Outer Wilds

How does one critique a game, while holding the view that in this particular case, revealing the merest detail beyond the opening five minutes, would be to inexcusably tarnish a would-be player’s experience?

I’ve never played a game quite like Outer Wilds. Rarely does a game succeed so completely in what it’s trying to achieve. In an age of hype and melodrama, terms like “masterpiece” are tossed about like peanuts at a baseball game, yet it’s entirely accurate here. Despite this, it tricks you. It has you waking up next to campfire, next to a nicely-rendered but cartoonish pal. Your first two acts will likely be to initiate dialogue with this fellow and roast a marshmallow. Probably in the reverse of that order.

Overcook that mallow and decide to eat it anyway and your protagonist will respond with a “nom nom… bleurk!”. Elden Ring, this is not. Everything about the presentation, from the ramshackle village, where even the spacecraft you’ll be commandeering, is a playful mashup of sci-fi technology held together with duct tape and planks of wood, to the dialogue you encounter as you wander around the starting village (this serves as an immersive tutorial), is lighthearted and whimsical. NPCs will casually lament how often space launches result in parts of the homestead catching fire. A museum piece related to the first space flight, has a description that confesses that they’re using a charitable definition of “flight”.

It charms you. It gives you a feel for the game’s character. What it doesn’t do is prepare you for what’s ahead. You’ll have a few chuckles along the way, sure. You’ll also experience panic, tension, perhaps a smidgeon of frustration, but also joy. There are a number of YouTube playthroughs that have even seen the occasional tear. Because trust me: if you become of the many people that this game gets its hooks into, you will be watching playthroughs on YouTube (other colossally huge online video services are… possibly available(?)).

Outer Wilds’ biggest ‘problem’ is that it’s structure and approach, make it a one-and-done game. It’s going to be a long time, if it ever happens at all, before you play through this game a second time. That’s not actually a criticism. It’s just that the way this game progresses, means that the first experience can’t be repeated. Yet you won’t want to part ways with it. This is a game that will stay with you. The closest you’ll ever get to wiping your own memory and enjoying it all over again, is reliving it through other people.

Fair warning: you will find yourself yelling at these people, as they miss something obvious that you’ve forgotten had taken you a dozen times to figure out when you played. As they encounter the same sense of wonder that you had, though, you’ll quickly forgive them.

So what kind of game is this? Well primarily, it’s a space exploration game, set in a tiny, scaled-down, alien solar system. There’s a lot of puzzles and mystery-solving. A slice of platforming. A lot of physics-based flying, either by ship or jetpack. You fly around, explore the handful of planets and… that’s about as much as I can comfortably tell you. You’re a Hearthian, a race of purple aliens with four eyes and pointy ears. It’s the day of your first solo launch into outer space. The game literally hands you a spaceship and says “Go explore”.

The sense of freedom to explore and how rewarding that is, is why I personally enjoyed this game so much, as well as the way it handles the messages it’s trying to convey.

Is this game for everyone? Only in the sense that no one game really is. A glance at Metacritic (other rage-infested ratings aggregations websites are available) or anywhere else that carries reviews, will figuratively drench you, with the gushing expressed by 90% of Outer Wilds’ critics.

I recommend the following approach: Give it at least three hours. In that time, you should have uncovered enough that your intrigue is soundly stirred, if you’re not already scooting about the solar system looking for answers. Some players do hit a brief wall around the middle, where the early rate of progress has slowed and a few challenges are keeping them at bay. There’s little that can’t be worked out with a bit of perseverance. Typically, it just comes down to diligence. I’ve yet to see one playthrough (my own absolutely included) where a player wasn’t stumped at some point by something face-palmingly obvious.

You’ll see many people describe this game as “an experience” and it is. One I eagerly encourage you all to have.