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The first time Outer Wilds made me say „holy shit“ out loud was unforgettable.
I’d gotten into my spaceship for the first time. Still confused, still unsure. What’s happening here? What is this video game about? How does this all work? Where am I supposed to be going?
Still, I followed the prompts. I approached my spaceship — a rickety wooden shack of a thing. I pushed some buttons, and soon I was afloat, soaring effortlessly into the darkness of space. Still confused. Still unsure. What the hell is going on here? I don’t get this at all.
Then, in the distance, a planet. A vivid green dot splotched in the void. „I’ll head there I guess,“ I said to myself, more out of confusion than anything else.
Struggling against the controls of the ship, I headed toward the green planet, eventually hurtling into its dense green atmosphere at top speed. „I can’t see shit,“ I whispered, but then I emerged from the fog.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I only had a split second before I splashed headfirst into the ocean, but I saw it. This was a water planet, toylike in size. But that didn’t startle me — it was the whirlwinds. Six of them at least, competing with one another in an otherworldly storm on the waves. As I floated back to the surface, water streaming down the windows, my eyes turned into saucers.
The wind whipped as the competing whirlwinds galloped across the surface, so powerful they launched entire islands into the atmosphere — literally into space — before they crashed back onto the planet. I’d never seen anything like this in a video game. I’d never seen anything like this before, period. But this was Outer Wilds. In Outer Wilds, the blisteringly imaginative becomes normalized.
„Holy shit.“
Outer Wilds is a video game about exploring space, but it’s also a mystery to unravel.
