Oh our happy days, here it is—Outer Wilds. We were late to the party here, but this SOB is really a most impressive beast.

From indie team Mobius Digital in Los Angeles, it launched in 2019 and was an immediate critical darling thanks to its mix of action-adventuring and space exploration. To infinity…

Outer Wilds is All Meta-Puzzles & Physics

The game is available right now on Steam, PS4, and Xbox One. A Switch port is on the way sometime soon, too.

At the core of Outer Wilds is a space exploration game. That’s nothing new. The likes of No Man’s Sky (2016) and Exo One (2021) have delved into the genre.

And then there’s the likes of Subnautica (2014) and its water-based survival focus.

But there’s something a bit special about getting to grips with Outer Wilds. The first time you blast off in your little spaceship, head out of orbit, and start hurtling around your little solar system… well, it’s easy to swoon for this one.

You take control of an alien anthropologist who’s with a scientific team, deep in space, exploring a little solar system type thing.

Early on, you talk to some of your colleagues and gear up to get into your spaceship… and then boom! You take off. And you’re in space! Seriously, it’s one of the finest moments in video games we’ve ever experienced. Joyous.

Once you’re up into space, you’ll need to master the whole travelling about thing.

It’s not like flooring it, you see, you have to take into consideration acceleration, planet orbits, and the occasional stray asteroid.

But once you’ve got the hang of it there are five planets to explore.

The first one we visited had a dense green atmosphere you couldn’t see into, kind of like Jupiter’s cloud formations.

Once we entered the planet’s atmosphere we were greeted with giant, spiralling tornadoes out to do us over. It was a blast!

We ended up landing and chatting to some alien colleague dude convinced he was dead, at which point Outer Wilds’ multi-layered plot kicked in.

You keep dying. But as there’s a 22-minute time loop in operation around the solar system, you get to start over again if you snuff it.

With the solar system’s star about to go supernova, you’ve got to use your anthropological skills to piece together key information… and save the day!

But, you know, you can also take a break from all that to toast some marshmallows over an open fire. Nice, eh?

We don’t want to give too much away, really, so here’s the official reveal trailer from a few years back. Tempting, isn’t it!? 

The central aspect of Outer Wilds immediately becomes exploration, as you visit each planet and gather data to solve puzzles.

There are no set goals. You just throw yourself into it and see what you can find.

Piece together all the clues, fly around in your spaceship, land, take off, and revel in it all. Truly, Outer Wilds is one glorious SOB.

Yeah! The game was very well received by the press, garnering much critical acclaim. It even bagged some Game of the Year awards along the way.

It looks brilliant and is a lot of fun to play. Taking off, exploring space, landing, exploring planets—fabulous.

Outer Wild’s Spacious Soundtrack

The soundtrack by Andrew Prahlow also offers a cosy feeling to proceedings, with plenty of twang and sense of possibilities ahead.

After that plucky sense of optimism does give way to different types of compositions, to promote a sense of awe.. or fear!

Aye, as the game does deal with an existential time loop (kind of like Heilwald Loophole, minus the insanity) and requires moments of proper ZOMG.

But yeah, a great soundtrack for a game that’s really an unusual mix of space exploration and camping out beside a fire.

Break out the guitar, get a bag of marshmallows, and enjoy this SOB. As it’s all rather magnificent.