Outer Wilds

 PC
User Score
8.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 782 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 650 out of 782
  2. Mixed: 55 out of 782
  3. Negative: 77 out of 782

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  1. sh4dow
    May 31, 2019
    6
    What a shame. I find the idea of those small planets that kind of work like Russian dolls incredibly charming. As well as the overall whimsical presentation. Music, although rare, is great too (Some bits sound like folksy post rock. Very interesting and enjoyable...).
    But the mechanic of a time limit of 22 minutes per run has lead to a lot of frustration for me. One too many times, I    What a shame. I find the idea of those small planets that kind of work like Russian dolls incredibly charming. As well as the overall whimsical presentation. Music, although rare, is great too (Some bits sound like folksy post rock. Very interesting and enjoyable...).
    But the mechanic of a time limit of 22 minutes per run has lead to a lot of frustration for me. One too many times, I FINALLY managed to get to a place that I wanted to go to, only to be caught by the time limit and ending up with yet another "There is more to explore here" note in my ship's log. (Everything you discover is stored in your ship's log permanently).
    And so I've decided that I won't put up with it any more. Especially since at least personally, I didn't find the story too engaging. It takes itself way too seriously compared to the otherwise cartoony nature of everything. And I don't really care about that mysterious alien race that died out and some weird "Eye of the Universe". What did speak to me was uncovering new areas and things (which are all really well designed) on the various planets. But as already mentioned - the time limit ruined that experience for me.    … Expand
  2. LukeSmart98
    Jan 14, 2020
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I don't think my enjoyment of a game has ever changed so dramatically as it has with Outer Wilds. I started this last week, full of admiration for a game that seemed to be breaking boundaries. A fluid galaxy to explore that didn't wait for you, complete with sun and orbiting planets. For the first ten hours, I was thoroughly enjoying myself, exploring and familiarising myself with the various planets and moons and etc.

    It wasn't until I reached that ten-hour mark that I finally began to struggle with what to do and where to go. No matter though. I'd read a lot of reviews for this game so I knew that it was likely I would hit a wall sooner or later. Usually, I'm not the sort of person who has much issue with pulling up a walkthrough if I feel I've been stuck on something too long - but I wanted it to be different with Outer Wilds. It's been named by multiple publications as 2019's Game of the Year and its objective is to figure out what is going on, so I didn't want to ruin what could be a rare experience.

    But five hours later, I really hadn't made much progress. Every new discovery didn't seem to be leading me anywhere and now, fifteen hours in, I felt I was pretty much in the same spot as I had been at the ten-hour mark. Grudgingly, I googled the answer to four questions that were puzzling me:

    1. How to get to the core of Giant's Deep?
    2. Where to go in Dark Bramble?
    3. How to get to Ash Twin project?
    4. How to avoid anglerfish?

    The first two of these questions I should have been able to figure out if I had paid more attention. The third, I'm still unclear how one was supposed to work that out. The fourth, it turns out I already knew the answer, I had just been second-guessing myself because it seemed too hard.

    With this new knowledge, I returned to the game able to actually make some progress, but I was in no doubt that it had a left a sour taste in my mouth. Even if I finished it now, I hadn't been able to work it out myself and that had taken something away from the experience.

    To make matters worse, the five hours I had spent retreading the same ground - combing areas I had explored twenty times before for some clue I had missed - had made me tired of dying. From the occasional slip-ups, like forgetting to check my oxygen, overshooting a jump and crashing into the ground, or not paying attention to the fact my ship was autopiloting me into the sun; to the supernova itself, which had gone from cool mechanic to irritating hindrance as it just seemed to be getting in the way as I desparately sought some new lead.

    But nothing, but nothing, irritated me more than the anglerfish. For some reason, the devs clearly thought it necessary to the anglerfish's design that it possess hearing so acute that if you were to lean a millimetre too heavily on the jets in its general vicinity, it would immediately locate you and eat you. The anglerfish didn't need to be this much of a pain as far as I'm concerned. They could still have been blind but with good hearing and it still would have been tense to fly around Dark Bramble without making it borderline unfair. It made flying, or should I say floating, through Dark Bramble an agonisingly slow experience, especially when one still wasn't sure where they were going.

    As it was, I was trying to transport the warp core to The Vessel. My first attempt, I had been eaten by an anglerfish I wasn't expecting almost as soon as I got in. The second time, I made it to The Vessel and was just about to put in the coordinates when I was blown up by the supernova. On my third attempt, I entered the red zone and gently attempted to edge myself sideways so I didn't bash into one of the three fish. I'm convinced I was no louder than I had been on my second attempt, but they heard me this time and they subsequently ate me.

    And I had had enough.

    I realised, as I watched the fish's jaws close around my ship for the umpteenth time, that I was bored. My curiosity and interest had been sapped, and not even the possible regret that might come from failing to finish one of the most talked-about games of last year, could get me to carry on. It's a shame, considering how long I waited to play the game, but the game receives far more praise that it does criticism, so I guess it just goes to show that no matter how critically-acclaimed a game is or how interesting it looks, you can't ever know whether or not you'll like it until you get your hands on it.    … Expand
  3. auditbadger
    Jun 2, 2020
    7
    I think that this is truly a unique game and I would recommend that if you are a fan of this type of genre then I think you should give this game a try.
  4. Hugeasswhale
    Jan 24, 2020
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The game deserves its praise for its creativity, story, and world building but it’s impossible with out a guide and not because its a hard puzzle game. For a game that relies solely on telling you what to do it tries way to hard to be cryptic. Also, it’s not exactly consistent in regards to ghost matter. In the game you have to avoid ghost matter or it will kill you but on the interloper there are several times when you walk right over it and it doesn’t effect you but go the way the game doesn’t want you to and it kills you despite not touching the matter at all. It’s not a particularly clever game and it’s use of quantum mechanics is extremely surface level to the point that it could have not used the word quantum and it would have been about as accurate. It wants so hard to be cryptic and not hold your hand but at the same time if you miss even one wall message you’re basically screwed. Also the dead ends are driving me crazy. The ruptured core tells you nothing you don’t know, the sunstation is a red hearing as well as the “quantum” moon and despite having almost completed the game completely, I still have no idea how to get to ash core and I’m not sure I care at this point. The game is remarkably hypocritical in how it holds your hand yet refuses to do so in ways that would make it much less frustrating. The only reason I think it gets so much praise is because everyone uses guides and are afraid to criticize it due to its pretentious nature. “If you didn’t like it your just not smart enough to get it” type of thing. The story is clever I will say but to call this game a puzzle game is laughable. It’s an interactive mystery narrative that is unplayable with out a walkthrough. With out all the red hearings and obstacles it puts in front of you that require very specific information to get past this game would be very short and perhaps better. The game has serious flaws and as someone who hates to cheat I have to say this game is tedious and frustrating while admittedly brilliant in some ways.… Expand
  5. TitaniumDragon
    Sep 29, 2021
    7
    Outer Wilds is a puzzle/adventure game. You play as an unnamed alien of the Hearthean race, a race of four-eyed, blue-skinned aliens who live on the Timber Hearth, a planet in a small little solar system full of strange planets. You are an astronaut – the fifth of your kind to go to space – and after speaking to a handful of your people on your home planet and doing some basic training toOuter Wilds is a puzzle/adventure game. You play as an unnamed alien of the Hearthean race, a race of four-eyed, blue-skinned aliens who live on the Timber Hearth, a planet in a small little solar system full of strange planets. You are an astronaut – the fifth of your kind to go to space – and after speaking to a handful of your people on your home planet and doing some basic training to get used to the controls, you get the launch codes to your spaceship and head off into space.

    Well, for twenty two minutes, anyway.

    As you quickly discover, this game is a time loop. Your goal – such as it is – is to figure out what is causing the time loop and how to fix the problem you’re facing at the end of it, if such a thing is even possible.

    While a game like this might seem like something where you’d find items and use them to solve problems, there’s surprisingly little of that – there are some carryable items, but they cannot be carried between loops at all, and are almost always simply used on something nearby to reveal some text or other puzzle clues. The only things you have are the tools you got at the start of the game – a device that shoots probes that can take pictures, and a signal detection device.

    It turns out, this is enough.

    Because literally everything resets every loop, the only thing you can actually bring back in time is information. Fortunately, not only does this work well with the game’s sort of cerebral nature, but the game itself gives you tools for tracking the information you have in the form of your ship’s log, which both stores information by location (planet or moon or what have you) but also by connection – various things you find connect to other things, and it shows you lines heading off to unknown things you haven’t discovered yet.

    Fortunately, it also lets you know whether or not you’ve missed anything in areas you have explored, which helps to avert frustration.

    Because of the game’s 22 minute time limit per loop, none of the puzzles can be overly difficult mechanically – almost all of them are things that can be done in under a minute, if you know what you’re actually *supposed* to do.

    However, figuring out the whole puzzle of the game might take you until the end – even though the entire game can technically be solved in about ten minutes if you know what you’re doing.

    The game does a pretty good job of chaining together a variety of things and giving you a bunch of hints that lead you on to new areas and new puzzles. The puzzles tend to be environmental in nature, and you get plenty of hints (and sometimes, outright statements about how to solve them), though some are a bit more obscure and require more thought on the player’s part.

    Because every time you die or reach the end of the time loop the world resets, many things in the game are based around timing – one planet gets covered with sand while another gets denuded of it, for instance, which creates puzzles based on when various things get uncovered/covered up. Another planet is gradually crumbling, which can either allow or deny access based on how much it has fallen apart.

    Unfortunately, these puzzles, while cool in some ways, are also some of the most frustrating – because if you screw them up, you have no choice but to reset the loop, and if it is a puzzle that occurs near the end of the loop, you’re going to have to wait for the whole loop to go by to retry it. There are also some large underground areas which can be something of a pain to properly explore. There were several occasions where I ran out of time before I could finish exploring an area or solving a puzzle, necessitating significant backtracking, sometimes repeatedly.

    This created an odd issue – experimenting was sometimes a bad thing, because if I screwed up, I’d have to start the loop over and backtrack all the way back over to where I’d died. This created a weird situation where the time loop made me NOT want to take risks, as resetting the loop would necessitate me spend time jumping through the same hoops over again to get back.

    Indeed, for all that the game was a “puzzle game”, I honestly didn’t find myself enjoying the actual puzzles all that much. What really drew me in was the whole exploration and discovery aspect of the game - going around, seeing new places, and figuring out the plot and what was going on. The actual puzzles often were just flat-out explained to you by other hints, and some of the ones that weren't felt like they went a bit too far in the opposite direction.

    Overall, I thought this was a pretty neat game – trying to figure out what was going on was neat, and the game left some fun red herrings to mislead me into thinking that the end of the game was going to be very different from what it actually was.

    One bit of advice - avoid spoilers.    … Expand
  6. lur_
    Jul 14, 2020
    7
    A very strong 7/10.

    An unusual game, tricky to categorize. A roguelike walking simulator space adventure game with light puzzle elements? A clockwork-like? Central to the design is that there is nearly no progression besides your own increasing knowledge of the game. There are no items to collect and no shortcuts to unlock. This works well as long as your fascination of new    A very strong 7/10.

    An unusual game, tricky to categorize. A roguelike walking simulator space adventure game with light puzzle elements? A clockwork-like?

    Central to the design is that there is nearly no progression besides your own increasing knowledge of the game. There are no items to collect and no shortcuts to unlock. This works well as long as your fascination of new discoveries outweighs any desire to feel like you're making progress towards some specific goal. For me the early 5-8 hours worked best in this regard, with an increasing sense of frustration over a lack of progress creeping in during mid to late game.

    It also seems fair to say the design relies partially on players exploring just for the sake of exploration and for players to try interacting with certain environmental artifacts simply because they're there, with several key steps to the full solution seemingly lacking direct hints. It's tricky to say if this is a good or bad choice, but it's easy to see how it can lead to frustrating instances of getting stuck.

    A final tricky part to evaluate is the time mechanic, which on the one hand allows for some really interesting environmental puzzles, but on the other hand leads to some frustrating instances of waiting around for time to pass.

    The easiest part to evaluate is the story. The story, once you get to see the whole picture, is incredibly well-crafted and could easily work as a standalone sci-fi novella. This alone made all the gameplay frustrations worth the effort for me.

    Also flying the ship is fun and the planets are really cool. Graphics are OK and performance is alright.    … Expand
  7. JohnMalcolm
    Jun 25, 2019
    5
    The Good: You don't have to kill people. A lot of the story and art work are imaginative. Open world format.

    The Bad: You die a lot, and that always takes you to the same boring location, from which you have to repeat a lot of boring tasks very quickly to exploit your 30-minute shot at finding something new. It plays a lot like a 3D platformer with no chance to save your progress after    The Good: You don't have to kill people. A lot of the story and art work are imaginative. Open world format.

    The Bad: You die a lot, and that always takes you to the same boring location, from which you have to repeat a lot of boring tasks very quickly to exploit your 30-minute shot at finding something new. It plays a lot like a 3D platformer with no chance to save your progress after successfully completing a difficult sequence.

    The Ugly: The system of planetoids seems relentlessly grotesque, without much uplifting in the first week of play... which is as long as I could stand it.    … Expand
  8. Aatef
    Aug 4, 2019
    5
    Graphics and art style are very good
    but the controls, frustrating puzzles and dump saving system makes it below average for me
  9. setuis
    Nov 2, 2019
    7
    firstly this review is for ps4 version.

    1 there is no way to lock spinning making flying stuff annoying when fixing pipe in mine/flying ship. 2 there is no way to gauge speed (releasing scouts and using scanner prevents you flying main ship from what i can tell. 3 no warning about random tornado engulfing me on landing destroying all progress except for keeping launch code. 4    firstly this review is for ps4 version.

    1 there is no way to lock spinning making flying stuff annoying when fixing pipe in mine/flying ship.
    2 there is no way to gauge speed (releasing scouts and using scanner prevents you flying main ship from what i can tell.
    3 no warning about random tornado engulfing me on landing destroying all progress except for keeping launch code.
    4 no fast travel that i have seen.

    This review may change.    … Expand
  10. DJKrimson
    Aug 8, 2021
    6
    Bought this game blind because of friends recommendations. It has good music and an interesting story. However, if you're not paying absolutely 100% attention to everything you won't understand what to do and the quest/objective log sucks. In my opinion this game is overrated.
  11. Welkinz
    Jun 4, 2021
    7
    To be fair, it is an interesting game, and really great to see cosmic visual spectacles. I am just personally not very into this style of exploring+puzzle solving gameplaying style without clear storyline guidance.
  12. Holmstrom
    Dec 30, 2019
    5
    I really wish I enjoyed this game. There's definitely something there, but everything just feels so static and dead to me. The main menu music had me drawn in from the very first few bars, but aside from that I just didn't enjoy the ship controls, the uninspiring looking planets/moons, and how the game tells it's story.
  13. Youroichima
    May 18, 2020
    5
    Ce jeux est une pépite. Tout est réfléchit, de la bande son au gameplay. L'histoire se dévoile au fur et à mesure que l'on joue, la découverte et le sentiment de voyage sont magnifiquement retranscrits. Je conseil.
  14. AxeWould
    Jun 20, 2021
    7
    Вот рили, игра очень не плохая, хотя на первом часу я от игры плевался и кричал, но потом часов 10 я получал удовольствие и считал эту игру шедевром (так как уже приловчился к управлению и механике игры), но потом просто уже доипали эти случайные смерти из-за все таки немного плохого управленя, и повторы на одну и ту самую планету прыгать и проебывать, уже настолько достало, что я дажеВот рили, игра очень не плохая, хотя на первом часу я от игры плевался и кричал, но потом часов 10 я получал удовольствие и считал эту игру шедевром (так как уже приловчился к управлению и механике игры), но потом просто уже доипали эти случайные смерти из-за все таки немного плохого управленя, и повторы на одну и ту самую планету прыгать и проебывать, уже настолько достало, что я даже игру не прошел. Сюжет он есть, и даже интересный, но механика просто надоела, просто бегаешь по одним и тем-же локациям и читаешь одно и тоже, музыка классная, игровой геймплей завораживает первые 10 часов, но сука рестарты достали, игра не плохая и я ее советую, но местами просто бесит.… Expand
  15. Zski
    Apr 30, 2023
    7
    This really is a beautifully crafted game, but unfortunately doesn’t connect with everyone - I was one of them. However, it’s impossible to give this game a fair shot and not respect the brilliant design. It’s a blend of the world building and blind exploration of Myst/Riven, the time loop of Majora’s Mask, and the spirit of space exploration of No Man’s Sky. I enjoyed all three of theseThis really is a beautifully crafted game, but unfortunately doesn’t connect with everyone - I was one of them. However, it’s impossible to give this game a fair shot and not respect the brilliant design. It’s a blend of the world building and blind exploration of Myst/Riven, the time loop of Majora’s Mask, and the spirit of space exploration of No Man’s Sky. I enjoyed all three of these games in the past, but this one was a lot to digest, possibly too much to digest for some. The little solar system they created is really cool, it steps outside of a conventional solar system that we expect based on what we know. The planets seem pretty small and linear at first - it’s not like a Fallout or Skyrim game where you have a labyrinth or sprawling world underneath, but more so a carefully crafted zone that is intended to be followed a specific way. The lore is hit or miss, at least to me. Sometimes the backstory is kind of interesting, but most times it’s very surface level and just uninteresting. The story/lore is sometimes just following the explorer who was there just before you - not a bad plot, but very unimaginative. Sometimes the plot will cover something a little more interesting, but generally most of the plot lines are bland until a bit later in the game. I do like the exploration and learning to the game, nothing is force fed, there are no checkpoints, you just slowly become more engaged in the world. The graphics are pretty forgettable but that isn’t much of an issue because the visuals of the solar system living are sometimes very cool to see. The controls are tough at first, but once you figure it out, it gives a nice consistent challenge that adds to the gameplay. Overall I appreciate this game and respect it for what it is. It’s a very very very slow burn that won’t work for everyone, but there is a great game waiting for those who can get into it.… Expand
  16. CodaHensley
    Jan 3, 2023
    6
    I have tried to get into this game so many times, and I just can't, I really can't. I have gotten feeling of discomfort and anxiety while playing this I don't think I will ever get from another video game ever, but I just can't invest myself in the story enough to care enough to keep playing.

Awards & Rankings

21
#21 Best PC Game of 2019
18
#18 Most Discussed PC Game of 2019
1
#1 Most Shared PC Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
85

Generally favorable reviews - based on 29 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 29
  3. Negative: 0 out of 29
  1. GameCritics
    Aug 20, 2019
    65
    Outer Wilds is rife with breathtaking sights and sounds, and at the very least, no one could accuse it of being unambitious. Mobius Digital may be a small team but, almost paradoxically, they achieve a remarkable sense of scope by keeping things modest. However, their work suffers from the glacial pace of progress and a hands-off approach to storytelling. My biggest issues – a lack of combat, direction, or material rewards – are obviously deliberate, bold choices on the part of the devs, and I commend Mobius for them while also chiding the cold, inscrutable product that resulted. I admire Outer Wilds, but I don’t love it.
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  2. Games.cz
    Aug 19, 2019
    90
    This temporally unique game adds something new with your every death and moves the story forward beautifully. The environments are breathtaking, the music will soothe you. This is the perfect game for those of you who are, above all, curious.
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  3. Adventure Gamers
    Jul 26, 2019
    80
    For those who won’t be deterred by the endless deaths and time-looped backtracking in Outer Wilds, its intriguing mystery and non-linear exploration of an entire solar system will be a novel and deeply engaging experience.
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