"Outer Wilds" Is the Perfect Game for Anyone Dying to Get Out and Explore

Every planet you explore has a puzzle to solve and clues about where to go next.

By KEVIN LIU

Imagine waking up on an unknown planet in a different solar system, where everything is a mystery. You hear an eerie sound, so you turn on your signal scope, hoping to track it down. You use your spaceship to start exploring, discover ruins around the planet, and suddenly, the sun explodes. 

Outer Wilds (not to be confused with Outer Worlds) is a first-person adventure game developed by Mobius Digital and produced by Annapurna Interactive for Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, that costs around $20-$25. It is an exploration-based game that requires zero gaming skills. Each planet has its unique phenomena, and there’s no main focus of the game. 

After 22 minutes of in-game exploration, the sun turns into a supernova and destroys everything. Now, you wonder, did the game just end, and that’s all it had to offer? No, you return to the same location where you woke up last time, and a familiar scene happens all over again. The point of the game is to be curious about your surroundings because you're in a loop that returns to the beginning every 22 minutes. Your goal is simply to discover what’s out there. On every planet you explore, there will be some sort of puzzle to solve and a message to translate to get clues about where you should go next. 

The loop allows you to explore every possible planet and location until you can gather that important information to help you progress you to the endgame. You are by yourself from beginning to end. There’s no step-by-step guidance like many games have; the choices are always yours to make. You can decide the order of planets you want to explore from first to last. 

While I enjoyed this aspect of the game, I believe many players will have a problem with the ambiguity of the information it presents. Going out to explore the unknown also means that everything is self-motivated, and it’s all on you to figure things out and combine information to make progress. You might hit a few brick walls. Of course, there are always online guides if you need extra assistance.

The game features folk instrumental music, and the graphics are very well done. Each location has a science fiction feel, though some parts aren’t realistic (e.g., your spaceship is made out of wood). However, the overall design of the game is well thought-out in its details. For example, a binary planet with sands in between is like an hourglass that moves sand from one planet to another.

I would recommend this game if you like open-ended sandbox gameplay that is self-driven. If you like exploring, traveling, and getting distracted by something off on the horizon — especially hard to do during quarantine! — then this game is for you. But If you prefer traditional games with missions, explosions, and quests, or aren’t patient enough to justify hours of repeating a lot of the same content, then this game will be a miss.

★★★★☆