⚡ NEW: Id/tornGB - High Quality

I LOVE THIS GAME

it is so much fun <3

it is long. but that just means there is more to enjoy!!

royal > base game.

base game has a couple of iffy chapters, with filler villains, whos name i could not tell you. but the ROYAL villain... ooooo its good its good. a nice message

it gives you more of an appreciation for the smaller things as it takes you through a slice of life story where you get to make friends and do lots of cool hangouts <333



the gameplay is fun and alive and all just comes to together so nicely to give you this buzzing feeling of wanting to LIVE throughout

a charming story, amazing environments, fantastic UI, and maybe the best OST ever made. everyone should play p5 <333

hi! before i begin, i think its best that i advise you:

if your reading reviews as your unsure if you should purchase outer wilds, stop!

i promise you this game is worth both your time and money. it is even better if you go into this game completely blind. take the leap of faith.

play with a controller, and play with headphones. you will thank me later :)


with that out of the way, for those wanting to play blind (as you should!!), the next part of my review contains minor spoilers...

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this was an old friend of mines favourite game. i had no idea what it was about, but seeing it was on sale, i trusted their opinion, wanting a new experience! consequently, i went into this game also, completely blind.

i was expecting some cozy space adventure where i got to meet people and see beautiful things. whilst thats certainly still true, you can imagine my surprise upon landing on giant's deep... i was barely able to take the ship off timber hearth and pilot it in the first place!!!

i immediately crashed and spent the next 10 minutes hopelessly swimming around and being flung into the air! i can only imagine what it would have been like if i ended up in dark bramble instead o.o

you'd think an unexpected experience like that would immediately turn someone off the game, but the desire to seek out - to be curious and explore, was stronger than the very first obstacle i had encountered. i died, of course, and tried again. this time going somewhere else.

i continued to do so, and little by little i was able to explore so much of this wonderful universe. the puzzles and exploration are the heart of this game. it is so much fun seeing something new, then figuring it out on your own. learning about the history of those who came before you and using it to make progress evokes such a strong feeling of joy. i think this need to be curious is what makes outer wilds so good, and the game definitely leans into that desire throughout.

i want to talk about what i think is possibly the greatest strength outer wilds has: the sound design. throughout this game, every single experience was heightened so much by how fantastic the sound felt. traversing a planet by being jusssttt in its orbit and building up speed with your jetpack felt so good because you could hear the wind whizzing past you. the environments and navigation have so much life due to the surrounding sound. it is why i strongly recommend you play with headphones and not speakers.

...speaking of sound, one HAS to talk about the music in this game <333. oh my god. i think what kept me so motivated, and what i really enjoyed, was the other astronauts. hearing their music on my signalscope and using it to locate them, or lining up as many as i could to hear the harmony... it was always touching. same goes for hearing the music fade into person as i approached closer to each person!!! i loved it. the theme is so lovely and so fitting for outer wilds, and its implementation is really unique.

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major spoilers now (like end game stuff!!)

using the song to as a means to bounce into talking about the ending: wow. it was so beautiful. i expected something like the campfire scene, but hearing it with solanum was really, really mesmerising.

both the build up and the final sequence was such a big pay off, i adored all of it.

solving the puzzles to get to this point felt amazing. i was especially fond of the quantum moon traversal: i think that sequence was a prime example of exactly what a good puzzle should do. we explored multiple different quantum 'things', which taught us corresponding rules, which we had to utilise to solve the quantum moon puzzle!!! this was super cool. same goes for the coordinates to the vessel.... it feels SO good to learn something and use it to figure something else out. really well done <333

i think if i had to form ONE criticism for the game though, it would be puzzle related. there a couple of puzzles that are a little too 'time-orientated'? as in, be at this spot at this time in the loop to figure it out. the most prominent of that was the quantum tower of knowledge... i was really hoping to use a quantum rule to get inside (given there's a rock like just next to it...), or some clever way? but it was just waiting till the right time in the loop for it to be available. yeah it hints to it, yeah you can figure it out, but the solution was just a little disappointing. ONLY thing that I wasn't fond of, still a masterfully crafted gem of a game that I would highly recommend.

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final thing i want to talk about here is the very bold decision to let the player literally do whatever with no guide. it can feel very overwhelming at first. at times i felt stuck and was totally unsure of what to do.

its honestly kind of scary, feeling alone and trapped with no idea of how to move forward, yet there is still so much to explore, and so much you want to see.

for me, in this way, outer wilds felt like it was holding a mirror through the screen. despite this being a silly game about the end of the universe with alien creatures and sci-fi technology, the meaning felt so real .

i came to really, really enjoy the lack of a guide and the amount of agency the player has. whilst we obviously cant change the story in any way, the ability to take it at your own pace, discover entirely on your own, make mistakes on your way, learn, then grow, is something really, really special. i think it was beautifully done :)

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overall, i think outer wilds has quickly become one of my own favourite games. if your considering purchasing after reading my review, i hope it will become yours too.

The stars were beautiful, weren't they? Even if our star is what ultimately killed us.