The Best Game I've Ever Played. No, I Will Not Explain (Outer Wilds Review)

 Foreword

What is the point? To be more accurate: why do we as people decide to do anything? The necessaties are easily explained by being required for us to survive. That's also not really what I am addressing. It's the finer things that I want to put into focus. Why am I writing this review? Why are you reading it? Why did either of us play Outer Wilds? When you strip away our need for food and shelter, what reason are we left with to do anything? Indeed, what is the point? 

To experience life. 

Truly, the reason why we exist is... simply that. We are here to exist and to bear witness to the world and universe and the indescribable mysticism that our existence contains. The main focus of Outer Wilds is not to answer the big question of why nor does it attempt to but by playing the masterpiece that is this game, that question ultimately gets answered. The point of Outer Wilds is to experience the game for what it is. To witness all that it has to offer. As such, it is absolutely in your best interest to avoid as much of the game as you can before you have the chance to play it for yourself. This is a game that needs to remain unspoiled for you to get the most out of it.

That being said, there is still so much I can tell you about and so much I can use as proof for why this is possibly the best game I've ever played. For those keeping score, that title previously belonged to Undertale, which I will get to later on in this review. 

If you are the type that doesn't even want the controls or basic premise spoiled (Love you, Arlo), then read no further. This game is a 10/10 and deserves it. For the rest of you, let's begin. 

What is Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds is, in the simplest terms, a space exploration game with puzzle elements. You begin the game as a Hearthian, a blue alien with four eyes, elf ears and no gender. You wake up on the planet Timber Hearth, having slept outside as part of your pre-flight ritual. You are one of the many Travelers part of the Outer Wilds Ventures - the space program your species developed. 

Your first view is that of a blue object streaking across a giant green planet in the distance. Looking around your immediate surroundings, you see one of your fellow Hearthians sharing your campfire. This is Slate, the engineer who created the space ship you are about to take into the vast emptiness. Through conversation with them, you are given your first objective. Find Hornfels to get the launch codes. You are then set off to explore your tiny village. Sitting directly above, accessible by an elevator, is your space ship. It's made of wood. Without the launch codes you are force to take the long way around, which allows you to meet the many villagers and see some of the notable locations on your tiny planet. This opening section is only time the game, in a way, holds your hand to explain its mechanics. Some of the villagers will teach you about your tools, such as the scout launcher and the signal scope or how to move through low gravity. While these tutorials are optional and can be skipped by not speaking with the Hearthians, the game is very methodical with how information is presented to you.

Upon entering the museum / observatory where Hornfels and another Hearthian, Hal, are hanging around, you see a giant statue of a goat-like creature with three eyes, a furry face and horns. Hal themselves are examining the statue and they explain that it is the first fully intact statue they've been able to recover. This particular one was brought back to your home by Gabbro, a fellow Traveler, from a place called Giant's Deep. The statue is that of a Nomai, an ancient space faring people that arrived in your solar system nearly 300,000 years ago, left evidence of their existence, and then mysteriously all died. 

The Nomai, who they were, what they did, and what happened to them is the main puzzle of the game. You are able to explore and discover things not related to these ancient people, but the main story does revolve around them. 

Hal also explains that they developed a translator to decode the spiraling Nomai text the species used and that you'll be the first Traveler that will be launching with said device. Moving past the main hallway, the museum proper has many displays that explain the solar system you have found yourself in. There are 10 celestial bodies on displayed, each one you are able to travel to and explore. These bodies serve, in a rudimentary way, as levels for the player. You are able to visit any of them in any order at any time. It's also possible that what you learn on one celestial body could teach you how to solve a puzzle on another. There are several other displays worth exploring before you head upstairs to Hornfels. 

Once upstairs you'll have a brief conversation with Hornfels where you can express your fear or excitement, as well as what you hope to accomplish on your exploration. This dialogue option, while serving no in game purpose other than world building, has such importance to it. Hornfels is truly speaking for the game overall. What do you want to do? Will you be the first to uncover all the mysteries of the Nomai? Will you be the first to land on the frozen comet that orbits your solar system? The game takes an open world approach and you are absolutely in the driver seat. As stated previously, you have full freedom on what you explore, when, and how you explore it. Many puzzles have intended solutions. Many more have unintended solutions. You are encouraged to try whatever solution you think is best based on the information you have already gathered. 

You are then handed the launch codes and wished a farewell. From here, you are into the meat of the game. You can choose to stay on Timber Hearth and explore some of the secrets that it holds or you can immediately take your ship and fly to the edge of your solar system. This is also where I end my explanation of the game's premise. There is a ton I purposefully left out to keep this as spoiler free as possible. There are several enticing and strange occurrences that happen in this opening sequence that will leave you wondering. 

The Mechanics

This game is smart. It utilizes literal rocket and space science in it's core mechanics. The game controls how any other first person game controls... while you are on Timber Hearth. Travel to one of the other celestial bodies and you will experience a change in the game's physics because, obviously, different planets have varying gravitational pulls. Giants Deep, that friendly green giant you first see upon opening your eyes, has a much stronger gravitational pull than the moon that orbits Timber Hearth. As such, how fast you move and how high you can jump is logically affected. 

You'll spend the majority of your time either in a space suit or a space ship. The suit doesn't affect your movement that much. You are given access to a jet pack that you can use to travel to high places or, if you are reckless enough, fast and high enough that you break out of a planet's orbit. Your space suit also comes with a heads-up display that conveys your oxygen levels, fuel in your jet pack, your health, your orientation on a xyz axis, and how strongly gravity is affecting you. All of this information is crucial for navigating the dangers of space. 

Inside your space ship, controls change a bit. The thing that will take the most getting used to, is that all of your movement in space requires momentum and retains said momentum. If you are traveling at 1000 meters per second towards the sun, it will take a negative force of 1000 meters per second to prevent you from colliding with the huge ball of fire. There is a bit of a learning curve but with enough practice you will find yourself doing some amazing feats with your wooden craft. The ship serves as your home base while away from Timber Hearth. You are able to heal and refuel your jetpack and replenish your oxygen levels. More importantly, you are able to check the ship log. The ship log is the only form of quest tracking the game provides and the information it gives is thankfully limited. You will not have any kind of quest marker or way point in this game. The ship log contains all of the relevant information you have learned by either witnessing it with your own eyes or by translating Nomai text. The ship log is presented to you one of two ways. You can either view it on a planet-by-planet basis, in which the logs are all organized in a bullet point fashion. The way I preferred to view it is as the conspiracy web, with each major mystery organized by planet with threads connecting each of them. In either mode, you may see an icon that flat out tells you "There is more to discover here".  As you explore, you will occasionally see a message stating the ship log has been updated, letting you know you witnessed or discovered something of note. 

Likewise with the premise breakdown, there are things I'm leaving out here on purpose. You'll just have to learn what else there is by playing it for yourself. 

The Sights and Sounds

I simply cannot praise Andrew Prahlow's work on the game's soundtrack enough. I normally don't listen to video game OSTs as part of my normal lineup but I've added several tracks from Outer Wilds to my Bradical Bangers list on Spotify. (Link? I guess: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3HZaVrdzY6dnlkecyQ7jtt?si=4f9452269f1a4d5c) While I won't name drop most of the tracks cause of spoilers, my favorites are without a doubt Timber Hearth, Space, Travelers and one from the DLC that I can't name drop. The game knows when to be quiet and when to be an orchestral masterpiece. "Space" is a track you'll hear often, since it is the music that plays any time you are flying in your ship but get out and walk on foot or, heavens forbid, drift off into space in just your suit, then you'll have nothing but the silence of space and your jetpack to keep you company. 

Other than the music, the sound design is great to. As stated above, you are going to hear a lot of footsteps and engine thrusters but none of it becomes annoying. There is no voice acting in the game, which I don't believe hinders it in any way. Everything has a fantastic sci-fi sound to it blended perfectly with the folksy nature of the Hearthians. 

The graphics are also stellar. (Oh hey, an accidental pun). I played on, and you are viewing screenshots from, the Nintendo Switch and I feel I did not experience a lesser product for it. That being said, of course a PC is going to look sharper and cleaner, but my console experience still left me in awe of the things I got to witness. Like I said previously, there are 10 different locations for you to explore and each has a distinct look. Timber Hearth looks uniquely like Timber Hearth and you will not find it's environment anywhere else in the game. Likewise, none of the planets can be mistaken for each other. 

Even the technology is uniquely Hearthian. This species loves their rustic aesthetic and put wood working into everything, which to be fair is the main material their planet has. It is also visually different from the few scraps of Nomai tech you may stumble upon, who favored a more traditional white and sleek spacey look that you've probably seen before. 

If you've ever looked up at the stars with the same curious wonder I have, then you'll be in for a treat because that is literally every frame of this game. Everything you see and wonder about can be explored. During the night time, you can view nearly every planet in your solar system. The game follows the perfect loop of seeing a curious thing and then traveling to said thing.

My Experience

What I got from my time with Outer Wilds may vary from what you recieve. I feel it is worth mentioning that I purchased this game as a Christmas present for my forever person after she told me how much I would love it. We then proceeded to do nothing but play this game for several weeks straight. It became our thing; traveling the stars and theory crafting about what the story is and how to solve the next puzzle. I would be remised if I did not admit that this very likely affected my view of the game. We're both fans of mysteries, especially those involving an ancient civilization or the paranormal (I'll review Gravity Falls one of these days, I'm sure). 

However, I feel a solo experience would bring about the same level of emotion I have towards Outer Wilds. I love space and the curious wonder that it is brimming with. Each mystery solved opened the room for more theories and questions and filled me with such a sense of elation and excitement. There is something special about learning who the Nomai were and learning their story. 

I started this review by saying Outer Wilds taught me that experiencing life and witnessing all that's around is the point. I still strongly hold this belief. Now I won't proclaim to have had a life altering experience from this game. I already had the thought of "life is meant to be experienced" before this game introduced itself to me. In contrast, I've seen countless people on the reddit say that they did have an Earth-shattering moment with the game. Side note: Shout out to r/OuterWilds. If you get stuck on this game and don't mind potentially being spoiled, this is the place you should go. The community there is very careful with what they share and try their best to stay spoiler free, even in the hints everyone provides.

Outer Wilds is certainly something you should experience for yourself. The sad nature of the game being a once in a lifetime experience is that once you've witnessed all that there is, it is difficult to replay the game. It relies so much on discovery and mystery that once that is taken away, it's difficult to find the motivation to go through it again. I've yet to truly try to play the game through from start to finish again, since I'm waiting for time in my upload schedule to possibly make a machinima series, so perhaps this feeling will go away when I approach it from a different angle. 

Regardless, my time with Outer Wilds is one that will live with me forever. Through all my vague explanations, I hope that is conveyed clearly enough. I may be biased since I got to experience all of this with my favorite person, who shared my feelings all the way through it. I almost can't put into words how special this game is to me. 

As I said at the top of this post, Undertale was declared my favorite game of all time. In many ways, both games trigger the same emotions within me. Which makes sense as well. At the point in my life when I first played Undertale, I was very much in my healing phase. I was reconnecting with my lady love after nearly a decade of minimal contact. The story of Undertale, one of growth and forgiveness, resonated so deeply in me at that time. The Pacifist Ending of Undertale will live with me right alongside Outer Wilds. Undertale had the amazing cast of characters, one which I cared for and related to on a higher level than most games. Outer Wilds had the once in a lifetime experience of solving a mystery and uncovering truths of an ancient past. Both are perfect video games and I'm sure my number one spot will continue to flip flop between the two.

Perhaps it's a measure for my life's trajectory. When I played Undertale I was in desperate need of companionship and through my love of it, I managed to find that companionship. By sharing my love for its characters and story, I was able to find both common ground and self-forgiveness. When I played Outer Wilds, I was in search of myself and my motivations to continue trying my hardest at creating media. Through my experience of Outer Wilds, I managed to find that there is more to this life than success and accolades. Living life is the point. 

And Outer Wilds is the best game I've ever played. 

10/10

Big Boi Lovings

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Score Breakdown:


10) Big Boi Lovings - A perfect score. Any negatives are insignificant.


9) Marvelous - A nearly flawless piece of media. A few gripes prevent it from being perfect.


8) Recommended - An excellent piece of media that should not be skipped, despite a few complaints.


7) P. Good - Above average. Some of the problems are a touch painful.


6) Hard Enjoy - Despite the issues that are present, I want to be a fan of the media - even though it hurts.


5) Aight - Average. The experience is overall hit or miss but does nothing to "wow" or warrant hate.


4) Inoffensive- The media is not an enjoyable experience but also not a painful one.


3) Condemned - Enough problems are present that I regret consuming the media.


2) Poopie Bad Stuff - Terrible. I could hardly find any enjoyment, though it didn't cause an angry rant.


1) Dupid - I hate it. You probably know I hate it because I would not have been quiet about it.