LogFAQs > #951528809

#2 - The Outer Wilds (PC, my GotY for 2019)


This game may well be the very reason I wanted to start this project in the first place. I honestly didnt think this game would be my kind of game when I bought it. It was pitched to me as an open-world exploration game where you go to different planets and solve puzzles that will give you clues on how to solve puzzles on other planets. My initial thought was that it would be like The Witness, which is a game I enjoyed, but wasnt something I considered exceptional. I passed on trying it until the beginning of last year when an Epic Games sale put the game down to $15 plus a $10 coupon to be used on something else. I decided to jump on that, but even then, it just sat there on my computer for a while. When summer hit, I had a lot of free time on my hands, and started a new game binging spree, with Outer Wilds at the forefront.

Little did I know that this first game was about to change my life. Discord has documented a timeline for when I played the game. I started the game the night of May 19, and beat the game in the wee hours of May 21 after a 14-hour marathon play segment. I was fucking glued to this game from the moment I started. And every single moment of that time I spent was worth it. There are certain high points to the game, but there are no low points. Its absolutely insane how much everything in this game comes together to make such a perfect experience.

I will do better to explain the overall premise than I had first heard. You start out as an anthropomorphic amphibian who has just earned his space pilots license. You are tasked with using a newly-developed technology that is able to translate a long-extinct mammal races writing (the Nomai) that is scattered all over the solar system. You must commandeer your wooden spaceship around the various nearby planetary bodies and try to figure out why they suddenly disappeared. There are no upgrades or new abilities you will ever acquire over the course of the game. The only hindrance to progress you can make in the game is knowledge about how the planets around you function. I could boot the game up right now, on a new file, and go beat the game just as easy as I did at the end of my 30-hour file, in a matter of about 20 minutes, because I know all the beats.



This is an example for how your first voyage might go, as you begin playing this game. You head to the giant water planet with a dozen constant tornadoes called Giants Deep. There are a few areas of note there where you can read some general info about how the old Nomai lived and find a few areas you dont know how to get into. When youre done, you then take off toward the crumbling planet with a black hole core, called Brittle Hollow. There, you learn some more general plot points, and figure out a new, useful tidbit that would teach you how to progress somewhere on the twin planets where sand flows back and forth: the Ash Twins. You decide to head there, and go to the new place you figured out, and you find another clue for how to get to one of the areas you couldnt figure out on Giants Deep, so now you can go back there and learn something else new.

Of course, your first voyage might also be a 30 second trip into the center of the sun. You really havent played the game correctly unless youve met a fiery end to the sun at least once. Obviously, the entire game isnt this cut and dry. Many of the clues you come across are quite vague, and its up to you to piece the clues together to reason out how to proceed, especially towards the endgame. The game is very loosely a Metroidvania where you return to places youve been before because you can get into new areas there now. Its just that youre utilizing knowledge of how it all works to get in, not a new upgrade or something.

This idea for a game is neat, but it wouldnt be nearly as great as it is if it hadnt supplemented some of the most exceptional storytelling Ive ever witnessed. Im typically not a fan whenever a game decides to tell, rather than show, but Outer Wilds kinda does both at the same time, to amazing effect. You will read about something the Nomai discovered thousands of years ago, but its a big hint for what youre supposed to do and you will just get to experience what they discovered for yourself. As a massive bonus, the Nomais tale is told spectacularly. No matter what order you view them in, you will get attached to certain names, and they all have distinct personalities in their writing.



Despite all this praise Im heaping on the journey, the destination makes even more of an impact. There is an ending to the game, and its absolutely phenomenal. Its literally changed my way of thinking about life and our individual role in the universe. Similar to the Danganronpa games Ive listed, Ive loved checking out other peoples playthroughs on YouTube. If you would care to check out some of my favorites, I would recommend Vinnys from Vinesauce for its entertainment value, and Materwelonz for its critical thinking and emotional values.

There isnt a single negative thing I can conjure up about this game. Upon reflection, I do believe I lied in my Ghost Trick and Undertale write-ups. Outer Wilds might actually be the most flawless game Ive ever played, and its a much greater undertaking than those games are. The characters are all full of so much personality, those that are alive andthe ones that are dead. The music is also perfect. You only get stingers for most of the game, until you happen upon something particularly important, at which point a little 1-minute melody will play that fits the particular mood. Make it to a fun experiment room? A happy little ditty will play as you peruse the area. Follow a lead that turns into a disaster? A somber tune will course through your ears. And yet the piece that will stick with me the longest is 100% this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVGlXbApOCs

There isnt a single song that will get more of a visceral reaction out of me than hearing this one in-game. If youve played it, you know why.

Theres always that question hopping around Board 8 of if you had the pen from Men in Black and were able to erase a single game from your memory so you could experience it for the first time again, what would it be? My answer would be Outer Wilds, 100%. Since that will never be a realistic option for anyone, if Ive managed to persuade you to give the game a shot, let me know. Experiencing one of my absolute favorite games of all-time again through my friends is as close to that as I will ever be able to get.

ASTROLOGICAL OBJECT RANKINGS:
Ash Twins > Giants Deep > Mystery Moon > Timber Hearth > Interloper > Dark Bramble > Attlerock > Brittle Hollow

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Xbox GT/PSN name/Nintendo ID: TatteredUniform
http://www.scuffletown.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/tRBE1.gif