One of those games you can only experience once. Such a masterpiece!!
Today's featured article on Wikipedia: Outer Wilds
Submitted 2 months ago by silverchase@sh.itjust.works to games@lemmy.world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Wilds
Comments
LongboardingLad@lemmy.world 2 months ago
ylph@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Once you finish it, it’s actually really fun watching other people’s playthroughs as well - getting to relive some of the moments vicariously through other people’s eyes is almost as much fun as experiencing them yourself the first time.
It’s also quite amazing just how different each playthrough can be, since the game is so non-linear, people take some crazy paths to get to the end ! It can be frustrating as well when someone just can’t see what is in front of their face though :)
There are also so many subtle elements scattered around that most people miss on their first playthrough, and watching someone else play it really made me appreciate many of the details I missed on my own playthrough and even make connections I didn’t before, and understand aspects of the story that I didn’t fully get the first time.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 months ago
I keep trying to get the missus to play it, just so I can experience it again.
SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Playing this game anew would be an upside to early onset dementia for me.
LMagicalus@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
I had the solution to the main game spoiled for me YEARS ago. I have the game sitting on an external hard drive, just waiting for my brain to forget.
kksgandhi@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
The game is magical even with that one spoiler. Hell, I’d go so far as to say the puzzles aren’t even as important as the themes and story.
You should definitely play it!
Joelk111@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I have beat the game. I remember the gist of the solution, but I have no idea how to pull it off any more. I can’t wait to play it again, possibly with the VR mod.
MvPts@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This game is a Masterpiece!
cholesterol@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m really struggling with this game. I got it on sale and played for 3+ hours, but somehow it didn’t grip me. It was really annoying having to constantly start over. Not trying to retract from other people’s experience of it.
itsprobablyfine@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
So one thing I didn’t realize right away is that in the ship there is a board where the game auto stores your discoveries detective-style. It really helps provide guidance when you feel like you’re out of leads or don’t know what to do.
scratchee@feddit.uk 2 months ago
On the one hand, if you don’t enjoy the game that’s fine. It’s a masterpiece, but that doesn’t magically mean that everyone will enjoy it.
That said, if you want to enjoy it more, focus on one thing per loop, everything is designed to be completable in a single loop, (or maybe a few for the more complicated puzzles if you get stuck). And if something is frustrating, do something else.
Things really go wrong if you keep smashing your head against a brick wall or if you keep jumping around and never manage to finish anything.
We’re trained to think of death as a major failure by other games, it’s not in this one, it’s just jumping back home, repairing the ship, and starting from a central location and a known state.
duffman@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It takes some getting used to. And maybe looping games isn’t everyone’s cup of tea(e.g. Majora’s mask).
But the exploration, the knowlesge based progression, the cleverness of the story, and its delivery is absolutely brilliant.
domi@lemmy.secnd.me 2 months ago
It’s a hard game to get into. Played for 2 hours on my first run and didn’t know where to go.
After 2 weeks or so I tried again because everyone was recommending it to me. Now it’s one of my favorites, even though it took another 2 hours before I had any idea what I was doing.
pyre@lemmy.world 2 months ago
same here. i keep hearing good things and restarting the game but every time I’m just losing interest by the first hour.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 months ago
The most common gripe I hear is the ship controls. It’s really designed for controller, and manual space flight is kind of pointless when the autopilot can do it so much better (as long as there’s nothing in the way).
It’s really a game about pulling threads until you find interesting things. The ship’s computer is useful for keeping track of the thread ends. Most places can be reached in a minute or so right from the main planet, although depending on where you’re going you might have to wait longer to get access to what you want. There isn’t really any “starting over” because what you’re gathering is knowledge in your own head.
I think the hardest part initially is finding an interesting thread to pull on. I think Giant’s Deep was where it started to click for me, but there’s undoubtedly more.
SimplyTadpole@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
I beat it last week. Amazing game.
Can’t wait to get the DLC and play it!
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 months ago
I put off playing it for ages because I didn’t know how it could possibly stand up to the main game.
It does, and more so. Enjoy.
shneancy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
one of my top favourite games of all time! And one of the two narrative experiences on that list that I can’t talk about with the “uninitiated” (other is Inscryption)
if you like space, and you like thinking - don’t look up anything about this game. Watch maybe 5 minutes of some gameplay if you’re hesitant.
Though a word of warning, this is a game that’ll take all of your focus, it’s very hard to play it with a YouTube video or a movie in playing the background. And yes the ship movement can feel clunky at first, you’ll get used to it don’t worry - the story is worth it
MurrayL@lemmy.world 2 months ago
In my experience, if people are going to bounce off the game it’ll come down to one (or more) of three reasons:
- They hate the flight controls
- They hate the feeling of being on a constant timer
- They hate the lack of explicit direction in what to do next
It’s one of my favourite games of all time, and it has good reasons for all of the above, but it’s definitely not for everyone!
shneancy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
in my experience as a impatient person you simply need to make peace with the timer, it stings at first but then- i think thanks to Outer Wilds i can play souls likes now ::: spoiler spoiler because it shows clearly how death is simply a part of the learning experience, it’s not a failure :::
Setiyeti93@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
My favourite letsnplayer has finally picked this up. I will never experience it fresh… So watching others is the closest I’ll ever get.
tekila@lemmy.world 2 months ago
After playing this game I watched so many streams and let’s play of it. I enjoyed seeing how people did it differently than me.
I also convinced my partner to play it on Christmas as my gift for me to watch. (They were instantly hooked)
This is one on my favorite games ever
sylveon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
It’s so much fun to watch other people figure things out. It’s the closest we can get to playing the game again.
recursive_recursion@programming.dev 2 months ago
vicariously watching others is our only solution now unfortunately
AceTKen@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
It looks like I will be nearly the only dissenter here. I didn’t care for the game.
PROS:
- The music and sound design were completely appropriate and fit the world.
- An initially interesting story setup.
- Some of the planets have a SUPER cool premise and are a joy to explore.
- The DLC adds some much-needed (albeit mild) horror elements.
NEUTRALS:
- Achievements are implemented, but are mostly for irrelevant side activities. Do you like using a guide to figure out how to get all the achievements? Well, you will have to.
CONS:
- This is not an adventure game, this is a puzzle game first and foremost. If you are not down with figuring out hundreds of vague Dark Souls-style lore blurbs scattered all over in order to work out how to solve environmental puzzles to progress, do not get this game.
- In the same vein, if you are not down with having a loop end before you’re done exploring an area only to have to trek all the way back there and go through everything all over again in case you missed something, do not get this game. This could be partially solved by having the logs you find on a planet permanently NOT GLOW any more after you had read their chain, or maybe a ship notice letting you know there were undecyphered texts on a planet still. I had to re-tread an astounding amount of ground just to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
- When your ship directs you to a planet that you need something from, the navigation on some of them is so obtuse that I found several places I could not find again even after dozens of visits to their planets. A map or better signposting would alleviate this.
- The characters were deeply forgettable, and you are constantly inundated with dozens of gibberish alien names so unless you follow a lore guide or take notes, you’re not going to figure out who did what. And speaking of…
- The story has a veneer of “pretty good sci-fi” but is told quite poorly. You will beat the game, get the incredibly lacklustre ending that doesn’t close out the story in any way, and watch one of many lore explanation videos that will make things click into place. The fact that the lore videos have SO MANY HITS is endemic of the fact that this is a narrative poorly delivered. You will find the lore in random order. If spread over multiple sessions like I played, this will mean you will not make some absolutely needed connections.
- Many things do not make sense within the context of the world and there is no reason for them to be happening at the time except for the hand-waving “It’s a video game” excuse, which breaks immersion. Why only now is sand being moved from one planet to another at the beginning of a cycle? Why only now is one planet being broken by lava? These (and other that I can not speak about due to spoilers) are not explained - the systems have existed for ages and would have (and should have given the environments they set up) occurred before this, but because it makes for a more interesting setup, it all happens now.
- The controls are… an acquired taste at best. Look at many of the negative reviews; many state the controls as an issue. There is a reason for this, even though I did become accustomed to them over time. I swapped to a controller and it was less bad. The keyboard and mouse controls are abysmal.
- I played the final build after the DLC came out, and even this far in development, I had some severe bugs. Controls would get “stuck” and force a game restart, achievements didn’t unlock correctly, etc.
- I wound up quitting because I didn’t know what to do next and didn’t care to watch yet another video to figure it out. There were hundreds of text logs that may or may not have been useful, and no idea how to find what was missing to help me progress without consulting guides, and it became too much. I eventually realized that I was just throwing time into a hole with nothing to show for it. It genuinely felt like it wanted me to give up and I couldn’t help but oblige. I just… stopped. I hated it. I kept doing the same thing over and over and eventually felt that I wasn’t enjoying anything. I hate the very concept of repetition as a game mechanic unless executed well; this wasn’t executed well.
- Despite quitting, I have seen all the endings. The real ending is legitimately nonsense and is basically an appeal to emotion while leaving the reality of the universe behind. It abandons the premise with what can only be described as a narrative hug that does essentially nothing, but presents the veneer of “feel good.” It is nothing. It is empty. Everyone but me loves it for this, and I can’t figure out why.
CONCLUSION: Meh? I really don’t understand the adoration people have for this game. It’s a mediocre non-combat roguelike with about 3 hour of content they’ve spread over 20 hours. It feels very much like a case of style over substance. This game genuinely makes me sad. I really wanted to like it, but… ugh. It feels like work.
homicidalrobot@lemm.ee 2 months ago
The alien names aren’t gibberish - they’re all mineral and plant names. Made it really easy for me to keep track of lore, actually, having something to tie the characters to conceptually. Absolutely true that it’s a puzzle game first and foremost.
Imhotep@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m testing it in VR, the modder did an amazing job. Unfortunately my GPU absolutely blows with VR games (Intel Arc A770)
quafeinum@lemmy.world 2 months ago
What headset do you use? I thought getting a a770 meant no VR for me… wish it would render Celeste properly lol
Imhotep@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Lenovo Explorer. I don’t play VR games really, but it’s fun when my little nephews visit (the A770 handles simple games like Beat Saber well). Outer Wilds in VR seemed like a good time to dust of the headset but it’s a bit too stuttery. I didn’t look for any type of fix or optimization though.
But if you’re serious about VR gaming Intel Arc is not a good idea for now. However on /r/intelarc some report good results, saying it varies from game to game.
recursive_recursion@programming.dev 2 months ago
one of the best games of all time🙏
if you haven’t played please don’t spoil yourself as The Outer Wilds is an incredible and enjoyable journey that many and I wish to experience for the first time again
this is a game classified in the legendary status
PaupersSerenade@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
8000gnat@reddthat.com 2 months ago
yuuuus
subignition@piefed.social 2 months ago
If anyone hasn't played this game yet: don't read the article!
I highly recommend you experience this for yourself while knowing as little as possible about it. Top tier game.
Dipbeneaththelasers@lemmy.today 2 months ago
A million percent agree. If you haven’t played it yet, look nothing up and play it as blindly as possible. I’m so glad I did and wish I could do it again.
hannesh93@feddit.org 2 months ago
My go-to game for the question: “if you could forget a game just to experience it all over again” such a perfect game
DamienGramatacus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It really should be part of the title of the game. Outer Wilds: don’t look anything up, just play it.
I very nearly had to use a guide at one point but I stayed strong as everything I’d read said I’d regret it if I did. So glad I didn’t as the joy of discovery in this game is unparalleled. Top 5 gaming experience of all time, I reckon.
obinice@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This was the game where I couldn’t figure out how to fly the space ship properly, and then I went to land on a strange abandoned space station and couldn’t figure out what to do there beyond reading some alien text that didn’t make much sense, right?
I’m sure I didn’t give it a fair lick, it’s just it took up 2 hours of my time and didn’t hook or particularly engage me up to that point, so I didn’t feel like going back in and slogging through the slow burn to get to the good stuff.
That’s on me I suppose, I should try it again!
Does it pick up and get a little more interesting and robust, at least? I’m not looking for hardcore shooter action, but like, I dunno, interesting people, engaging quests and cool places to go whilst doing them, and such. Something to keep me interested, you know?
Everyone’s different, of course, walking simulators with the occasional small bit of world building text to read just aren’t for me is all.
saltesc@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I tried, I really did. But a few hours in, I just didn’t like the gameplay even though I thought I would’ve loved it and the other new games I had waiting won.
Maybe I should grind through. Is there a point where it suddenly gets good a few hours in?
subignition@piefed.social 2 months ago
If exploration, discovery, and puzzling out mysteries aren't engaging for you, it might just not be your type of game.