Outer Wilds is a first-person, open-world puzzle/exploration game based around the physics of space and its unlimited possibilities. You play as a newly trained space pilot ready to explore the unknown solar system and its deepest secrets with a few unique tools, and your very own spaceship.
Right off the bat the game gives you a delightful feeling, with the sounds of crickets, a campfire, and the tune of a banjo. The music is perfectly themed. You wake up, talk to your buddy at the campfire, maybe roast a few marshmallows, then get ready for launch. The first moments of the game give you the chance to just look around and enjoy the scenery a bit. You can talk to anybody around the village, with the dialogue sequences being pleasantly clever or humorous. When you're talking to people it allows you a larger selection of well-characterized responses that even some RPG games don't give you. While you don't actually end up talking much throughout the game, the ability to respond with your own bit of character initially is very appreciated.
Everything continues pretty predictably and basic until you get ready to launch, then the mystery begins. What starts off as an unusual incident before your first take-off turns into an important mission to escape a time loop and save the solar system! This mission drives you to explore every corner of the 5 planets around the sun, and the other celestial bodies surrounding it.
The wonder of the game and its backing lore and story-line is what keeps you playing and motivates you to explore. All around your solar system are the ruins of the ancient Nomai race and their technology. Everything you uncover gives you clues as to what happened all those years ago and how it is affecting you now. As you use your translator to read more and more of their writings you begin to see the details of how the story played out. You get to learn more about the culture and characters that you truly come to love while marvelling at the ruins of their technology.
The mystery, however, cannot be solved by exploring one place. You have to take clues from everywhere you go to advance. The progression was done very well, placing the largest pieces of the puzzle in the hardest to get places, while giving you the small ones in other various locations to raise questions and drive you to the bigger pieces. This strategy encourages the exploration of every inch of the solar system and makes sure the story continues to unfurl gradually. While it may be possible to work out how to beat the game without going everywhere, I would encourage you to follow your sense of adventure more than just trying to beat the game as fast as possible. It is much more rewarding to beat the game when you learn the story behind it all, searching out even the unnecessary secrets first.
The puzzles proved to be particularly unique compared to most games as they are all heavily based on solid physics. Everything in the game behaves in a way that makes sense according to the laws of the game's simplified universe. For instance, never anywhere in the game do you run into an invisible wall. Every obstacle you find is an obviously physical object. It allows you to use real logic and investigation to solve the puzzles and learn something new, or to get to a place you have not yet been. Another interesting note is that the game has no unlockables. The only thing you gain as you fly around is knowledge. This is another one of those things that make the game immersive and realistic. There is nothing to make you feel like it is just a video game where things are a certain way just because of the rules. The reward is not the unlockables, but the experience.
Like everything else, the flight physics in the game are realistic in its own simplified way. When you're in outer-space and moving in a direction, you will just keep moving forever unless you hit a planet or you use your thrusters to stop yourself. It takes a little bit of skill to pilot your ship, but it is easy enough that it doesn't become a burden. Also the guy who made your space ship was kind enough to put an autopilot feature in. Just be careful it doesn't lead you into the sun on the way to your destination...
Outer Wilds plays heavily on what we call the wonder of 3D. There is a certain magic and wonder to walking around in a 3D world and exploring all the nooks and crannies of a detailed environment. What Outer Wilds excelled at was making everything feel real, and in an world with a scale like no other. The environments in the game are stunning, and while the graphics are simple, they have a very appealing aesthetic. I am still awed every time I break the atmosphere of Giant's Deep and see the massive tornadoes reaching from the sky to the sea. Every planet and location you travel to has its own appeal or terror to it, if not both!
At the end of the game, when you have figured out what you must do to end the time loop and save the world, you go on your mission and hope you survive. If you do, the climax ending of the game is well worth it. As it does throughout the whole game, the music and striking scenery blow you away.
Since Outer Wilds relies almost completely on your knowledge of the story to enjoy it, the re-playability is near to none. This however, is no concern at all. Even being an indie game at a generally higher price of 25$, it is well worth the price to experience this game. Outer Wilds is a satisfyingly different game and easily one of the best games that I have ever played. The experience of playing through this game with my brothers will not be forgotten. It is without hesitation that we rate Outer Wilds 10/10.