Look, if you haven’t heard about Outer Wilds yet, just go play the game, please. It’s the kind of game where, the less you know about it, the more you’ll enjoy it.

The main mechanic of Outer Wilds is knowledge, i.e., in order to progress through the game, you need to learn how to do things. There are no upgrades to unlock or skills to purchase, everything that you need to beat the game is available to you at the start, you just need to learn how to beat it. You could say the same about most puzzle games, but even those usually have a linear sequence of levels, where you need to solve earlier levels in order to unlock later sections. In Outer Wilds, this isn’t the case, you could start with the “last” challenge if you so desire, you just won’t know how to solve it, or even what it is. Therefore, anything that I tell you about Outer Wilds is technically a spoiler. I’ll try to keep my review as spoiler-free as I can for now.

I’ve heard these types of games being referred to as “Metroidbrainias”, which is not a term that I would personally have come up with (I think I could do better than that hehe), but it’s one that most people who are reading this will understand, so let’s go with that one. There are other games like The Witness, Animal Well, or even the iconic Myst, that could fit in this category, but for me Outer Wilds is the epitome of what a Metroidbrainia can be.

If you’re still not sure whether you’ll like Outer Wilds or not, just look at my other recommendations. If we appear to have similar tastes, you’ll love this game too! It’s one of my favorite pieces of visual media of all time.

One thing to keep in mind is that the game can be a bit confusing and overwhelming at first. Don’t worry about it, it’s normal, just keep playing. After two or three hours you should get a sense of how the game works, and remember — there is no timer, you can do things at your own pace. Well, technically there is a timer of sorts, and I’ll try not to spoil anything, but it doesn’t directly penalize you for failing to do anything “on time”. You may have to repeat some actions, but that’s a normal part of every puzzle game, even if it feels more frustrating here. The ship controls can also be a bit hard to get used to. If you’re playing on PC, it may be easier to use a controller.

Okay, have I convinced you yet? The next paragraphs will have some spoilers, so please don’t read further if you haven’t played the game yet. There won’t be any big narrative spoilers, but like I said before, the least you know before playing, the better. Even if you don’t plan on playing Outer Wilds for now, you may want to, eventually. You have been warned.

The first time that I died in Outer Wilds, I wasn’t surprised by the time loop mechanic, since I already knew about that before playing (yes, I spoiled myself 😔). Regardless, when it happened I felt frustrated, it felt like I had just lost a bunch of progress. However, what I came to realize later, and I’ve already touched on this earlier, is that you never really lose progress in this game. By dying, I was able to go back to my ship and review all the clues that I had collected during my first “run”. From there, I was able to piece together a bit of the story and make a plan to explore other planets. Eventually I returned to that planet where I had died in my initial attempt, but by that time I had learned so much that I was able to “clear” it without dying. It felt like a huge achievement!

When you collect the last piece of knowledge, the information required to “beat” the game, the weirdest feeling washes over you. You think “wait, that’s all I needed?”, then you think “so I could just play this game again from the beginning, and by knowing this, I can beat it in like 20 minutes?”. And yeah, you could, that’s why I said that this is a knowledge-based game. As soon as you acquire the needed knowledge, the challenge disappears. Outer Wilds is probably one of the best uses for the term “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey”. While the ending is amazing (a real tearjerker, if you ask me), its impact is only felt after going through the incredible journey that the game puts you through. Replaying Outer Wilds, while still loads of fun (and an opportunity to uncover some secrets that you may have missed on your first playthrough), is not and will never be the same thing as playing it for the first time. While this can initially feel like a bad thing, it doesn’t take away from the great experience that you had. Just because you can’t relive it, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t worthwhile. Many of life’s moments are like this, but your memories of them live on and allow you to reminisce on them with fondness.

I’m very glad that I played Outer Wilds. It’s a unique experience that I won’t forget anytime soon. I’d love to, so I could play the game again without remembering anything, but since that’s not happening (unless I start to lose my memory, but hopefully not 😅), I’m at least able to tell you all to go play it. I sincerely hope that you love it just as much as I did. 💖