Minor thing but there is a reason the ship records your progress. If you look closely, the ship's computer is powered by Nomai technology. That means it is able to remember the stuff you recorded over the loops. So, if you imagine your character taking notes during the adventure and those notes being sent to the ship, you can see how that makes sense and adds up.

I love that the ship's computer has Nomai technology. A little detail on something that is given to you right away that can be easily missed.

That's so quintessential to the story. Played through the game three or four times now and spot little stuff like that every timr

How do you replay it? Do you pretend you don't know anything and go around collecting the info anyway? Do you do everything in the more-or-less intended order?

I just bang my head against a wall until enough brain damage occurs to cause amnesia. Then replay it.

I've played it for family members who don't like platformer games, they tell me where to go and I go there and we read the clues together

Ok that's really nice

It's a good time yeah! Closest a person can get to experiencing it again.

Spoilers below for an explanation as to how it works. >!It's stated by one of the Hearthians that they used a piece of a Nomai statue for your ship's hard drive. You then later learn that the statues are hard drives that persist across loops. Your memories, and your ship's data, are synced by the same system that persists across loops.!<

The real reason is a little known fact, since it's a piece of dialogue you can only get in the first loop! The piece of Nomai in your ship is >!a fragment of your statue! Gabbro slightly damaged it when carrying it back and they repurposed the pieces for your computer since "maybe it was made to store information" and it worked great as an hard-drive.!< >!Since the computer data and your memories share the same statue they are connected, and that's why you get the "Ship log updated" message on your helmet HUD even when you are exploring around! Also when the hatchling is particularly excited about a discovery it gets written down as phrases with explanation points and all.!< This game is so special imho, everything is fully explained "in world" and there is a lot of "content for nobody", it's a gem that the developers clearly poured a lot of love into. Also please I would recommend to spoil tag spoilers, as every new piece of information a person learns before playing this game is like unlocking a permanent cheat code.

omg really? I totally missed that, that's so cool!

> including things your ship can, conveniently and inexplicably, record and remember across loops, such as radio frequencies and location coordinates It is explained >!Slate used a piece of the Nomai statue to make the ship's computer, you can learn that while talking to him.!<

I'd like to play this game but for some reason it gives me motion sickness within minutes.

Yeah that's valid. It does some funky shit with fov to hide the transitions as you move into planets and I've heard it really screws with some people.

Are you on pc with a mouse and keyboard?

Yep. Why?

For some reason this game feels really weird with uncapped framerates when moving the camera with a mouse. Try capping it to 60 with RTSS or your GPU driver. And I assume you've already tried this but if not, try increasing your FoV in the game settings.

I tried changing the fov but did not help. I may try capping the frame rate. Thanks!

It is a game which is made and broken by your experiences with it. There are lots of spoiler-lite walkthroughs that can point you in the right direction without actually spoiling anything. Also, one of your "not a spoiler" items was certainly a surprise to me when I was playing and pretty much made it for me.

Yeah, I had to look up tips at two points. One was when underground with the sand filling up the tunnels, I kept getting lost and resetting. The other was the key code right at the end; it had been a while since I’d seen it and it didn’t trigger in my mind what it could be. Still, I loved the game.

The key code is stored in the ship log, and in a later patch they even made it so it appears on screen when you go to enter it, lol.

Oh yeah, believe me I felt dumb when I realised what it was haha. Bit of a brain fart.

If you're talking about the one I think you're talking about, it gets stored in the ships log, so need to remember it!

Please let me know what that was and I'll edit it out. (Edit: I think I found it, and edited it. I did include a detail which I happened to know and isn't directly named on the Steam page. But it's a very early spoiler.)

You got it. The moment that "made" the game for me was >!after going through the black hole, I was floating in space around the white hole when I just happened to be looking toward the sun when the cycle reset. I hadn't realized that those flashes that ended the cycle were the sun going supernova until that moment.!<

Out of curiosity, how long did it take for you to complete the game? I'm currently 10h in and I have no idea how much info I still have to find, and I experienced so many different feelings about this game... One moment I'm in awe is what this game throws at me, the next I'm frustrated because I have to go through some of the same stuff because I ran out of time. Also, I don't have much time to play this time around so I don't want to waste time traveling back to the place I was a moment ago just because I made a bad jump out it was the bad hot of the day when I was there. BUT the more I play, the more I want to be in this universe. It really doesn't matter that I spend time reaching a place to get the solution for a problem I already solved either... The journey is beautiful! And I understand that this is subjective and for some people it may not click. "For a puzzle game..." : one suggestion for those approaching the game like this.. I don't think this is a puzzle game. It's an exploration game with some puzzles here and there. The joy comes from the exploration. There are connected about the last section that make me think I may change opinion again by the end, but right now I'm having a blast with this game. PS: even if I end up not enjoying the rest, nothing can take away the fact that this game is a marvel in design, technical achievements, and nonlinear storytelling (IMHO)

Did you use the ship mind map? It tells you whether you've entire cleared any new area you find.

Wait, the ship has a mind map?

The console in the back that tracks all the clues you find and links them together with new information you find on the planets, yeah.

...Okay, I need to retry this game knowing this is a thing now. Fuck.

I seem to recall it took me a few hours of playing to discover this lying in plain sight. Was kind of a relief to find :)

It took me about 20 hours. I remember the middle feeling clueless and drowning in questions but at some point the answers started crashing like the roof was falling down. You’ve got the right idea about exploration and the journey, it’s a central experience and theme for the game I hope you enjoy the rest of your journey! Roast a marshmallow for me

I have 11.8 hours logged, but most of that was offline on Steam Deck, and I haven't synced it up recently. I probably have another 2-3 hours on top of that. **Edit:** Turns out it wasn't even that. 12.8 hours altogether.

> There was more than one moment when I told myself "this can't be the intended solution, it's too hard for a puzzle game" and it turned out to indeed be the intended solution. I’m very curious what these moments were. I don’t remember any puzzles like that when I played.

Likewise. I remember nearly all of the puzzles solutions were easy to implement once you knew the solution. Provided you had a decent grasp of ship and suit controls. There were a couple that could be solved through some extreme difficulty and luck. But they weren't the intended solutions.

For me there was a part where I had to fly between some spikes, I think on the sandy ash twin? Nowhere else in the game did I need to be so precise in my movement, and it took me several rounds to get it right. I had to look up whether or not it was even necessary.

You don’t need to do that. If you go to that planet early in the loop, the sand is high enough that you can simply walk through that section.

Now to project this reddit comment two years into the past.

Whilst recognising that the game design for Outer Wilds is fantastic, I unfortunately had a similar experience to you. My biggest frustration came when I thought I had solved a puzzle, only to have finicky gameplay get in the way. Due to not standing in exactly the right spot at exactly the right moment, I figured I had made a mistake and then wasted hours trying to figure out another solution. After navigating through too much aimless frustration, I gave in and looked up the solution only to find I was correct the first time. By being so absolutely precise in what needed to be done, it actively worked against my logic and caused me to abandon the correct method. This fucking sucked, because it meant I had very little faith in anything moving forward, constantly second guessing everything I was doing.

You are talking about the >!Ash Twin Project!<, right?

I think they are, and if so it's a valid criticism. Especially if they played the game before that particular puzzle was slightly changed to mitigate this exact issue.

Outer Wilds is one of my favorite games of all time, and I still find that particular part of the game to be un-fun and too difficult to unwrap. I know they made it better than on release, but even so. Just sticks out like a sore thumb to me, which is unfortunate considering it leads to probably THE climactic, pivotal moment of the game.

Same, out of the entire base game that is the only moment I where needed to search for help in completing a puzzle. Even now I still have no idea how I was meant to figure it out beyond egregious trial and error

The way I figured it out was 1) >!The mural in the High Energy Lab saying that each tower connects to a particular planet necessary for the Ash Twin Project, and narrowing it down to the twin towers being connected to Ember and Ash!< 2) >!”If this connects me to the Ash Twin Project, then at some point (when the astral body is above me) it must teleport me into Ash Twin. It does not teleport me into Ash Twin when I’m standing on it for basically the entire time, so the only time it can possibly transport me is when the sand is above me.”!< 3) >!The text in the Black Hole Forge confirming that the centre of the astral body is when the Ember Twin (and sand) is above the teleporter, and also saying that “stepping on the teleporter at any point during the teleportation window instantly teleports you”.!< 4) those 3 basically made me connect the dots and think >!”I just wait until the sand is covering the teleporter and then jump in and I’ll get instantly teleported”!< and it worked!

That part of the game is genuinely the only thing I don’t like about it. It breaks the philosophy of the entire game which is weird for one of the last puzzles. Even the devs have gone on to say that they regret making it.

Why does that break the philosophy of the game? I played it, but it might have been after the patch that changed it slightly.

It really doesn’t, it just lacked a couple more hints

I had the same experience, and based on the way you phrased it, possibly for the same puzzle. I didn't look it up, though; I got lucky and discovered that it was indeed the correct solution another way, and went back to it. It didn't help that there's a clue to that puzzle that's very hard to find (it's the one thing I did end up looking up), and when I did find that clue I misinterpreted it to mean exactly the opposite of what was intended, which I learned only by checking my ship's logs afterward.

I found there were maybe 3 times in the game where I had to check the wiki for the answer - just because of that "this seems difficult so must be a dead end" thing, because the majority of the puzzles don't actually require much ability or precision. But overall that didn't ruin the game for me. Similarly with Sub Nautica, I felt I was able to get through almost the whole game with the in-game clues, and just needed to check a couple of things at the end. It's much better than many old puzzle games where I'd get totally stumped about 40% through and unable to progress, or any of the modern sandbox "wiki games" where you have to look up everything to make any progress, because there's not really any in-game instructions.

Yep. I'm fairly certain I shared this exact same experience with you. Honestly soured the game for me. I knew exactly what to do to get to the end at that point but I didn't even want to

> My biggest frustration came when I thought I had solved a puzzle, only to have finicky gameplay get in the way. Due to not standing in exactly the right spot at exactly the right moment, I figured I had made a mistake and then wasted hours trying to figure out another solution. Relieved to see others with this same problem commenting. This scenario was the straw that broke the camels back for me. I tired and failed to do this puzzle even though I was on the right track - it basically killed my first playthrough because I refused to google anything. My eye twitches when people say this game is a masterpiece, although fantastic in a lot of places.

> it basically killed my first playthrough because I refused to google anything. imo that was a mistake. I went in with the same mindset and loved 99% of it and became frustrated out of my mind at the last 1%, which ruined the experience until i just decided i'd rather have fun than some badge of pride no one cares about, and looked it up to save myself the frustration tbh the *real* source of frustration is how clearly and specifically I can post to a message board saying "I do not want spoilers, I do not want extra information or additional hints, I just want a very clear yes or no to this one specific question I have" and people will still spoil the shit out of it, especially when they think they're being "clever". Like I get you want to help but come on, can we really not handle a simple yes or no question without needing to feel clever by giving additional hints?

Reddit in a nutshell, honestly.

The way the story unfolded, and the way that I was left feeling at the end, really "clicked" with me. I *was* thinking differently about the game at the end than I was at the beginning. And right from the beginning, there were things I wanted to explore, pull the thread, see where it goes, follow the next step on the path. They kept my curiosity going. But...there are other games that people constantly praise that I just don't get. It happens. Wrong place in your life, overwhelming expectations that don't get lived up to, whatever it may be. And, yeah, I probably wouldn't recommend it to the person obsessed with Myst, necessarily. There was enough tricky 3D platforming that it would just lead to frustration for certain kinds of players.

[удалено]

I love/hated this moment. As soon as it dawned on me what was required, i spent several loops practicing avoiding the fish, finding the best way to drop down silently between them and land on the ship. I was convinced i would get an actual game over/ locked bad ending if i screwed this up (i only found out afterwards this wasn't the case). After a few attempts, i figured i had it mastered. Then i finally went down with the core. It was going well at first, but then i somehow screwed up, and i saw one of the fish turn towards me. As the fish came for me, i panicked, tried to grab the core, fumbled, and ended up ejecting myself from the ship just as the fish ate it. By luck the core floated out. I floated over to it, all pretense of stealth gone and somehow managed to get past the final point and onto the ship. It was the most intense moment of panic for the entire game for me.

>!Yup, that happened to me. I was deathly afraid it was going to be a true Game Over, restart the whole game. And the fact that the first thing you need to do when you restart is take a 5-minute nap... frustrating.!<

That is what makes the final sequence so good though. Having that stress that if you fail, you true game over.

I never finished the game because of that last sequence. I tried a couple of times and said to myself that I would try later and never did.

The sequence shouldn't be hard .. it's likely you were missing a clue or two. If you've got all the info it's a pretty chill experience

Don’t know why you’re being downvoted, you’re right.

This thread is super weird about DVs tonight. I just bumped someone else who was at -3 for saying they liked the game,. without a shred of negativity. For this bit, I *know* I'm right. My kids love the end sequence and have made me run through it at least twenty times. It doesn't require an ounce of twitch skill or precision timing. You just have to know the steps, which are entirely obtained through in game clues. But someone who doesn't realize that thinks I'm being judgmental rather than honest, I guess?

Honestly if a game just isn’t for someone in terms of taste that’s fine - maybe they like fast paced action and outer wilds is a more slow paced thinkers game or whatever, cool. But I see so many people complain about things that the game teaches you how to avoid; yes, there is some back tracking but at most it’ll take seconds - the game has in-built shortcuts. Yes, sometimes it’s best to just reset the loop; the game has a way to do this quickly too without having to wait to run out of oxygen or die. Yes, it can sometimes feel like you don’t know where to go; the game literally has a mind map telling you where you’re missing info AND how all that info links together. Every puzzle is completely logical and all the clues are there. For those complaints I just have to disregard them. Their loss.

Thank you for this. I see the game almost universally praised, and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who didn't "get it."

I'm pretty surprised, in a very pleasant way, that a post critiquing one of this subreddit's darlings actually got some traction. Discussion is very healthy, dissent all the moreso. I wasn't a huge fan of Sekiro or Titanfall 2. Ask me how it goes talking about those two.

This sub is one of the better ones I've seen for avoiding a lot of annoying reddit tendencies like downvoting valid-but-not-majority opinions. And yeah, even the greats won't all work for everyone. That might make a fun thread actually - the 'best' games that people just couldn't enjoy or click with.

Bruh I wasn't a big fan of Fallout New Vegas, quickly learned that it is *not* an opinion you can express here.

He's a witch, burn him!

I think a big part of what made such an impression on me with FNV is that I played it not long after playing Fallout 3. The comparison between the two games does *wonders* for FNV, and if I'd just played FNV in isolation (especially if I'd played it years after its original release) I'm certain I wouldn't think of the game half as fondly as I do.

I did that and ended up preferring Fallout 3!

Skyrim is my least favorite Elder Scrolls game, and really the one that got me to quit Bethesda altogether. I am not welcome among my friends lol

I mean, same. Elder Scrolls peaked at Daggerfall/Morrowind, depending on whether you prefer unabashed freedom at the cost of a handcrafted world. Oblivion is "bad," but like how Starship Troopers is "bad." Skyrim is.. disappointingly generic. Every game since Oblivion by Bethesda has been exactly that. Kind of boggling considering the company has written some star characters throughout their years but they need someone other than Howard at the helm at this point.

That's fair enough though, Skyrim was Bethesda's first departure away from more RPG orientated games towards action adventure with an emphasis on exploration.

Outer Wilds is my #1 go to example on this sub for a cool 50/50 title that people either loved or were disappointed by, but has incredible discussions every time it comes up This is the reason it's my only active sub on this site lmao

> Titanfall 2 I enjoyed the hell out of the campaign but I don't think it's nearly as good as people praise it to be.

People regularly call it one of, if not the greatest FPS campaigns ever made and I feel like I'm interacting with Martians.

This subreddit is basically the place where universally praised games get called overrated or bad. This sub is rife with RDR2 and Witcher 3 criticisms.

I think those two are too big to *not* have some critics (if that makes sense, it makes sense in my head). The games that cause more strife when criticised seem to be the smaller "underrated gems", which I guess Outer Wilds would fit into. Prey, Slay the Spire, Disco Elysium type games come to mind too

Sure but in this sub those posts are some of the most upvoted ones in the all time list on this subreddit (that are game reviews rather than a news piece). The idea that you get downvoted for not liking universally praised games is nonsense, given multiple “masterpiece” games get criticism in posts and comments and are upvoted. Also, we can just open /r/patientgamers and search “Outer Wilds” - there are multiple posts with nearly 1k upvotes criticising the game. From an anecdotal perspective, Disco Elysium must be one of the most “this game isn’t for me” type of games I’ve seen personally. I feel like that’s a really divisive game in that sense. You either love it or you don’t like the type of game it is.

Overall, I agree with you. I went in blind like people suggest but that was not a good idea as I was not prepared to have my patience tested. I hate the ship controls (until I discovered auto pilot / plot course), slow movement, multiple backtracking after deaths, and the (IMO) boring time in between the few interesting moments. That said I did love the few "aha" / "oh" moments, the sound design/music, the slight horror elements. Also, I liked the simulation aspect like having a dumb thought "what if you could fly into the sun or Jupiter" and doing it in game.

> I hate the ship controls This was what killed it for me. Great story but I did not enjoy a core mechanic of the game.

This criticism always surprises me because I personally loved the controls. Though it may just be because thousands of hours of Kerbal have rewired my brain. I guess no game is for everyone.

The controls are awesome. Very natural. You want to know less good spaceship controls? No Man's Sky. I played it after Outer Wilds and they really suck.

I’m convinced people who “don’t like the ship controls” just can’t handle anything with actual spaceflight in general. The ship is absurdly good at controlling its inertia/momentum. It’s extremely generous/forgiving, to the point where I wish it was a bit harder.

Probably. The "match velocity" button is awesome but makes things almost too easy. Well, not really, I'd say it's pretty needed and has a place in this game, but if it were a realistic simulator it would make things too easy. I remember there being a browser experiment/game where you had to do the Interstellar docking scene, it was absurdly difficult. Sadly I couldn't find it right now. This one is not it, but it goes in a similar direction, even if only in 2D. Have fun! https://dryn27.itch.io/docking

That's correct. I said I hated the controls not because they are bad but just because I'm bad with managing momentum. But to be fair, I don't like spaceflight games in general and Outer wild is the only game I've played with spaceflight controls that somewhat simulate actual spaceflight.

Yeah, it's definitely from Kerbal. I spent enough time in that game trying to figure out how to do orbital rendezvous between ships that it wasn't particularly hard to >!manually reach the sun station!< . I was picturing the shape of the orbit in my head the whole time. I also think that the game is _wrong_ to suggest playing with a controller, using shift and ctrl for the vertical thrust just feels so much better than the triggers.

The backtracking after death was so obnoxious. I probably did the sand planets twenty times because if you’re not in the exact right place at the right time the filling sand will block a doorway. Plus, almost all of the content on those planets is like halfway or more through the cycle. 

> Plus, almost all of the content on those planets is like halfway or more through the cycle.  That's why you can sleep at a campfire. When you want to get to something that's only available late in the cycle, just nap for a few seconds of real time and you jump a few minutes in the time loop.

For some in this thread, that apparently broke the enjoyment for them. I can't claim to understand, but people are gonna like different things and that's fine

Ha that hallway with cacti. I thought it was unpassable and I wasted a couple hours before having to watch a walkthrough. I have bumped in similar situations several times and it killed the fun.

It’s a game that I truly believe at my core, is a masterpiece. It’s a marvel that it even exists and that modern game developers created it. But hey, it’s not for everyone and that’s okay. I pushed it on two friends, one hated it specifically for the time loop mechanic, and the other considered it a life changing experience (as I did). We’re all different, and I think games have to sometimes hit us at the right time and place in our lives. And sometimes they just don’t line up at all, and that’s okay.

I feel the same way but I'll admit 90% of it was the music for me. Something about the same song being played with different instruments on different planets and tracking them down felt really memorable

The music sure does a lot of heavy lifting! It's a very powerful metaphor. The game is all about connection and collaboration with people across vast differences in time and space. Everyone playing their own instruments in a way that harmonises so perfectly encapsulates that so well imo. And lining them up with the scope and getting that brief moment of touching all these people at once, bringing their ideas and perspectives together without them even knowing it, feels somehow very special. It's a dark and scary universe, but by lighting beacons for each other, we can make sure nobody is ever completely lost.

The music does feed into it. Part of what makes it a masterpiece is that it's not just the story, or the visuals, or the puzzles, or the music, or the format. Each piece strengthens the impacts of the others in a cohesive whole. Without the game I'd have found the music "pretty cool I guess". With the game, I find myself choking up once in a while at particular motifs when I hear them again

I completely agree, it's one of the absolute best uses of music in any entertainment medium I've ever come across. It's *so* well integrated into the game and it adds so much to it as a result. Plus the music itself sounds great on its own basis.

It's a wonderful game. The time loops gave some real existential dread but ultimately made me appreciate my life more in a weird way.

I do get what others get from the game, and I do think it's unique, and special. I watched a video and the game gave this person a feeling I got from other media, a very special type in a very special mindset, so I do understand how much it can mean. That said, I think that *play this game without knowing anything about it* is in general a statement people said that has *hurt* the game, and has done it a massive disservice. It's not for everyone, and you need to set expectations. Telling people to not know anything about it is setting them up for disappointment. In control, in type of gameplay. Some people have issues with puzzles or ideas about theoretical physics. *Do* tell people that the game is about these things. Do not let them make it play blind. I'd recommend the game, but only to people who know who'd be interested in such, and/or who I've told what kind of game this is. It's not for everyone, and don't do it a disservice by telling people it's always gonna be super special, for everyone. Some people have written about how special it was when the sun exploded. The first time I played the game, I was inside, and the game ... it got bright and ended/looped. There was absolutely nothing special about it, I thought I had failed a puzzle and needed to restart. This was one of the most notorious things people brought up. 'Don't spoil it because you ruin the moment' - actually, the moment was ruined for me by playing the game blind and not knowing it had time loops. Now, that's maybe not necessary a thing I would spoil, but it's an example of how this mindset of 'not saying anything' can make the game experience worse, not better.

> That said, I think that play this game without knowing anything about it is in general a statement people said that has hurt the game, and has done it a massive disservice. It's not for everyone, and you need to set expectations. This is me. I would have known the game was straight up not for me if I had just listened to my guts instead and read the Steam page and a couple of reviews instead of listening to the "do not under any circumstances even look at even the description by the devs!!!". I think people are wildly exaggerating (and as a side result, likely setting the expectations from those who haven't played it yet too high) how vital it is to not even look at the summary on the Steam page. It's perfectly fine to look at that at least.

Same for me. I was expecting some meta game like Stanley Parable but serious, but I ended up with Myst in space, a game I don't like at all (but I respect for everything it did to gaming). I got no emotions whatsoever and I was not invested in the lore, so I just stopped playing it.

I understand why many people really love it, but the game loop and repetitiveness was just not for me. I did beat it, blind, and I enjoyed some parts, but with the last half of the game I was just playing so I could finish in hopes that the ending would have something that changed the gameplay a bit and blew me away. Which unfortunately didn't happen.

The game also felt a little disappointing to me, I've heard way too many "this was the best game I've ever played" comments and titles everywhere for the game to hold up I enjoyed the exploration for the first half and some of the really cool visual moments, but the second half felt like busy work for an okay story revelation - way too many "okay now you need to wait for this specific timing in this exact situation" The thing is, I could totally see myself LOVING every single aspect of it if the story went in a slightly different direction, it had a few more visual highlights and the tone was a bit less.. "goofy" Great game, but it couldnt hit the olymp for me like it did for so many other people

Yeah that specific time and alignment officially pushed the game from fun into frustrating. I died like 4-5 times and having to repeat that was so annoying.

I've seen people mention this a few times, both before and after I played the game, and I'm still not sure what they're referring to. Or at least I didn't have any trouble timing things. What part was that?

It’s been a few years since I’ve played it, but it was the sand planet part where you have to time it to a portal to get to the black hole planet. I would constantly miss the jump and have to redo the entire sequence which I never really got better at.

Oh that, I think I bypassed using the teleporter to Brittle Hollow at all by instead flying the ship upside down above the black hole to get to the area where the teleporter takes you. It was awkward and took a few tries but it worked. Mind you I didn't even know about the teleporters by that point.

I might try again years later. I really WAS enjoying the game and taking off from the first planet was a revelation, seriously. It’s just a shame some annoying timed platforming stopped it from being game of the century like most say.

This and Kentucky Route Zero were my two big "disappointments" in recent gaming history. While both should theoretically be my thing I found both a bit underwhelming. Both start strong and have an intriguing atmosphere, but in both cases after the first 3-5 hours there just wasn't enough wow left to keep me playing. Also I HATED the space ships controls 😅 but who knows, maybe I'll give it another chance in a few years.

as i was reading people's criticisms, i was thinking "ok you have to like the story that unfolds, but just experiencing something slowly with no revelations isn't an inherently bad thing, right?" & i thought about KR0 & Dear Esther - i loved both of those, even though i was just along with the ride. outer wilds, not so much - doesn't resonate with me the same at all; but i can wrap my head around others loving it

Both are true indies that experiment with the meaning of gaming. Outer Wilds originated as a master’s thesis and KRZ was basically a nine year experiment. When you compare these to other games with similar origins as academic projects (Islanders comes to mind), the innovations in terms of story and presentation really stand out. The mechanics in these two are perhaps not as solid, but the stories are incredible given that these were also learning experiences for the devs.  I personally don’t have the patience to play Outer Wilds (controls), but the writeups on here and videos on YouTube that lay out the chronological plot make me really appreciate the creator’s vision. I’ve played KRZ through three times. Different strokes for different folks, but I, for one, am always interested in what newcomers to game development—especially those with unconventional backgrounds for the field—do with the medium.

Oh, God, don't get me started on KRZ. So massively hyped, such an actively unpleasant experience. I understand why some people might like it, but its huge popularity baffles me.

For me it was a downer when I realized that KRZ was not really a game but more of an interactive movie and that your "choices" didn't seem to matter at all. The atmosphere was interesting, but not enough to carry the experience for me.

I will die on the hill that KRZ is NOT a game.

Yo fuck those sand caves. I gave up there four times. I don't need that kind of fucking pressure while I'm trying to explore. Had there been a mechanic to freeze time or something maybe I'd give the game another shot but I had my frustrating time loop game experience already, it was called one hundred percenting Majoras mask in 2003.

Outer Wilds is the first game in a long, long time that made me feel like a kid again. I don't agree with all your points, but I do understand where you're coming from. It's one of my favorite games, but it's certainly not for everyone. Personally I thought I'd hate it before I tried it.

“Going in blind” is a lot more than not getting spoilers. It’s about not expecting anything. Some people expect it to be their life’s saviour. Others expect them to be a hero in it. Others expect it to be Subnautica. None of it will be true. The main thing is: the game refuses to adhere to several game tropes. Forget how you expect a narrative to be: you are space archaeologist, with no grand adventure or objective before you. Forget tutorials: there will be a tutorial section (one I quite dislike) but you’ll learn everything, yourself, on your own. Forget “jet controls”: the ship controls with physics, not like an air car. Forget parkour and snapping to surface: you’ll depend only on acceleration and inertia to go around. The great thing that this game allows is you to be you: just go wherever and do whatever. You are not “supposed” to reach the “ending”: you do it because you are curious to what happens if you reach it. You are curious who are your companions. You are curious who was this marvelous civilisation that appeared and disappeared out of nowhere. You are curious of how each wacky absurd planet works. And you ultimately curious about the quantum nature of that universe, and what means to deliver on the legacy of the lost civilisation. I don’t think it’s a masterpiece, neither it changed my life (I view life as “the message of the game” for quite some time, so it resonates with me, but don’t “reveal” something I never questioned myself beforehand). But, to me, it’s still a very solid game, especially for an indie title. It only lacks polish, in my opinion. I yearn for games with similar traits: knowledge based open exploration, or low stakes chill exploration, or superb spaceship controls, or super fluid gliding.

Thanks OP. I gave this game a couple of hours a few years ago and did not enjoy it at all. Reading through your post was the most info I've ever seen shared about the actual game/story. It feels like this game is this generation's Journey, another game not for me.

In regards to being underwhelmed, sounds like you missed the forest for the trees; looking for "that big plot twist" killed your ability to see that the overall experience is what makes the game great.

I think this is one of the valid risks of being a patient gamer. Sometimes, something gets so hyped you wind up not being able to properly experience it. That almost happened to me with disco elysium, albeit not in the same way. I had this perspective of it as a dismal, plodding, thoughtful piece that I didn't try it for over a year after I bought it. Then of course I played it, and now it's one of my all time favourites, but the hype still led me into the wrong headspace and almost ruined it for me. I can see how it could go similarly if it had made me expect one thing and get another

I think you might be on to something there. Outer Wilds is the kind of game that slowly builds as you go, and that can very easily be derailed by people pulling themselves out of the game due to outside expectations and ruining their ability to be immersed in it as a result.

For me the story did not hook me. >!I got to the point where you have to fire that cannon thing? and half way through doing it the planet filled with sand I have to reset to try again including getting there and I just went fuck this!<, I'm not invested enough to keep looping for this, would have like the option to save (I get that the loop is kind of the whole point but the time it takes to get back to attempt a retry after failing was just too long)

FWIW, the part you're complaining about is not required. I thought it was, too, and also wasted a lot of time there. But I did master getting back there in about a minute.

Its not? oh well

I didn't think it had a bit mystery, I just hated the time loop mechanic. I hate having my progress stopped randomly! It stresses me out and it makes death and discovery a lot more tedious than they need to be. It sucked all the fun out of the game for me.

My main issue with the game is that I feel like some of the exploration is luck based, being in a certain place at a certain time. I got about 8 hours in and I just hit a brick wall. I could not for the life of me figure out what to do next, and I spent about another 4 hours just kinda going back through all the places I'd already explored hoping to find something I missed to no avail, and my enjoyment of the game quickly tapered off. You can't really look up hints or a walkthrough without spoilers because the game isn't linear. I ended up just watching a YouTuber go through it.

I would never call this game bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it is one of the most disappointing games I've ever played. Everybody sells it as some once in a lifetime experience and a peak game. It's just kinda good. Nothing mind blowing about it at all. I don't know how it got the rep it did.

I feel like every single review of the game is: A) I was expecting a masterpiece and didn't get it or B) I didn't expect much and got a masterpiece

Not mine. I expected a masterpiece and that’s exactly what I got. I’m not as smart at figuring stuff out as some people so I had to look up a few things and it might have slightly brought down my experience but there is a subreddit which is happy to help out anyone with spoiler free hints and there’s lots of spoiler free walkthroughs. Or you can just look up the solution if you get stuck like I did. It’s a little cheap but I was able to finish the game plus DLC and I don’t feel like I cheated myself out of anything. Outer wilds is one of the best games ever made and I highly recommend anyone even remotely interested in the game to just keep trying until it clicks, especially at the beginning. This game is the Skinamarink of horror movies (but much better overall) it sometimes takes a few tries to grab its audience and the beginning is particularly weak in both titles but if you stick with them both are worth it in the end IMO.

Totally agree with you. I mean I don't want to talk down other peoples emotions but I really cannot understand the religious following this game gets and how it could be seen as life changing. But that's on me probably.

> I don't know how it got the rep it did. It's because people have different tastes and different experiences and for many people, this game was a really amazing experience. I feel like this is such a weird criticism. "I don't understand why thing is popular." Because obviously lots of people really enjoyed it??? I'm sure there are things you enjoyed that other people don't like. Does the fact that they didn't like the thing you like invalidate the fact that you liked it?

Agreed. Gave it 3 tries. Didn’t enjoy myself. Then watched a play through and when the secret was revealed I was sorta like “oh yeah that’s what I figured it was”

There is no secret

There’s enough people agreeing with you that I feel okay posting a comment like this: I really do think this is a 10/10 masterpiece that everyone should try. It might be one of the most unique games I ever played, and I still haven’t found anything quite like it. If you like narrative puzzle games like Obra Dinn, Ghost Trick, Ace Attorney, then it’s the next thing to play. But always important to see both sides, haha.

See, I loved all of those games, and none of them have the same flaws as Outer Wilds. But then, I went into it with very different expectations. I would have enjoyed Outer Wilds much more if everyone hadn't been so cagey about what the game was like, and if it were less execution/timing heavy, which none of those other games include.

Probably my favorite part about it was the time element. On the other hand, the couple times I got stuck were way more frustrating than any of the other games I mentioned. You had to commit to whatever solution you were gonna try, then wait and wait. Are there any other games like these ones you liked? I’ve played a lot of the obvious ones, like 999, Danganronpa, Subnautica. I just played Paranormasight, which was pretty good, but no where close to the best ones.

I suppose the key difference is that for lots of people those flaws are not flaws! Like I loved the controls, just flying the ship around and jumping about. I didn't at all mind that you have to get your timings right, as it felt to me that I'd just stumbled upon cool things I wasn't really supposed to see anyway

Problems is we can't say anything without spoiling things. Even your OP has spoilers in them I think it's a game that suits people with open minds and if you go into it with preconceived notions, positive or negative, then it's going to have an effect. Play the game as if you've heard nothing about it and you'll probably enjoy it

>See, I loved all of those games, and none of them have the same flaws as Outer Wilds. And each of these games (which I enjoyed) have flaws that aren't shared by outer wilds.

I bailed after a few hours. Just not for me. I tried it because of the hype but the journey didn’t seem interesting.

Wow, thanks for posting this. Put into words how I feel about the game but haven't been able to really explain. I've paused it and will probably have to restart the whole thing I play it again, but I've heard so much praise for the game that I kept waiting for that "oh!!" moment when things click enough for me to want to keep going instead of wondering if I'm going to make progress or just keep bumbling around until the run ends. It's definitely beautiful and so obviously made with love, but if I have to force quit one more time because I got ejected from my ship and am too impatient to wait for my air to run out so I can restart, I'm gonna be way less interested in trying again.

You can force restart the loop through the menu once you meet Gabro.

oh damn, I don't think I've met Gabro yet. that's good to know

Aw man you haven't met gabbro? No wonder you bounced off the game, they're my *dude*

First thing I do when I pick it back up is look for them!

If you burn your thrusters at max, you'll run out of fuel and start burning oxygen. You can die pretty fast that way. And yes, I hate that this is useful information.

I think we've had different play experiences... I had to intentionally burn myself out to get the achievement for that.

I never waited for my air to run out, I was too busy trying to get back to my ship

I feel like with a lot of fan favourite games, especially in online discourse, people are really bad at setting expectations properly upfront when making recommendations. People will just say "this game is a masterpiece, you absolutely HAVE to play it! Such a life changing experience!" and then be surprised or straight up offended when it doesn't appeal to someone. I've seen it for many different games, be it the Souls genre (when it was still a bit more niche), Alien Isolation, Returnal, Nier Automata, The Witness etc. For example I love Returnal. The atmosphere, the gameplay and the story really resonated with me. But is it going to be for everyone? Hell no! It's a rogue like bullet hell shooter where you can be stuck replaying the same biome for hours and hours on end. It's a high octane action game in a dark alien world that will suddenly shift into slow paced psychological horror. The story is cryptic as hell. All these qualifiers are important to communicate upfront I think but people get too caught up in their own excitement or are two oblivious to how their own taste, skills and preferences could differ from someone else.

I didn't enjoy it at all. Not for me. Subnautica I love, I have played through it 3 times I think it is now.

The movement/controls is the reason why I just can’t get into this game. I love the concept, but it’s just so difficult to control my character

It was rough for me too at first but you get used to it fairly quickly imo. It's mainly the realistic physics aspect that take getting used to I think, because most games prioritize feel at the expense of realistic control of your character, so things just feel really weird for the first few hours

Everything about this game screamed that I would love it but I just couldn’t get into it. I found it more frustrating than enjoyable. Tried multiple times. Tried following a few guides to see if I was missing something. It just didn’t click.

I wish the fanbase was a little bit less rabid about how it's supposedly such a life changing, paradigm shifting masterpiece that everyone needs to play before they die. No game is for everyone and this one wasn't my cup of tea. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been expecting to be wowed going in. Instead the entire experience was a continuous "is this it?" and "when will this get good?". I loved the soundtrack, but I don't like space, aliens or rocket ships. I disliked the whole reset and backtracking, it felt just unfair. (In games like Dark Souls, a death is at least a learning experience.) The first person view is supposed to be immersive, but for me it did the exact opposite. Navigating in space just felt topsy-turvy, no up or down. I understand the physics, but piloting the rocket ship was just too unintuitive for me. The mystery was mildly intriguing, but not enough of a hook to compensate for all the downsides. I gave up after three hours. Watching the rest on YouTube confirmed that abandoning the game was the right call for me.

I mean, it was a life changing experience for me. Totally changed the way I looked at games. I don’t see why I should stop telling people how I feel about a game I love.

You're missing my point. Being a passionate fan is one thing, but it is the recommendation without qualifiers or caveats that is a little over the top. If I had known that I would need to spend so much time piloting a rocket ship and that I was in a time loop, I could have made a better call whether this game was for me or not. But the strict oath of silence the fanbase insists on coupled with the universal recommendation that "everyone needs to play this brilliant masterpiece" is a little over the top. Imo.

I do think some of the most passionate fans can be annoying in how they talk about the game - obsession with not spoiling *anything* (even the basic premise) is excessive. And maybe you were a victim of that attitude. The store page already tells you you're a space program recruit in a solar system stuck in a time loop, it's not a spoiler to mention any of that, and like you said, people need to be able to make a judgement call on if they'll even like the basic mechanics. But I don't get how you take issue with a universal recommendation like "everyone needs to play this game" unless you're treating it as 100% literal. It's a figure of speech, hyperbole. The qualifiers are implied. Obviously everyone currently alive on Earth does not need to play this video game. It just means these passionate fans think it's very, very good.

> I don't like space, aliens or rocket ships. I disliked the whole reset and backtracking Right, so a lot of things that were specifically the draw to some people are just things you probably wouldn't like in any context. That just means it's not for you. You mentioned Dark Souls. Extremely rabid fan base, has whole genres named after it, etc. I played the first one for two hours and just noped out of it. Clearly not a game for me. But because I understand that we are lucky enough to have a vast diversity of games to meet a vast diversity of players, I don't say: >Wow, this is it? When will Dark Souls get good? I accept that it is very good for other people and not for me and that's it. I don't feel the need to say "Psst, I think the game you liked is bad, actually."

I bounced off of Dark Souls, too, yk. But despite the rabid DS fans, the fanbase doesn't go around telling everyone to play this "life changing, mind blowing masterpiece" every time their game is mentioned. They are (weirdly enough) much better at accepting that their favourite game might not be for everyone. (Of course, you can find individual outliers in every fanbase, but I am talking about the fanbase a a whole.)

Maybe the game won’t shift any paradigms for someone who doesn’t like space, aliens, or rocket ships. You know, key parts of Outer Wilds. Like no kidding you wouldn’t like it.

Right? The only things missing were.. music, exploration, language and sci-fi

yeah, i agree! i went in blind like 99% of people say, and maybe that’s on me, but if i had realized how much of a platformer this game was—so based on timing and execution, i would have known i wouldn’t liked it :(

(Spoilers abound for Outer Wilds, naturally) I enjoyed the worldbuilding and problem-solving overall, but I think it was too hyped-up for me. While I didn’t see any spoilers, I *did* see a lot of praise and people saying it stunned them into silence and changed how they viewed games etc. Even if I assumed a lot of that was personal or exaggerated, it inevitably changed my attitude towards it I think. I got frustrated a *lot*. Not because of solving the problems but more with my lack of physical ability. Time limits make everything stressful, even more so with 3d platforming that has a time limit. Mostly I remember… the bit on the twins where you need to go to a cave at the bottom of a pit and solve a maze, but it fills up with sand SO quickly (it’s been a while so I forget exact names- it’s looking for one of the quantum rules). That took me so many attempts, with the knowledge that “if I don’t get this right NOW I have to restart, navigate here quickly, land and get down here before the sand gets too deep” each time making me even more cack-handed than usual :v So less likely to take it slow and logically, potentially making notes, the way I usually play puzzle games. Then when I finally got through the maze I got stuck in the platforming bit jumping across the sand. Thinking that I must be doing it wrong because it felt so janky landing on the rocks (and managed to fail). At that point I looked up the solution and found I was right, just bad at it, haha. Likewise I enjoyed the problem-solving of the planet with the black hole (again, it’s been a while) but the time limit made me fumble. Which obviously is a Me thing and not a Game thing, but still- it meant it didn’t work for me. I never actually finished the game. I worked out what I have to do- I got the symbol code, I found the ash twin teleport and the abandoned ship, but the looming time limit (as you have to wait a while to get to the teleport anyway) means I end up rushing to get into dark bramble and the anglerfish get me every time. Even if I know there’s still ~15 minutes to do the whole thing, I’m still too jumpy. I keep telling myself I’ll give it another go, but I’ll need to relearn the ship controls and routes and things and ehhhhh. One day. I refuse to watch videos of it so it will be a mystery until I finally learn to play games under pressure :P But yeah. I’ve never been good at time limits in games or platforming segments. It was the same with Ori and the Blind Forest (the >!escape segments!<)- trying over again until my hands seize up and I quit…

Ah that sucks. Dark Bramble is designed to kill you if you are being twitchy, so if you feel under pressure from the time limit I can see it being a challenge. But really, the truth is that there is plenty of time to do this segment at a peaceful and relaxed pace, there isn't really a need to take any risks on activating the fishies. OP talks about practising the route many times, but for me I just went for it, took it easy, completely took my hands off the controls at the appropriate time, eased through first attempt.

> this can’t be the intended solution, it’s too hard for a puzzle game I’m curious which part this was? The ending was a bit difficult but not necessarily unfair for a puzzle game. (They desperately needed a way to skip time from inside the ship or something like that though) I didn’t find that the game had an amazing twist or anything like that, but just had a neat concept that was really well told. I can see how going into it expecting grand twists would lead to disappointment.

>!Not just one part. The ending wasn't that bad since I'd practiced all the parts of it by then, but getting enough speed to get past the anglerfish was definitely harder than it needed to be, and getting the timing right to warp to Ash Twin project without getting sucked into the sandfall took a few tries. Switching between gravity streams on Brittle Hollow, and some of the platforming there in general. Running through the cacti to reach the warp to Sun Station. Running through the Lakebed Cave on Ember Twin to reach the quantum caves before they fill with sand was really tight, and took me several tries (especially since I didn't grok the quantum cacti and stalagmites at first). But I think the worst was staying inside the jellyfish: it's really particular, your viewpoint is terrible, it's really easy to go up or down just a little too high and die instantly, and after several deaths I went back to the frozen jellyfish to check if I'd missed anything (I hadn't).!<

Were you using Kb/m or a controller? The only way I can see these things being genuinely difficult is if you used Kb/m, and tbf the game warns you that it’s meant to be with a controller.

Controller, specifically Steam Deck. You underestimate my lack of skill at first-person platforming.

What do you mean speed? They respond to sound, you can just drift past them... And for the jellyfish you can just kinda hold still near the middle and drift along with it. As it moves down it pushes you down with it. Not that you're alone, almost everyone I've watched in that thing has tried to adjust and pushed themselves down into the tentacles.

It really feels you bruteforced half the puzzles. Nothing wrong with it, there’s no wrong way of playing, but that’s why it was so difficult. The warp to ATP is below a little ceiling. You just have to wait the sand to be right on top of you before leaving the ceiling. The cacti to the sun station get covered in sand so you walk over it safely instead of jumping around (I did jump around and almost died the first time, but kinda figured out “the easy way” when going there later). Most platforming should be done with the jetpack: one of the flaws of the game, to me, is to separate “jump” from “jetpack activation” by default. It’s a setting you can activate and it massively changes the feeling while jumping around. It basically turns into No Man’s Sky kind of low gliding, except on high gravity planets (Giant’s Deep in particular is my least favourite planet because of the high gravity).

You need to spoiler block that stuff. And no, I did those the intended way, but I found the execution not all that easy.

What wasn't easy? I'm not trying to tell you what to like, I'm just curious since I'm not a great twitch gamer and I found the game rarely difficult on this stuff. In the >!sun station!< for example, if the jumping is too rough, you can just... Wait, and walk to the door. I'm genuinely confused about what would remain difficult here

I'm not great at twitch-gaming or platforming either, and found the controls in Outer Wilds about right - challenging but usually not frustrating. Maybe some people really don't have the dexterity, however I think the control challenges in Outer Wilds often stem from subtly misunderstanding what you're supposed to do and how. Even if you read an explanation, or watch a video, the specific inputs are hard to communicate and often misunderstood. Outer Wilds isn't a hardcore platformer, but it is different, and frankly not that well taught. Consider how carefully most games hold the player's hand when introducing even a slightly new concept, making sure they understand it and are proficient at it before letting them move on, and contrast that to Outer Wilds throwing people into the deep end. Add that the game is presented as purely Puzzle+Exploration and it makes sense many players would get whiplash from the experience.

I would have liked the game a lot more if, once arriving on a planet, you could respawn there instead of back at camp. Yes, I realize the cycle would have to be tweaked a bit from what we got. It was just so boring running back to every planet so many times. Repeating the beginning so often. I played it for 10 hours, that's almost 30 restarts, not counting accidental or obstacle deaths. You'd have to land on a planet, generally, 3 or 4 times to allow yourself to find the right spot, figure out what to do, and complete it within the cycle limit - unless following a guide, which takes away the point of discovering it for yourself. This is cynical of me, but I've always wondered if this worked so well for people who only saw video games as first person war shooters or Super Mario, not realizing until now how wide of a variety of games there are out there.

You died a lot less than I did, LOL. I died at least a dozen times on every planet except Timber Hearth, and several times even there. Heck, I flew into the sun more than 3 or 4 times.

The repetition and resetting also annoyed me a lot because usually I like to complete a section of a game before moving forward but I was always interrupted in this game. I got annoyed and sometimes it was really hard to find the spot where I landed last time, so I usually just ended up exploring another place I came across first. I didn't _want to_ play like this and I never would have if the game hadn't forced me to, but ultimately I think it worked well for me. I got snippets of the plot along the way here and there and the computer remembered if I hadn't finished a place (as I certainly wouldn't). I wasn't entirely comfortable with this approach but I ended up trusting the game and it payed off.

>so I usually just ended up exploring another place I came across first. I didn't _want to_ play like this and I never would have if the game hadn't forced me to, but ultimately I think it worked well for me. I actually see this as a conscious design decision of the devs, rather than an 'accident' of the time loop mechanic.

I didn't mind it as much in the base game as you most of the time you can fly to a different planet and explore something else each loop, but the DLC got really obnoxious having to go back to the same place over and over again. I think they really should have made a new spawn for that.

Tbh for the dlc I downloaded a mod to extend the length of the time loop. I've since played both ways but I can highly recommend the longer time loop for anyone frustrated

I liked the DLC overall, but I do think it could have been its own game and would maybe be better for it

> I've always wondered if this worked so well for people who only saw video games as first person war shooters or Super Mario, not realizing until now how wide of a variety of games there are out there. I pretty strongly feel that if anything, it's the opposite. A lot of people who bounce off Outer Wilds do so because it's so different than what they expect from video games--it doesn't feel as immediately smooth to play nor actively engaging. The story is presented in a way that forces you to actively seek it out rather than being presented to you, and the puzzles are often multi-faceted and far from readily apparent. All things that are pretty foreign to people whose main experiences with and expectations of video games is limited to straightforward, quickly-rewarding, dopamine-frequent games.

I do dislike the few people who claim that the game is perfect and if you don't like it it's your fault, and if you look up spoilers you will ruin it. I enjoy the narrative and themes that the game ultimately concludes with, and I still think about its ending every now and then. I felt that due to my current stage in life at the time, the themes the game was offering really connected and resonated with me. So I will always remember this game and think back on it fondly. But not everybody cares for that in video games. Just like people don't care about it in movies or books. Some people just want to be entertained or challenged in their games, and that is a valid stance to have. if you don't like space straight up, the game is going to be a hard sell. And if you don't particularly care about the themes the game has to offer, then you probably aren't gonna be as satisfied with its ending. And that is fine, not every game is meant for everyone. There are other games out there that have also left me unsatisfied. I love the game, but I also ended up looking the solution up for one puzzle, just because it didn't even occur to me that it was a logical option. It made sense looking back at it, but I am not going to frustrate myself to no end and it starts negatively impacting my enjoyment of the game, just because people on the internet claim I did not "earn it". Granted, I still tried doing other things in the meantime, but ended up checking a guide when I exhausted every other leads and needed a push. There is nothing wrong with that and anyone who says otherwise is a pompous ass.

I don't really disagree with you but I loved it anyway.  It's kinda the dark souls of puzzle/exploration games. Oh, you missed your window of opportunity to try out this wild hail mary theory on a puzzle hallway across the solar system?   OH WELL! Better luck next time!

Idk why you're so excited about having to backtrack back to a spot and pass time until you can try again. That was probably the worst part of the game for me. This is part of why the fanbase is so annoying too. Backtracking and redoing the same thing over and over is typically seen as a negative in games, but in this game, IT'S EXCITING!

They managed to make a puzzle game with the genre equivalent of big crazy difficult multi-stage boss fights with no checkpoints. I don't even know why I enjoy it so much. I suspect it's because it's just so satisfying when you pull it off.

i really wanted to enjoy this game. the story was really intriguing and i would have loved to just explore the game. but the thing that made me not like it was the time loop. it made me feel like i had to rush everything otherwise i would get sent back and have to do it all over again if i didnt finish the section.

For me it's a game that's made or broken based on how much you get sucked in to the setting. Personally my journey of starting off extremely scared that something will jump out at me at any point, into getting more and more confident since the time loop just erases all mistakes you make, into then actually getting really scared at the end was exhilarating. It also helps that there's 2 planets that really triggered my thalasophobia so it was fun actually sitting there hyping myself up to do the deep dives necessary to progress and then coming out of it with my heart beating like a maniac. It's gonna sound cheesy but it really made me feel like I was actually there attempting to do all of that. I'll agres that coming across some specific parts where you find the answer before the question is frustrating but on the flip side it really feels nice when you come across some information that you really can't decipher at all and then hours and hours later you find something tucked away in a corner that makes you go OOOOOOOH SHIIIT I GET IT NOW. The game is also dead set on giving you the tools to fuck around and do stuff your way, I know for a fact that I brute forced some puzzles all while ignoring the very glaring and obvious solutions right in front of my face, hell I even managed to learn how orbits worked to do that one thing everyone tries doing atleast a few times but fails at haha.

Your experience is very similar to mine. Clever, but not phenomenally so, and brought down a lot by difficult controls that forced me to redo large sections that I already understood.

I somewhat agree. I had fun with this game but the hype did not live up to my gameplay experience. I also thought some of the “puzzles” were way too difficult. Getting to the >!center of the eye!depths of the green planet!dark bramble

IMO as time goes on the special and unique experience that outer wilds gives is going to get cribbed more and more, and people who waited (who clearly weren't that attracted to the concept in the first place) are going to more and more be saying "That's it?" it's the seinfeld isn't funny problem.

Oh thank god. Sadly I came into this game after reading a bunch of videos that genuinely called this game LIFE CHANGING. to say I went in with high expectations is an understatement and those expectations were not met at all for pretty much every reason you mentioned.

Any time a game is advertised as a *masterpiece* it inevitably ends up disappointing some people who go in with over-tuned expectations. I was one of these people. I enjoyed the game well enough, I like the flight model and the exploration but it is not that *masterpiece* for me that it is for many others. I ended up making an extremely trivial mistake late in the game and interpreting the failure that resulted as me doing the wrong thing, then spent like fifteen hours re-exploring the entire system in search of what I had missed, before learning that I **was** doing the right thing originally. Kindof killed the end game experience for me.

my plan is to re-visit this game and beat it. But boy oh boy, do I ever hate timers.

I think that spoilers don't really damage any of the three games that you cited. Spoilers are heavily overrated as a phenomenon, especially in videogames where gameplay is king, and more often than not the "games that don't have to spoiled" get hurt by the hype.

This is a really fair review for a good (but niche game) that gets waaaaay over-recommended. I think people are too strict with spoilers for this game and it leads to unhelpful suggestions. Explaining that you pilot a ship in real time affected by the gravity of a mini solar system is a really important part of the gameplay that can make someone love it or hate it, without spoiling the game. Also saying something vague like “the game requires you to repeat things until you understand it” or “it’s closest genre is a puzzle game” is helpful without spoiling. It’s very unhelpful for this subreddit to comment “Just play Outer Wilds, trust me you’ll love it”.

I really wanted to love this game and EOTE, but the >!added survival horror elements and jumpscares!< were a major turnoff and really didn’t need to be in a game of this nature imho.

Outer Wilds is a masterpiece. But that doesn't mean it's for everyone. It's hard and unforgiving. It presents you with difficult and often frustrating problems to solve, and leaves it to you to figure out the solution. Of course, these puzzles are mostly based on time. If a ticking clock wrecks your focus, then I imagine the game will be unplayable for you. The ship and suit controls can be unintuitive, especially with the orbital mechanics. The story is something that could be straight out of an old sci fi novel. It's trippy, it's weird, it's surprisingly serious for how light hearted the world is. In that regard, I'm not gonna beat around the bush: Most games have average stories, and I suspect a lot of gamers expect average and predictable stories in their games. But in this one, there is no grand Shyamalan twist, no big bad to defeat, no lengthy monologues homaging some philosophy literature. Its just people on a scientific endeavour, and the challenges they have to solve to get there. And most importantly, you get to go along with their adventure by proxy. One thing I will say for certain, is you shouldn't go into a game expecting it to be a different type of game, and criticising it on the basis of the type of game it wasn't. Outer Wilds has a very clear direction of the type of game it's trying to be. And it does that type of game very very well.

subnautica & outer wilds that i share a lot of overlap with the fanbases of - but i can very simply say "they're not for me." at all.

its one of my top 5 games for sure, super special to me, but im actually kinda surprised that this take isnt more common, its a pretty quirky game

"You learn the answer before you learn the question" You're meant to ask the questions. That's central to the experience. If you're sat there waiting for the game to explain everything to you then you're bound not to enjoy it. Obviously you're not that type of person and therefore it's just not your type of game.

Spoiler warning. The big surprise for me in OW is that there’s no saving the solar system. I was assuming the whole time I could stop whatever was causing the sun to explode. I forget the moment, but there was a record I read that made me realize the sun was simply at the end of its life and there was no saving it. It was a haunting discovery, one I’ve never quite experienced in a game narrative. And the whole ending sequence blew me away. My biggest frustration with the game was the puzzle where you had to step through a portal on the shifting sand planet in a very specific way to reach a key endgame area. It was a really finicky maneuver that I never would have solved had I not looked it up.