Solar Flair

Outer Wilds Is The Next Great Mystery Game.

- Phil Savage

The sun has gone supernova. That’s bad and all, but right now I’m actually more interested in some rocks. You see, I found a physics-defying obelisk that emits a specific, eerie noise. I wake up, jump in my ship, and use my signalscope to scan the solar system for matching sounds. I follow one to the planet of Brittle Hollow, but almost immediately get distracted by some ruins. I land nearby and investigate. And then the sun blows up again.

I wake up, jump in my ship, and activate its log. A new entry appears for the ruins. There are rumors of other possible points of interest too. I’m trapped in a time loop. I’ve got about 22 minutes until the sun explodes once again. What can I discover this time?

Superficially, Outer Wilds is a first-person game in which you explore a small solar system containing a handful of quirky planets full of weird and interesting phenomena. You fly to a planet, you look at some stuff, you die. You fly to a different planet, you look at some different stuff, you die. Maybe you die because you got lost in a labyrinthine cave system and your suit ran out of oxygen. Maybe you die because your ship’s autopilot isn’t very clever and sometimes tries to fly you through the sun. Maybe you die because your 22 minutes is up. However it happens, you wake up back at the start, ready to find something new.

But Outer Wilds is more than just a game about looking at strange planets. It’s a sandbox of mysteries. It reminds me of Her Story or Return of the Obra Dinn, in that its solar system feels like a puzzle that I piece together by connecting small, often seemingly unrelated details until they reveal a larger truth.