Playing Outer Wilds feels like playing a mobile game that makes you wait for 5 minutes to revive your character. Wait for a planet to fall apart, wait for sand to drop, wait for sand to rise, wait for sand column to come, wait for comet to get warm, wait for planets to align.įailing a task that you had to wait for several minutes to attempt feels absolutely awful and has no place in any video game. It's hard to gauge how long exactly you need to wait at the campfire, so it's better to leave early and WAIT at your destination. Restart the loop and let's get WAITING again. Look away to check your phone - whoops, you missed the window. You can use the campfire to WAIT LESS, but then you're stuck staring at a black screen with a timer on it. To access them - there is nothing to do but WAIT. Over 100 loops (realistic to finish the game) it's a few hours wasted doing the exact same, mundane thing.Ī lot of the discoveries in Outer Wilds are only available after a certain time in each loop. Rushing makes you fail and die more.Īnd whenever you die, you are forced to see a flashback of your last loop, take an elevator back to your ship, put on your suit and fly back to where you were. That makes exploration more frustrating, since you often don't have enough time to explore everything thoroughly.
In Outer Wilds you're constantly on a timer. The music and atmosphere of the game is very relaxing, but the gameplay is not. I do not like being too severely punished in video games in general, but in an exploration-based, story-rich game it feels like a crime. Except most of the time you don't even make it to the library, stepping on a trap door which sends you back to your bed with no progress made. The overall mystery was very interesting to explore, but the entirety of it could be condensed into a short novella.Įxcept every time you read a few words of the novella you wake up in your bed and need to get dressed, brush your teeth and walk to the library to read another few words. The story is presented through written dialogue of characters from an ancient civilisation, neither of which I remembered by name or cared about. Playing Outer Wilds is 90% waiting and repeating the same steps dozens of times trying to obtain a tiny piece of a story puzzle that doesn't feel rewarding enough. It has room for one pilot, and comes with a variety of high-tech gear - including the generator, oxygen tanks, and main computer - as well as decorative items, such as clothes pegs and windows. It is propelled by two banks of multi-directional thrusters, able to propel the craft in any direction. I would've really enjoyed this game if everything didn't feel so tedious. The Spaceship is the primary mode of transportation in Outer Wilds. The story is great, visuals are great and so is the music.
I tried to finish the game a few times but quit in frustration every time.