Outer Wilds

[kane_magus]

This will be a somewhat short post, because I want to give a super-charged recommendation for Outer Wilds[1] (and its DLC, which is almost a separate [yet still connected] game all on its own), but it's one of those "the less you know going into it, the better" kind of games. In any case, I just finished the last bit of the main game after doing the DLC at the last, and I have to say it's probably in my top ten all time favorite games. Maybe top five.

About the only thing I can say that isn't a spoiler is that the music is pretty great.

Oh, and here's a 15 minute long video essay I found that says quite a lot about the game (and games in general) without spoiling much of anything.

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Watch on YouTube

Outer Wilds is one of my all time favorite video games, but it's a game that's hard to talk about without giving away the magic of what makes it so special in the first place. This video aims to discuss why Outer Wilds is a masterpiece, without ruining the magic of the first playthrough.

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[1] - Not to be confused with The Outer Worlds.

Comments

[goldpseudo]

I've heard good things about this game. Tunic is another game I would very recommend for much the same reasons; the less you know going in, the more enjoyable the experience will be. It's almost impossible to talk about without accidentally spoiling something.

That said I'm [surprised|impressed] you were able to post this without going off on a rant about "MetroidBrainia", which is apparently the new genre term for this type of game.

[kane_magus]

Never heard that term before. I'm not sure I like it[1], per se, though I guess I kind of get what they're trying for with it. What prevents or enhances one's progression, at least in Outer Wilds, is not the lack of in game tools or abilities or weapons and the need to acquire them, since you'll pretty much have every tool and ability you'll ever use by the time you get to your ship the first time (and there are no weapons at all). It's simply the lack of information and a need to acquire that (and then properly use it), instead. In Outer Wilds, you can technically go anywhere in the solar system that you want as soon as you first get in your ship, with the only thing stopping you from actually doing so being simply not knowing how to get there, or that there even is a "there" to get to, in most cases, until you find clues pointing to it in other places first. Well, that and some mild platforming/maneuvering skill, in some cases.

[1] - And, in fact, the more I've thought about it in the course of typing this reply, I'm pretty sure I don't like it all that much, since it's just a cutesy-"clever" play on something that was already a kind of esoteric and rather silly term to begin with. That said, back when I first heard the term "Metroidvania" (and the far, far worse "Castleroid," which I'm so glad never caught on), I thought it was kind of dumb, too, but I've gotten used to it over the years, as it does do a fair-to-middling job of identifying/describing with a single word the specific type of game it was coined to describe. And I suppose it's still better than atrociously ill-defined, misapplied, and increasingly worthless terms like "roguelike"/"roguelite" or "immersive sim"/"imsim" or whatever, at the very least. But that's "Metroidvania." Jury's still out on "Metroidbrainia," though, at least for me. Maybe I'll grow to tolerate the latter the same as I do the former now. Guess it depends on how pervasive, diluted, misused, and abused it becomes (similar to "roguelike" and "imsim" now).

[goldpseudo]

Would you have preferred "KnowledgeVania"? That was the other contender, which never really caught on.

[kane_magus]

If they're talking about games like Outer Wilds and The Witness and The Talos Principle and Return of the Obra Dinn and such, I would have been more than okay with "Puzzle Mystery." I would have said "Open World Puzzle Mystery," but that's a whole three syllables more than either "Metroidbrania" or "Knowledgevania," and I guess that's a big no no. *shrug*

[kane_magus]

As for Tunic, yeah, I have it on my Steam wishlist already, at least.