this game to absolutely anyone. Even if you are not particularly interested in open world exploration, or space-themed games; this is more than just that, it’s flawless storytelling, an engaging story with a fast-enough pace of exploration to not get bored or stuck, and a huge room for interpretation that makes the story’s meaning go as deep as you want to.

My game interpretation:
(Spoilers ahead)

After the initial realization of how time loops work, I could only relate them to how days work for us in real life. Every time you start a new time loop in game is like every time we wake up to start a new day, and you keep the information you last learnt to move a bit faster and with more knowledge this time around; until you have to move out of your comfort zone and into a new planet to explore, where feel like you are starting from scratch. In every loop, just like in every day, you learn stuff that makes you feel not as lost in your life. To me, those 22 minute time loops represent perfectly the 24 hours of our days; and the fact that after 22 minutes you get to restart and keep going, portrays failure as an opportunity to learn, and not necessarily something negative.

Another interesting concept to interpret from the game is the idea that the universe keeps moving regardless if you are there to see it or not. You play as an actor that has the same importance as any other, and it helps realize the real scale and impact one could have on the universe. It makes you understand that you by yourself can only do so much: The exploration discoveries, the fact that you reach places no one you know has reached before, and all the knowledge you bring back to show others is a huge deal within your species, but is not even remotely important for the universe and it’s inevitable natural path, just like in real life.

You already know you have limited time every loop, so you try to make the most out of it, but sometimes there are time loops where you don’t really discover anything new, maybe you just wonder in space or you meditate until the next loop. Just like in our lives, not every single day is productive, some are “wasted”, and we don’t really value time as much as we should, because in the short term it feels like we still have plenty left. However, when you least expect it, the whole loop thing is over, you remove the Warp Core and you find yourself in the last loop you will ever be in. You already know that this time around, after the supernova event, you will not wake up again. All of this information you already knew beforehand, but it’s not until it’s actually happening that you realize the value of all those loops you experienced, the relationships you made along the way, and the feeling that even at the very end you might have many questions unanswered and uncertainties about the universe, but one thing is certain: The inevitability of death.

I experienced more than one ending, but I found two of them to be the deepest. The “intended” ending where you take the Warp Core to the Vessel and then reach the Eye of the Universe, ends up in one last campfire together with all the people you met along the way (Even the Anglerfish shows up nearby), which makes you gather all your memories together and remember what an amazing journey it was. However the “lonely” ending where you remove the Warp Core and escape the solar system to prevent the supernova reaching you, can even be more interesting in my opinion. You get a message on screen that says that you are out of the supernova’s reach, and that you’ll drift through space until your ship’s resources are depleted. This makes you ponder if it was worth leaving everything behind to escape by yourself and be lonely for the rest of your life, or if it would’ve been better to stay with your loved ones to spend everyone’s last minutes together.

This game made me appreciate my own progress and milestones regardless of how they change or not the world, it made me understand the meaning of loneliness and what surrounds it, and let the inevitable death sink in to reconsider the true value of my time here.

I want to thank the developers for going through a seven year struggle to get this game to the public and not giving up, and the crowdfunding backers for making the game possible too. It’s not often that you find a game made with so much love and dedication. Thanks!