Standing out from the Crowd
Space-adventure games certainly aren’t scarce these days. With recent large studio games such as The Outer Worlds (2019) and smaller, kickstarted indie titles like The Way (2014), space enthusiasts such as myself can hardly want for titles to choose from. Outer Wilds manages to stand out in this sea of games with a distinct visual style that exudes cosiness. Its promotional art of campfires on small planets promise a mellow experience mixed with the lure of space travel. “Fuel up your jet packs and get your camping gear ready…” is the bold statement Mobius Digital make. For me, Outer Wilds promised something that every other space-adventure game I have played so far seems to lack: whether its wandering planets in No Mans Sky or pacing the decks of the Normandy in Mass Effect, space games are inherently cold due to the mechanical nature of space travel, and often lonely. This is not necessarily a detriment – part of what makes space games so alluring is how terrifying and isolated space is for the player. But Outer Wilds chooses to juxtapose the harshness of space against the warmness of a community grown, jerry-built space venture program.
An Excellent Start
Outer Wilds delivers on this promise with its opening, one which we might loosely refer to as a ‘tutorial’. The game makes it clear from the get-go that what you do, and the order you do things, is pretty optional. A player might immediately whizz through the tutorial, ignoring optional activities that offer to acclimatise the player to space travel, such as walking in zero gravity caves and operating a model rocket ship whose controls mirror that of the players real ship. If however, you are anything like me, you will pore over the ‘tutorial’ stage, talking to every blue faced member of the alien community, reading every plaque in the museum and spending far too long playing with the orbital probe canon. And who could blame me when Timber Hearth – your home planet – is so pretty. Tall and small wooden structures, an adorable community of four eyed (literally) aliens, even your own homegrown spaceship with a wooden interior, all exude a cosiness marked against the growing anticipation of your first space flight.
Where Do We Go From Here?
There is an initial buzz from knowing there is no specific side quest for you to follow. No objectives, no way points, just go and explore. Getting to grips with the slippery but manageable flight controls and learning to land exactly where you need to might use up some of your time initially, and simply roaming different planets with your jet pack is enough fun to begin. But it becomes quickly clear, no matter which planet you choose to explore first, that there is of course a story here – and an interesting one too. We slowly encounter the remnants of an extinct race of advanced explorers, and learn their stories through ancient symbols. Each planet holds a host of these different texts, each revealing information which may pertain aspects of other planets, which you have yet to explore. But this becomes very rapidly repetitive. With nothing more than scanning and reading texts to tell this story (the game does not include voice acting), while the story itself is interesting, the storytelling is not. I liked the use of a story ‘tree’ to record and connect the various plot lines encountered, but I found I eventually stopped consulting it, and getting caught up in one branch of the tree became a little frustrating. In fact, the game play can be summarised as “fly here, scan this, read this, die, rinse and repeat”.
Die, Rinse, Repeat
We need to of course, acknowledge the time mechanics used in Outer Wilds – namely, that gameplay exists in a twenty-minute cycle ending in the explosion of the sun in a supernova. This is pretty cool the first few times, and I absolutely love the way in which the music score slowly builds and swells as the sun begins its destruction (on more than one occasion I ended a cycle five minutes early just to sit back and admire the darkly beautiful end). However, this mechanic adds very little to the rest of the gameplay. The player cannot change or influence events, and the cycle really served no other purpose than interrupting me while I was having fun exploring the core of a certain planet. The character dies, sending me back to Timber Hearth, forcing me to get back to the ship, set out for the planet I was on and muddily try to get back to where I was. I am quite confused by others who have compared this game to Majoras Mask (2000), because other than the fact that both share the use of a time cycle, the similarities are sparse (for an example of an indie game which utilises time travel/messing with time lines effectively, please see my review of The Sexy Brutale). Essentially, I found a lot of Outer Wilds depended on simply distracting from (or wasting if I’m being harsh) my time actually playing, forcing me to repeat my actions in a way that did not illuminate any other aspect of the plot.
Saving Graces?
All of this wouldn’t matter too much, if only the game fulfilled my earlier expectations. For make no mistake, as warm and cosy as the opening is, Outer Wilds quickly falls back into the cold clinical nature of space travel so familiar to us. The populated friendliness of Timber Hearth is not matched elsewhere. There are moments where the player might happen upon a fellow adventurer – and after spending so much time exploring isolated icy caves or the dangerous mucky ocean floor, seeing another person (alien?) sitting peacefully by the fire, perhaps strumming a banjo or puffing away at the harmonica is a welcome sight. But really there isn’t much to it. They might share a few tips about the planet (which you’ve likely already discovered) and have a few witty quips but the game fails to capitalise on the exhilarating sensation of meeting a familiar face in a foreign environment. So back to the spaceship you go, or if you’re nearing the end of a cycle, just wait out the inevitable.
Concluding Thoughts
Outer Wilds is a game that will likely draw you in with its charming visual style and curious story. But there wasn’t much pushing me to find all the secrets of this world, and the lack of objective gradually became a detriment with no strong sense of intrigue to pull me into the game. Outer Wilds quickly becomes lonely, and toward the end I was really missing the warmth of Timber Hearth. This perhaps is intentional, but in doing so all that initial charm and allure is lost. This game would have benefited from some small regular incentives to motivate the player, such as upgrades to the ship and jetpack. If you are seeking a game in which you can drift about quaint outer space environments to a really lovely soundtrack, give this game a go. If you are looking for a captivating, new type of space adventure, you’re better off searching a different frontier.
SUMMARY
69 / 100
+ Charming art style
+ Wonderful Soundtrack
+ Exploring space in your ship is initially very fun.
– Lack of clear objective and driving force
– Monotonous story telling
