OUTER WILDS
There’s now a stylised, screenprinted aspect to Outer Wilds’ muted, autumnal palette
Developer Mobius Digital Publisher Annapurna Interactive Format PC, Xbox One Release 2018
Like a moth to a flame, we are drawn back to
Outer Wilds at its E3 demo station this year. An adventure set in a solar system that is stuck in a time loop and destroys itself every 20 realtime minutes, it’s a strangely meditative experience. Our time may be limited, but our chances aren’t: upon hitting our limit a supernova whites out the screen, and we begin another 20-minute jaunt.
We’re in no rush. We spend ages testing our lovely, spongy jump – holding the button down longer before releasing means we’re sprung a little higher – and chit-chatting with the spacesuited locals. Campfire smoke curls up through the pine trees as we potter around idly, hoping to bump into our starship. There’s now a stylised, screen-printed aspect to
Outer Wilds’ muted, autumnal palette: all of the art has been redone, art director Wesley Martin proudly informs us. If Firewatch had been set in space, it might have looked something like this.
There are so many points of interest on our meandering search for transport off the planet that we’re constantly distracted. A little spacesuited NPC challenging us to pilot a remote-control toy onto small platforms is a useful, as well as charming, episode; a way of introducing new players to the floaty controls of the real deal. The observatory in which we find the launch codes is delightful: one displayed artifact lets us walk up and around the walls, while a bizarre hunk of alien rock appears on a different platform every time we look away and back again. These interludes mean that, strangely, we’re already feeling genuine pangs of nostalgia when we finally do enter the homely cockpit of our ship and set off into the atmosphere, the planet shrinking behind us. This pocket of familiarity and stability within
Outer Wilds does wonders for its sense of exploring the unknown. We’re gently curious, instead of fearful, when we head to a water planet with fierce whirlpools growing straight out of the ocean’s surface. Another spacesuited being greets us from a hammock, and furnishes us with some lore. It’s duly filed away in a new ‘Rumours’ menu, which, creative director Alex Beachum tells us, will remain even when our 20 minutes are up, aiding investigations in new time loops and proffering some urgency and direction.
Indeed, we’ve perhaps become too laissezfaire, wandering into a cavern filled with a ghostly matter that accelerates our death – and we’re rewound back to our home planet, memories intact. But as another 20-minute loop begins, our demo time comes to a close – and we reluctantly leave the peaceful Outer Wilds for the mania of the show floor, already longing to return.