While there’s no math involved, Outer Wilds takes a physics-minded approach to space: You need to keep track of your momentum relative to the planet you where you plan to land, adjust for its orbital trajectory, and so on. I specifically had some issues learning to fly the spaceship, which is a small shuttle guided by directional thrusters. Without any real tutorials – there are a few practice areas on your home planet, but they’re entirely optional – learning the rules of the world takes time. Revealing the whole story seems like a daunting task, but once you jump in your spaceship and set out on your expedition things start to fall into place. The simple premise gives way to the interesting story (stories, really) you uncover in your travels: The Nomai, like Metroid’s Chozo, Mass Effect’s Protheans, or any of a handful forerunner races seem unknowable at first glance, but as you become acquainted with them through diaries and other notes they feel both distant – they are dead, after all – but relatable.
That process leads to a long, convoluted puzzle which you solve by exploring each of the system’s five planets, along with a handful of moons and other points of interest.
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Before too long, you figure out that you are trapped in a surprisingly helpful Groundhog Day- (or Majora’s Mask)-style time loop, so it is up to you to figure out how to break out of it. You control an alien astronaut/anthropologist exploring your own solar system to uncover and unravel the mysteries of the Nomai, a mysterious and ancient race whose ruins lie scattered across every planet. By turning lore into puzzle elements into progress, into the meat of the experience rather than the dressing, it elevates the process of learning about these worlds to heights rarely seen in games. That’s a problem that Outer Wilds, a space-exploration sim laced with puzzles and a mystery story, sidesteps by putting the storytelling that normally litters the background of games front and center. Countless worlds smother us with lore and histories, giving us the opportunity to understand them better if we choose to stop and smell the roses, but that understanding is usually optional, and often feels superficial as a result.
Legitimate discovery is a difficult sensation to simulate in a video game.
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