Outer Wilds is a game about
curiosity. It places you into
a constantly moving, constantly changing
solar system,
a tiny thread in an enormous tapestry,
then gives you a kick and leaves you
spinning into the void to simply pick a
direction and explore.
*Happy Music :)*
*Sounds of awe*
*Sounds of panic*
*Sounds of hating every second of this experience*
*Sounds of fuck you autopilot*
*Happy Music :)*
When starting out the world of Outer Wilds is a dangerous
and terrifying one. Death is not only easy but expected -
every 22 minutes the sun
explodes and the slate is wiped clean
ready for another go around.
That's assuming you haven't already been crushed, burned, eaten, suffocated,
drowned, eaten again, blown up or...
*splat*
Okay, that one was actually my fault.
And because of that constant resetting of the board,
that danger quickly becomes
a challenge rather than a deterrent.
It encourages experimentation, a pushing
of boundaries
Why not jump into that sand geyser? Why
not see what's inside that volcanic moon?
Why not try and sneak past that
anglerfish nest? The worst that can happen is...
*rawr*
And then you're right back to the start,
new knowledge gained,
ready to try again or fly somewhere new
there'll always be something else to explore.
Spectacle and wonder make up the
backbone of outer wilds visuals.
Every planet has its own unique,
beautiful aesthetic
and accompanying gameplay challenges.
From the shifting sands of the Hourglass
Twins to the fierce storms of Giant's Deep
to the
nope.mp3
of dark bramble, and each one has layers
to uncover as you start to pick apart
its mechanisms.
And as the player delves deeper into
them the feeling of isolation,
of exploring the unknown grows in tandem.
Take Giant's Deep, my personal favourite. At
its surface
a swirling maelstrom of water spouts and
shattered ruins
a constant flux of motion that evokes
the awe and terror of
real-life natural disasters. But then you
explore elsewhere,
and learn the secret of its twisters to
find your way under the shifting currents.
There's a sudden serenity. A loneliness.
The pounding of the storm above is
muffled and you're left there with only
the calm,
indifferent native life for company.
*zap*
Then you learn more and return again and this time
penetrate even further
below the electric core. Everything is
silent.
You're stripped of your ship, your torch
barely permeates the blackness.
It's haunting. I've always been
fascinated with the deep sea,
and the first time I made it here I felt
myself regressing to my childhood,
obsessing over videos of dark trenches
and alien creatures dwelling within.
I felt totally alone.
Outer Wilds is not a game about 'conquering nature'
so much as
figuring out your role in it. You don't
unlock new abilities that let you freely
ignore its perils, no anglerfish
repellent or insulated suit.
The world is just as deadly on your
first loop as your 50th. Instead you learn to work within the
boundaries the game sets out for you.
You get better at navigating, at
predicting, at
timing. And as you do so as you start to
see yourself more and more as a tiny
part of an enormous machine,
you start to realise how much you're
following the paths of those that came before you.
See... wait no I'm not done yet-
Outer Wilds is a game about history.
The original alpha version of the game
was already winning prizes in 2015
but it still needed a story, a hook to
tie everything together;
something to drive the player forward
and keep that curiosity burning.
A time loop conceit makes it hard to
have the player believably make
permanent impacts on the game world,
so instead another axis was added.
The game became about exploration in
time as well as space.
And so the Nomai were born.
And then killed off.
*Sad Music :(*
Despite not being a living presence, the
Nomai are the beating heart of Outer Wilds.
Through their writings the player pieces
together their projects,
intentions, the great works they built.
The game very cleverly uses a variety of
communication methods for different
gameplay purposes - 
for instance these scrolls and
accompanying walls catch the
eye and make sure the player fully
investigates the areas they find
themselves in,
these two-way communicators work to link
the planets
and their various projects together, and
the viewing platforms provide previews
and nudge the player into what areas to
look out for.
And these wall scrolls help lead the
player down tunnels,
through ruins and into hidden areas.
Despite being the same layout as the
other two, having them graffitied like this instead
feels more
naturalistic, and the writings they
contain are often more casual.
Hold on to that that'll be important later.
And as we learn about their projects we
learn vicariously about the Nomai
themselves.
It's repeatedly emphasised that they
were a curious people,
and their excitement and enthusiasm for
science,
for testing and experimenting all
reflects back on us
as the player; encourages us to follow in
their footsteps.
Their curiosity led them to our solar
system, led them to
explore and tinker and build. The Hanging
City on Brittle Hollow,
The Sunless City on Ember Twin, the
workshops of Giant's Deep,
it all gives us insights into how they
lived. We find not just
labs and forges but schools, shrines,
places where children played.
It feels like a real civilisation.
and the Nomai were a kind people. You can
find notes on Timber Hearth,
your home, of the Nomai ensuring that they
leave enough resources for any future
civilisations;
and there's a wonderful moment when
you're exploring the underground rivers
beneath the surface
where you can stumble across a recording
of a diver excitedly finding a newly
evolving species -
your race's precursor.
And so many years on and thanks to the
Nomai,
the Hearthians took to the skies.
Outer Wilds is a game about trying to
fly to the sun station, misjudging your
speed of approach, and
dying a fiery death over and over and
over and over and
and over and over and over and...
No, no, that one doesn't count.
Outer Wilds is a game about community.
When you start the game the first thing you see
is the endless expanse of space, a flash of blue lightning as...something
explodes in orbit around Giant's Deep.
It's unknown and exciting and scary.
Then your eyes look down and you're
greeted with a warm campfire and a
friendly face. You're invited to stay, roast
marshmallows, relax for a bit.
Then you're sent into the nearby village -
a disguised tutorial area.
You learn the history of those that
came before you, play hide and seek with
a couple of kids,
fly a model ship, help with a few simple
repairs.
And while all these mini games teach the
player the ropes of their upcoming
adventure, they also instill a sense of excitement.
In an interview with Noclip developer
Alex Beecham mentioned how
initial versions of the starting village
had the player character as a lone
pioneer, eager to explore the reaches of space in
defiance of the worries and dissuasions
of their peers.
But as it turned out this had the
opposite effect.
The desire to be a rebel wasn't there.
Humans are social creatures, and even a
simple half-built virtual society
was enough to make the player want to
fit in and stay on solid ground.
So instead the developers introduced the
space program. In Beecham's own words:
Just as the
Nomai's penchant for discovery
encourages the player to push boundaries
and experiment,
so too does the village encourage the
player to broaden their horizons.
When talking with Hornfels after
collecting the launch codes from them,
they ask the player what they plan to do
and a huge list of options opens up.
These were put in, as Beecham says, to
give the player a few different nudges,
ideas for things to try - but also
emphasise that it really is their choice
to go anywhere they like.
Then once you do head up you have the
Traveller camps.
These provide areas of safety that the
player can fall back on,
and just like the Nomai they act as a
reminder that the player is following in
the footsteps of those that came before.
the characterisation of your fellow
astronauts is also fantastic,
right down to their individual
instruments. Gabbro's
laissez-faire attitude, Ryback's
struggles to balance their fear and
curiosity, Feldspar...
All of them feel,
for lack of a better word, human.
These oases of calm are necessary to
allow the player somewhere to escape
and get their bearings, and the
friendliness and welcoming nature of
their owners stand as a contrast to the uncaring
dangers of what surrounds them.
To really show how vital they are though
we need to look at this game's
inverse. Let's take a detour.
Heaven's Vault is a game about curiosity.
It places you into a...
Wait hang on a second-
*rustling of paper which was just for a joke I'm actually reading this off my phone*
Heaven's Vault, like Outer Wilds, is a
game about
archaeology and exploration. you play as
Aliya,
an archaeologist, sailing between various
moons,
uncovering artefacts and translating an
ancient language.
There's a bit more linearity in how
areas become available -
although the story can heavily branch
based on your actions and finds -
and much more of a focus on dialogue.
It's a very, very good game,
and one i highly recommend if you're a
language nerd. The core of the game is
piecing together what feels like a fully
realised written conlang from a past
civilisation, figuring out how different symbols work
as thematic signifiers and grammar marks.
It's so satisfying. Just for emphasis you
can see here some of my notes and written
dictionary that i made while i was playing.
What i find fascinating though, playing
Heaven's Vault so soon after Outer Wilds,
is the contrast in tone between the two
games - and i don't just mean that they're
different genres but that they approach
a similar set of themes -
exploration, archaeology, isolation - in diametrically opposed ways.
The world of Heaven's Vault is far less
dangerous than Outer Wilds;
I'm not sure if it's even possible to
die in the game but it's certainly at
least very difficult if so, travel between moons is straightforward
and can be automated, and you spend far more time among people,
in civilisation. Yet despite that the world feels more
actively hostile. Many of the people you talk to are at
best dismissive of your profession
and at worst actively belligerent or
threatening. A major theme of the game is that Aliya
is a person caught between two homes and two upbringings, struggling
to be accepted by either - all while following a dream that is at
odds with both. The only person who seems to have your
full interest at heart is your robot
companion Six,
who is nonetheless enough of a nag about
safety that a major story beat gives you
the option to sell him off to a trader!
But i'd never do that
I mean look at him.
Look at that face.
In Outer Wilds, other living souls promise moments
of respite, of sanctity against the uncaring dangers
of space. In Heaven's Vault, other people worry me.
I'd start to feel apprehensive whenever
i had to return to civilisation,
and look forward more and more to those
moments when i could just eschew the
overarching story somewhat and
focus on my language studies; when it was
just myself, a new site to explore and an overly worried robot.
My point here is not to espouse the
superiority of either game over the
other, but instead to suggest that it's
important for a game to find a balance
between feelings of peril
and ones of safety. However the danger in
your game world comes across,
whether natural or personal, there needs
to be some form of escape from it -
often in the form of that dangerous
inverse.
Isolated exploration, warm community.
Isolated community, serene exploration.
There's a reason Dark Souls' bonfires are such an iconic video game mechanic
While we're here, the way that the two
games treat their archaeology is also an
interesting reflection of their tone.
The work in Heaven's Vault is more
in-depth but more detached.
The passages you translate are generally
disjointed scraps of longer texts.
Marks of prayer or words of courage from
signs, maps and murals. Museum Pieces.
By contrast...
*this bit took way too friggin long to make*
Outer Wilds is a game about
relationships.
There's a piece of ancient graffiti in
the hanging city on Brittle Hollow
that's stuck with me ever since I first
found it. It's written by Poke,
a character whose writings can be found
all over the galaxy and who is
definitely one of the smartest members
of the entire extinct cast.
Having volunteered to take on the task
of building a specialised *beep*
for the Ash Twin Project, she's suddenly
overcome by feelings of
insecurity for her own level of skill
and of sadness for her deceased mentor
and friend. She takes some time to
ruminate on these feelings,
come to terms with them, remind herself
of the community that supports her,
and prepares to work. As far as actual
gameplay goes
it's worth basically nothing. The
information it gives you -
the creation of a *BEEP* can easily be picked up from
multiple other sources - one right outside
even.
But when i first found it, it resonated
with me.
Here was a long dead member of an
ancient, galaxy spanning race -
one responsible for works of incredible
wonder and beauty -
experiencing the same moment of
self-doubt that
I think every creator feels at some point.
Looking back on their predecessors just
as I was looking back on them.
Further outside the city, in the original
settlement the Nomai made after their
escape pod landed on Brittle Hollow,
there are areas where the survivors
mourned their dead,
discussed their losses and made what
plans they could to move on.
Again there's scant info to be found in
most of their messages,
but that doesn't mean they don't do
important work story wise.
The ancient aliens trope is a classic in
science fiction -
some long dead or missing historical
precursor that
knowingly or unknowingly has a part in
shaping the present.
A fairly common facet to the
implementation of this trope however
is that this ancient race is not only
unseen but
impersonal. They in essence act as a
civilisation spanning macguffin,
a foundation for the story to jump off
from.
We see their presence through the
technologies they leave behind
or the great ruins or epic tales and
myths but we rarely find out about the
individuals that belonged to that era.
The strength of Outer Wilds is that it
turns this idea on its head.
the writing for the nomad was predominantly done
by Kelsey Beecham,
Alex's sister, who was responsible for
the myriad personal touches in their
notes.
The Nomai writings aren't just
exposition. Thanks to Beecham's writing
they're not just another impersonal
ancient aliens trope.
They argue and banter and flirt. They
celebrate successes, commiserate failures,
worry and care for each other and make terrible puns.
Really terrible puns
*sigh*
Something I love reading about is
ancient graffiti from places like
Pompeii. Scribbles on walls that read as
though they could have been written
today, people wanting to share the mundane
aspects of their lives with the world.
It's a reminder that archaeology is not
always about uncovering beautiful
temples and
tombs of great rulers. Sometimes it's
about finding little reminders that the
people of the past weren't abstract silhouettes but real,
flawed, emotional beings.
This, this right here is why Outer Wild works so well.
Why the game is more than just a
beautiful sandbox.
Why I can say that a game which you
primarily spend
alone is a game about relationships and
community.
And here's where i'm going to have to go
into a full spoiler territory,
including the ending, so here's the time
to skip to if you want to go straight to
the final wrap-up.
Okay.
Finding Solanum on the Quantum Moon
was one of the most affecting moments in
a game that I've ever experienced,
I actually had to pause, get up and walk
away from the computer for a minute to
process what I just discovered.
I had spent hours following the trail of
this ancient civilisation,
learning how they were thrown here by
fate then grew,
explored, experimented. And here was a
real life member of this society - not
just that, but one whose story i could trace from
childhood. Through the power of curiosity, research
and sheer recklessness two histories were joined.
Then the sun blew up halfway through our
conversation and i had to do it again.
So it goes.
The Quantum Moon is one of the game's most prominent mysteries;
one which requires a great deal of work
and exploration to solve. It makes sense
then that the reward for navigating it
should be
such an event - and while technically
optional,
skipping it means not only missing out
on the discovery but also a key piece of
the ending. Not only will Solanum not be present but
her absence reverberates even
post-credits.
All the players need to come together
for the next universe to be at its best.
The ending is where the game drops all
pretence of realism
and dives fully into symbolic territory.
It's a brave choice that could have gone
horribly wrong, but the reason it succeeds so well is
because it fully embraces the themes of
community that it's been building up
from the beginning. Bringing together your fellow astronauts
who provided moments of respite and
cheer throughout your travels,
giving them one last chance to play
together, and through your combined
efforts beginning anew. After hours of playing to
the whims of a cold and dangerous universe, the solution
comes in the form of a few intrepid souls making music together.
Science Fiction is a wide spanning genre,
but to me one of the best things it can
do is explore that balance between the small
scale and the great. To both reveal our position as a tiny
speck in a vast blackness, and still find those vital, personal
stories within that make us feel like
something more.
To finish on a quote by Ursula K. Le Guin:
Oh COME ON-
