Outer Wilds Review
If I can be honest, and I can because it’s my website, I don’t care for adventure games. There’s usually not much to do and the things you can do with are very low-key most of the time. I know not every video game needs to be a fast-paced explosion-fest, but most of the times adventure games feel so slow, I’d rather do just about anything else. On a barely related note, I’m also terrified of outer space. Many people see outer space as an exciting new frontier of exploration and learning. Those people are wrong. Space is a relentless murderer who has seemingly infinite ways to kill us and is happy to use every single one of them. So, you may ask your self, why is a person with my beliefs playing an adventure game set in outer space? Well, for one, I’m not very smart. Two, last week was E3 and almost no one puts out a new game during E3 so my choices were limited. Fortunately, playing Outer Wilds wasn’t actually the awful decision I first thought it would be.
In Outer Wilds, players step into the shoes of an unnamed member of the Hearthian race. Lanky, grey, and possessing 4 eyes, the Hearthians have made a name for themselves exploring their solar system, and the player is the latest recruit to this effort. But, as the player heads towards their first launch into space, they’re zapped by a mystic space artifact that initially has no effect. Twenty two minutes later, though, the sun explodes and the player, through the power of the artifact, is launched back to the beginning of the game. That’s right folks, it’s a time loop, though instead of wandering around Punxsutawney learning about love, the player must learn what happened to an ancient civilization and why all the stars in the universe are dying.
As I mentioned earlier, Outer Wilds is an adventure game. Players use their ramshackle spaceship made of wood and canvas to fly around the system, chasing down clues and rumors to figure out what’s going on. There’s no inventory aside from a few gadgets and the occasional thing to pick up and carry to the appropriate receptacle and only one confined area has actual enemies, so most of the danger comes from environmental hazards. Most of the time, players are navigating planetary terrain, or lack thereof, to find messages left behind by a precursor race or by previous members of the Hearthian space program. Honestly, the platforming, if it can be called that, feels both frustrating and truthful. Some video games have well-defined edges where a platform begins and ends, but Outer Wilds, like real life, has geography in all sorts of shapes that are often difficult to climb. It’s not always fun, but it has consistent logic. Plus, there’s a jet pack so that evens things out.
The platforming may not always be great, but the discovery of new things is where Outer Wilds shines. Discovering new clues or areas to explore very quickly turned into a Skinner box for me. There’s two reasons for this: one, the writing of the clues, all being written from the first-person perspective of various authors, does a fantastic job of giving players just enough information to be interested without over-explaining, and two, because all of these clues relate to something else in the solar system. And there are so many clues and leads on each of the planets, that I started feeling like a newborn, fascinated with everything and constantly distracted by the newest thing to catch my attention. Even now, I want to stop writing and go explore a subterranean cave and the strange rock that resides there and moves when I’m not looking. Players aren’t expected to keep track of this all by themselves though. The space ship has an on-board computer with both a solar system map and a “rumor map,” a web connecting all the information players have found so far and leads to where more can be found. It’s mostly terrific because it’s all driven by the player’s own interest, however that also means that when a player has found most, but not all, of the clues in an area, there’s no easy way to determine what has yet to be searched. This can definitely be frustrating, though it doesn’t come up that often.
While exploring and finding clues is a joy in Outer Wilds, I have a bit of a problem with the setting. The biggest portion of this is the time loop. I do appreciate the loop resetting me to the beginning whenever I die, effectively handling my fear of death by space, the time limit becomes frustrating when I finally get to a new area and begin researching the clues, only to be punted back to the beginning of the game in the middle of my investigation. Because the player isn’t doing anything beyond learning, there are no short cuts or check points a player can set up to enable easier travel or research for future loops, at least none that I’ve discovered. I understand that this is a game about uncovering the truth through exploration, but the game could at least mark text or artifacts I’ve already researched in previous loops so I don’t waste time. Another problem I have with Outer Wilds is the planets of the solar system. Because players need to be able to travel between planets and explore those planets to a meaningful degree in 22 minutes, the whole system is very small. The planets are separated by, at most, tens of kilometers and the planets themselves can be orbited in less than a minute at low speed. Let me be clear, this isn’t a gripe about accuracy, this just freaks my brain out. Living on Earth, our brains are used to planets so big that the curve is nearly imperceptible, to the point where some, let’s say, “skeptical” people doubt it’s curved at all. But the planets in Outer Wilds are so small, the curve is undeniable, to a nauseating degree at times. I don’t think everyone who plays Outer Wilds will have this problem, but it was a near persistent issue for me.
For all its issues, I think Outer Wild is doing something really incredible and unlike anything I’ve seen before. I know that a time-loop detective adventure game won’t be for everyone, but I thought it wouldn’t be for me either and I’m a huge fan. I hope everyone who reads this plays Outer Wilds, or at least watches some gameplay, because I think it needs to be seen by as many people as possible.
Buy this game at full price
It’s worth every penny they’re asking
