The greatest joy Outer Wilds has to offer is the process of slowly discovering the secrets of its galaxy-in-miniature. This review contains no story spoilers and avoids going into too much detail on the interesting anecdotes waiting to be found in the world. That said, if you want to go into Outer Wilds completely blind—and we don’t blame you!— you should stop reading now.
On my first lift-off, I opted to fly to Giant’s Deep, a watery Gobstopper of a world where the planet’s core is protected by a vicious current and the green surface is constantly stirred up by teal waterspouts that shoot unwary travelers back into the cozy cold of space, should they come too close.
Somehow, I avoid the half-dozen smallish twisters, crash-landing instead into the gaping mouth of the massive tornado encircling one of the tiny islands that dot the ocean surface, whacking into a tower carved out of space limestone, and doing quite a bit of damage to my ship in the process. I hop out of my angrily beeping vessel and ascend the tower. Once I reach the top, I spot a hole in the floor and drop through. Turns out the tower is a skyscraping classroom offering a crash course on the principles of quantum physics.
I don’t see that tower again for another 10 hours. In fact, I begin to wonder if it exists in the world, at all, or if developer Mobius Digital somehow shoehorned it into Giant’s Deep to tutorialize me on one of the finer points of their clockwork world during my first 22-minute run. Would it have appeared in the foggy depths of Dark Bramble if I had ventured out into the darkest corners of the galaxy on my initial blast-off? Would it have materialized on Timber Hearth if I had opted to hopscotch my spaceship a few kilometers over into the verdant plains of my home planet?
The answer is no. But, it’s a testament to the mystery of this dioramic galaxy that, in the early hours, at least, I felt as if anything was possible; that this virtual world was so well-realized that I was prompted to abandon the logical shortcuts I’ve learned across two decades of playing games and be taken in by its ineffable strangeness.
As my journey stretched on, that initial sense of wonder was replaced with understanding. Outer Wilds is a roguelite where the only permanent upgrades you’ll gain are to your stock of knowledge; a run-based Metroidvania where rather than acquiring a screw attack or charge beam, you, instead, learn some stuff.
It’s intoxicating, at first. Unlike the endless universe of the procedurally generated No Man’s Sky, Outer Wilds’ solar system is handcrafted. Not just the individual planets, but the entire 22-minutes of each run that precede the galaxy’s sun going supernova. It’s not just that each planet was designed, it’s that the events that unfold on each planet were designed; that the narrative and level design and systems babble to each other. As you explore the solar system, you will learn the strange ways each world behaves and, eventually, falls apart.
You will also learn the stories of the Nomai, a furry, three-eyed, science-enamored precursor race who left their musings and gentle conversations in looping purple script scrawled all over the galaxy. Progress in Outer Wilds is, primarily, the process of finding and translating these hieroglyphics, and then following the narrative threads that each reveals. As you do, the data you collect is gathered in a computer on your space ship. Here, you can view information according to planet, or in “rumor mode,” where evidence is arranged in a web of interrelated topics. When you run out of new places to explore, this computer is an essential tool, offering indications, in yellow font, of the locations that have more information to yield up; the narrative threads that need more tugging.
These stories are fascinating, but some aspects of Outer Wilds’ design consistently get in the way of discovering them. Mobius Digital has so thoroughly crafted their clockwork world that frustration with its design feels as futile as holding a grudge against gravity. But, after 20 hours of wrestling with the game’s zero-G physics and spaceflight controls, holding a grudge against gravity is a very real thing that I’m currently doing. Multiple recent games have attempted zero-G traversal — Prey, Observation, and Tacoma, to name a few — but none have fully solved the problem of space travel making the player feel like a helpless astronaut puck on a cold, indifferent air hockey table. Outer Wilds hasn’t fixed this either, and the game’s Super Mario Galaxy-style miniature planets often exacerbate it. This is a game where one wrong move can mean floating through space, miles away from the nearest planet or spaceship, so finicky controls are a consistent frustration.
As you explore, you’ll need to manage oxygen, health, and fuel for your jetpack. Each can be refilled in your spaceship, but you will almost certainly run out of oxygen at inopportune times. At others, space cacti will puncture your suit. Sometimes you will pick up too much speed and suffer an instant death upon impact with an unexpected surface. These are minor annoyances given the game’s Majora’s Mask structure; you will never spend more than 22 minutes on any one task, and you will never lose more than 22 minutes when the angel of janky death comes for you. Minor annoyances, yes; still annoying, though.
Those finicky fun bandits are frequently in cahoots with “how the hell would anybody solve that?” puzzle pirates. Outer Wilds’ clockwork world is fantastically well-realized, but the game assumes you will have a veteran ecologist’s familiarity with its world, when in reality, you’re more like an avid Planet Earth viewer. Outer Wilds expects you to have the knowledge of the wildlife videographer who waited a year to capture one shot of a very small beetle doing a weird beetle thing, but as a player, you’re closer to being the schlub watching the very small beetle do the weird beetle thing from the comfort of your couch. Outer Wilds tasks you with anticipating the behavioral quirks of the world and without a guide, you will spend an inordinate amount of time waiting for hunches to be disproved.
Thing is though: there are plenty of guides out there on the web. Complaining about Outer Wilds inscrutability is a little like criticizing Rome because you don’t know which sights to see. Do a measly Google search. Mobius Digital has, at times, erred on the side of giving players too little information. But, as a result, they have created a world that casts you as Isaac Newton. They are eagerly waiting for you to discover its gravity.
Outer Wilds review code provided by the publisher for PC.
Outer Wilds is out now on Epic Games Store for PC and Xbox One.