But I digress.
In "Outer Wilds" you play one of an alien race with four eyes (they actually look really good), who have just started their own space program. You are their new astronaut, and all they want you to do is just fly into outer space and have a look at what's up there. At first, it almost seems farcical that these aliens even have a space program. They are about as backwater as they can be. They seem almost like hillbillies. Even your spaceship has some parts on it that are made of wood.
Once you blast off, you quickly realized that the entire solar system is very small. All the planets are flying wildly around the sun at impossible speeds. Nothing is very far away. In fact, you might accidently take off and mistakenly fly right into the sun. It's... right... there. And the planets are spinning super fast too. A day is like a few minutes, and it feels like it too. Just stand on your homeworld and look up. The stars are flying past quickly, and you can even see all the other planets out there. Day and night come and go constantly. This is just how this universe is designed.
There are no objectives to the game. They just want you to go up there and explore... figure things out. Your only motivation is your own curiosity. Pretty soon, and likely by accident, you are going to die. It might be due to a daring act, or you might just accidently decide to open up the hatch without your spacesuit on. Either way, you will die. And when you die, you will wake up at the same moment in time when the game began. As it turns out, you are in a time loop. You are living out the day over and over again.
But what if you don't die? Whelp, you'll still die anyways. At the end of 22 minutes, the sun goes super nova, killing you and everyone else. This will also reset the loop. Why is this happening? You don't know, but the clues to it are scattered everywhere. Pretty soon, you are landing on planets, poking around, looking for the reason the system keeps blowing up and killing everybody. Nobody is telling you what to do at any point. It's just you, trying to learn why it's all happening, trying to learn the meaning of the loop you are caught inside. And that is the genius of this game: it's all you.
"Outer Wilds" is a thinking man's game. It isn't about shooting things or fighting off evil; it's about unraveling a mystery 22 minutes at a time. And knowing you are going to die will only make you brave. You'll go to places scarier than you can imagine, because if you fail you'll just be back to try again. It's all about just trying to learn one more thing before everything starts over. You can do it... all you need is 22 minutes.
This game has a similar vibe to a much older game called "Myst." Myst had a very simple solution to solving it, but you had to spend hours and hours on it trying to figure out what that solution even was. But once you figure it out, "Myst" could be beaten in minutes. "Outer Wilds" is the same sort of game, but it has a much better presentation and gameplay. And the best part about it is that it is entirely powered by your own curiosity. You are the driving force that makes everything work; the game isn't really doing anything but existing until you look into it. Brilliant.
The worst thing about "Outer Wilds" might surprise you. Once you unravel its mysteries and finish the game... you will miss it. You will feel like you lost something. There's no real reason to keep playing it because you already solved it. You'd have to wait a few years to forget everything, and so it's just suddenly over and gone. The worst thing about this game... is when it's over. Every game I played afterwards did very little to please me. I couldn't even enjoy "Doom."
This next statement is very true: "Outer Wilds" is my favorite game of all time. No game in my entire life made me feel this way. It haunted my dreams. I wanted to talk to people about it. One of the puzzles was actually solved while I was not even playing it. I just sort of figured it out while thinking it over. For about 30 hours, "Outer Wilds" became my life. I love this game so much, and I recommend it more than any game I have ever played. It should be a rite of passage for any thinking man or woman living on this planet. Go out there and explore.
This blog was written on July 28, 2025.
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Immersive, indeed. You were living in another universe and grew to love it. Solving the mystery brought you back to our universe. Interesting that the game is all about you taking personal initiative.
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