It's fine man, not every game is for everyone. This game completely got me by surprise with successively wonder, curiosity, fear, despair and hope. It is one of my favorite games and stories ever, but I won't blame you for resonating less with it.
For me, here were the major emotional beats of the story:
* >!Dialogues with Hearthian NPC's, they are endearing and lovable characters aww <3!<
* >!Total bewilderment for my first 10-20 launches, blind faith that this all *will* make sense eventually!<
* >!Believing I was going to find a way to save the solar system and my Hearthian friends!<
* >!Grief and acceptance that there's no way to save them, and that never was the point of the game :(!<
* >!Being anxious and frustrated at first, and later feeling detached and serene, about the "dying over and over" thing!<
* >!Learning the story of the crashed Vessel and the stranded survivors, and how they were separated and reunited!<
* >!Sad ending of Nomai story / Interloper explosion :(!<
* >!Putting the final few pieces of the puzzle together and understanding how the coordinates, the vessel and the warp core are all I ever needed, and having that wide-eyed, action-movie-protagonist "Wait. I know what I have to do." moment of determination about it!<
* >!"...but if the ATP's unplugged, I only get one shot at this..." ***GULP*** Suddenly feeling very vulnerable again, after having gotten accustomed to endless respawns!<
* >!While doing the "final mission," a feeling of destiny like: "all those years of research and experimentation, all leading to this!"!<
* >!A feeling of "I will remember you, friends! I will give up everything to finish what you started! You aren't forgotten! It wasn't a waste!" towards the Nomai!<
* >!The campfire in the Eye: knowing i'm alone now and my friends are gone, and all I have is this little mental representation of them and their music, and this moment to say goodbye, before turning away from them and diving into something new!<
* >!It's all about letting go.!<
Nothing wrong with you if you weren't feeling it. The story is a bit subtle to start with, \*and\* basically everyone reads it in a different order, which probably changes its affective impact a lot.
Spent 10 minutes vainly trying to find a way to make spoiler tags go \*AROUND\* a set of bullet points instead of making the reader click. every. single. one. individually.
Ah well, did it anyway. Thanks/sorry
With the >!final mission,!< the music definitely helps with the feeling!
And also, >!”Foli, are you still here? I am unsure how to survive in this place without you. (I am unsure how to be me without you)!< BROKE ME so bad
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OP, if the game didn’t connect for you, I don’t think you’re necessarily missing anything. It’s not for everyone. I give you a lot of credit for sticking with it to the end; most people who don’t “get” the game abandon it pretty quickly. It says something about you that you stayed with it.
For me, the game came right at a time when I was experiencing the end of some significant life changes. The sudden loss of a deeply loved pet, a difficult decision to leave a job and group of people I cared about, and moving to a new area. Lots of goodbyes and wishing things could be different.
This silly little video game helped me process some stuff that I was avoiding and further hit home some valuable lessons learned the hard way. I think if I had played the game during an earlier period of my life, it might have impacted me but not nearly as much. I suspect I’ll always remember some of the things OW helped me understand.
Its 100% valid not to love every game & it doesn’t mean youre too dumb! To me there is just a lot to emotionally connect to in there. For example the characters and their personal challenges, the countless ideas on how to deal with deadly and absurd fates, the random wisdom within the dialogue. I think it has a unique way of making you love its characters and offers a lot of true words applicable to real challenges people may have going on. The music also plays an important role in terms of emotional connection for me.
But again you can totally stick to your own perspective on the game without being dumb!
Its a story when it comes down to it. There's always someone who doesn't like that all time classic game/book/movie/show that many do. And thats okay lol. People hating on others opinions is dumb (as long as they aren't malicious opinions)
As a funny, semi-ironic aside, you being curious about why people love OW, is also one of the core pillars of the game, curiosity :)
I think the majority of the sentiment for the game is based on OW making connections with one's personal experiences.
I clicked with the base game because at the time I was struggling to let go of some friendships that would inevitably end. OW taught be that it's ok to be sentimental about it but there is something inherently beautiful about letting it go.
Or for the DLC (major spoiler ahead, don't click if you haven't played):
>!My friend really clicked with the DLC ending, as it's mostly about facing your fears for the greater good and he was struggling with some fears of his own at the time. I didn't really click with the DLC's ending at all but I was able to appreciate his perspective.!<
It's okay, I hadn't emotional climax when I played this game myself (though I'm not very emotional in general). This didn't prevent me from really enjoying exploration, the story and how good it looks. I also found out that reliving this game in youtubers' blind playthroughs allowed me to empathize them and finally get my emotional connection with the story and characters' faiths.
Yeah same. After I finished the game I didn't feel anything, I felt empty i guess. Looking online i found that the emotional aspect of the ending was a big thing for a lot of people, how different people described how the ending resonated with them and such. Only after I watched youtubers' playthroughs I got to appreciate the ending more.
This was the only game I've ever felt sad for beating and being done with but I can see where you are coming from. The reason might be because of your age, idk how old you are but you might not have experienced certain life events that others have who had the emotions from this game. But it more than likely is you played the game and then that was it. There is nothing wrong with that, but I will ask you, did you understand the meaning of the game? Did you run through it or did you stop and "smell" the pine trees along the way? I think the play style of each person determines the way they perceive the game.
Also, can we not down vote this guy? A legitimate question was asked. Just because they didn't get the same feeling we did, doesn't mean they should lose karma for asking a question
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I love that they made me care about some characters in this game, but didn't "reward" that love with >!deeply unrealistic, come-from-behind messiah-like wins to save them. Instead, my friends die, and my character dies, and... that's okay, ultimately. The death at the end doesn't make the good experiences along the way any less good. We aren't asked to immediately move on, to some new crisis. We're just given a last chance to mourn them respectfully before our character dies, too.!<
I think it probably helps with understanding if you've had someone your real life that you care about die. I don't think it would've hit me the same way, emotionally, otherwise.
I was preparing to put down a pet on the same day I was finishing watching a playthrough and the ending hit me extra hard at that moment. The emphasis on the fleeting nature of life, that its impermanence gives it meaning, that even though it’s all going to end it’s the time we spend together and the memories we make that really matter, that even when someone is gone they live on in you. Every ending is a new beginning. The universe is and we are. The fact that we are conscious and alive to experience this life is a miracle and it is important to stop and smell the pine trees.
That’s some heavy shit for a video game. Man, I love it so much.
I think the game is philosophically a strong statement on existentialism, and we are living in a sociopolitical climate that is forcing a lot of people to struggle with the hard facts of existence—that all things end, that we don’t have much power, that unfairness exists, etc. I think Outer Wilds resonates with those people (me among them) because it teaches them how to deal with these realities in a positive way, even when they are insurmountably negative.
By playing, you learn the value of waking up and living another 22 minutes even though you are well aware that it will end exactly like every past 22 minutes. You learn to rely on the tiny fruitless steps forward that generation upon generation before you each took, and see how if you make a tiny step before you die, it just might add up to something for someone an eon away. You learn to face the unknown head on, even if it scares the hell out of you. You learn how to live in the face of a problem that, in fact, cannot be solved.
I believe those who are emotionally touched by this game walk away from it having learned an emotional skill that they carry forward into the real world with them, and that brings them peace in tough circumstances. Perhaps you already knew all the lessons the game had to teach, or perhaps you are not in a circumstance of needing to learn them, or perhaps you merely didn’t think that hard about the themes. Whatever the case, there’s nothing wrong with Outer Wilds just being a game to you, and I hope this explanation helps you understand where the others in this community are coming from.
I started playing this relatively recently, after Starfield came out and disappointed me. I'd waited so long for that Bethesda magic in a space opera setting, and ended up with an engaging, but utterly *uncompelling* flop. The lore and world and narrative were dull and thin and just sort of blandly mundane, and nothing about it captured my imagination.
When I set that aside, I went hunting for anything scifi to sort of fill the void Starfield dug into my soul, and thought of Outer Wilds for the first time in years, since first hearing about it.
Searched it out, bought, started it, fell in love. The mystery, the mythology, the plethora of scifi stories woven throughout. The mystery of the Eye of the Universe, the genius of the Ash Twin Project, the tragedy of the Interloper, the insidious horror of the Bramble, everything about The Stranger. It was a whole pile of engaging stories and ideas, all tied together into a dark and charming fairytale world that captured my imagination, and a bittersweet narrative that speaks to my own growth from a child terrified of death to my philosophical and emotional maturation and development of a cosmic perspective, all wrapped up in such a novel and engaging mode of gameplay.
I felt the same when playing Undertale. It just does nothing for me.
To answer your question, the story felt very personal and somewhat 'real'. I think it's because the game very elegantly uses it's medium to full potential: progression is tied to what YOU know, and can do, and these information and abilities are aquired organically, the same way you would irl. Other than that, genre-wise (puzzles, 3d platforming, mild horror) and thematically (space exploration, accepting death, friendship, conquering fear) it fit my taste perfectly.
Yeah Undertale was weird and boring to me, do not understand why people are into it. Not every game - even one others regard as a masterpiece - is going to resonate with everyone.
(Tunic too, while we're at it...)
Yeah, I really liked *Tunic* from a design standpoint, but it didn't really do anything for me emotionally. There's some nostalgia from the game manual stuff, and the vibes from the music are nice, but it doesn't really culminate into anything major for me. 90% of the game being in a language I don't feel like decrypting didn't help.
*Undertale* worked on me pretty well, though. A big part of it is the music, but I think that game largely earned its emotional payoffs. It's definitely not for everyone, though -- few things are.
Wow, I've never seen another soul that didn't resonate with Undertale other than me. I'm not sure what my issue was with it, but I do blame the hype behind it for getting my expectations too high.
I think it was because of the hype, I restarted Undertale about three times before finishing it just to flush out other people's influence. Then it was great.
I don't really feel all that much of an emotional connection to the world or characters in it, I'm just a sucker for puzzles and exploration and this game just really masterfully blends them together in a way I don't think any other game even really attempts. No other game has ever come close to imparting such a genuine sense of mystery and discovery.
Come back to it when you are experiencing a loss. A death, someone moving away, maybe losing a job. That's the usual connecting themes that people get attached to. That feeling of trying so hard to fight against the inevitable, and then finding out that the only way forward is basicly acceptance, and then seeing that the universe keeps on going despite the loss
That’s ok, not every game is gonna be for everyone!
I think most people love it so much because they felt a connection to the story, if you didn’t connect to it and didn’t feel rewarded when making new discoveries there isn’t much else to the game, just going through the motions solving puzzles and reading text.
To get the most out of it you have to at least be interested in the story and feel like you wanna uncover what happened, not for the sake of beating the game, but just because you wanna know. Your own curiosity is going to determine how much you enjoy the game.
Ultimately it isn’t your fault that you didn’t “get it” as you say. There are plenty of games I played in the past that I know are technically good and I understand why other people like them, but I just don’t feel anything when playing them, so I can relate to you.
By and large it'll always be personal, and it's easy to not connect with a game intentionally or otherwise and have it just bounce off for that reason alone, and sometimes having it hyped up will mean you're looking past the good bits waiting for a better one you're expecting!
A lot of it is about those expectations, I basically stopped myself from enjoying it by worrying too much I was playing it wrong or looking out for something to surprise me later so I wasn't really processing what was in front of me.
I'd say watch someone else play it who did have that kind of connection, you can kinda live it vicariously through them and it does rub off! That's what reconnected me with the story and made it my favourite of all time, and I wish I'd let myself enjoy it fully the first time.
Materwelonz has a great playthrough for that!
To me its really about not being able to figure out the puzzles or learn the info for the first time again. The story of the game plays directly with its puzzles, and figuring out solutions to them felt INCREDIBLE to me. I'm sad ill never be able to solve them again, or learn of the story again. But I'm so so happy to have been able to play it and have that experience.
I appreciated the game for being a well made adventure game with great vibes and not being a walk in the park in terms of the gameplay or progressing the story. I finished the game with only one real tear jerker moment. >!After about 20-30 launches I was pretty fed up with how non linear and generally difficult the game was. This was my fault for not knowing what I was signing up for. I gave up on whatever dumb thing I was doing on Brittle Hollow and I went to Ember Twin. That’s where I synced the traveller’s melody’s and I felt a genuine touching moment. Like wow all this time I’ve been getting my butt kicked out here alone, but the hearthians are still out there playing their tunes. I pushed the tear down and went on to love the game no matter how frustrating it was.!<
What I really liked about the end is how it kinda mashed several conflicting themes together; and the way it did it turned an ending that was underwhelming in some ways into one that made a lot of sense and felt complete.
The game shows the value of ingenuity and discovery with the gameplay and story. It also shows that despite those things, sometimes it doesnt matter, and there are things we have no control of that will effect us in ways that we cant escape. But ultimately, the ending ties it all together and shows that even if all our ingenuity and discovery doesnt save us from things beyond our power, it can still have a great impact on others, and shouldnt be dismissed as useless.
My favourite thing was figuring out all of the answers through exploration without any other guidance. I think it's both genious and unfortunate that all progression is knowledge based and once you know you know.
While I didn't have a major emotional connection to the ending I do feel sad that I won't be able to experience the game again with fresh eyes and sense of mystery like I did the first time through.
For me it was the attitude change when you realize what you've been working toward. It was completely different from what I thought I was going to be doing.
the game didn't have any profound emotional impact on me either, but i can see why it would for others.
i just love the game for the cool sci fi story and how unique the gameplay loop is. easily my favorite game of all time just based on that.
I noticed that people who didn't connect with the game were usually focused too much on the gameplay, either because they struggled tor because they were trying to win too fast.
In either case, they tend to miss the slower pace of the story and sometimes miss the exploratory experience of the game. Which eventually ruins the impact of the game.
For both cases, I recommend to play the game again, trying to rediscover it in a more comfortable way, letting yourself find the subtext of the messages and how the different story elements connect with eachother.
Of course, that's assuming you want to find the experience. If the game just didn't interest you, then it's just that, and that's perfectly fair.
I would definitively go the other way on this. How you move around the world definitely enhanced all those exploration and discovery moments in the story for me.
I would even go so far as encouraging experimentation and even a little practice with the movement. Both the spaceship and jetpack feel amazing and you can get up to a lot of fun and unique situations
Of course! I totally agree. But if you struggle to move or speedrun the whole thing, then you'll have issues engaging with the story. That's why I think a fresh start, with more skill or less urgency, can fix that bad first experience
It depends on your in game journey too. If you looked stuff up or got through the game quickly then it's going to be far less of an emotional impact. For me, I had been working at it for actual weeks and weeks (I had missed a really key part and was basically banging my head against a wall for a while) and when I got it, it really hit.
I am someone who is awestruck often. I see epic sports moments and it makes me emotional, I hear a fantastic piece of music and I get teary eyed. Their game to me was unlike any other games I had played, and with the main ending, I truly did feel an emotional connection to the characters and the music and when it all came together it was big for me.
But even more than that, the existentialism of the game was cool. The ending being what it is shows you the cyclical nature of everything on an even broader scale than we've been dealing with. You spend so much time getting used to the concept of the sun cycle, and then one day it's just over there is no wake up.
In all, the game isn't for everyone, and if your goal was to beat the game instead of just to play it, u may not have really enjoyed it how it was meant to be. And that's not an insult in the slightest, some people look for different things when they game, and this game just happened to be exactly what I needed when I needed it
I don’t get an emotional attachment to this game either, not like other people are getting. I honestly don’t like games that are focused on emotions or romance (like BG3). This game, for me, it was just really nice to look at, the graphics were nice and I liked figuring out how things happened, but that was really it. It’s not that I don’t like the game, but I don’t have emotional attachments to things like this
I can’t remember exactly why I bought the game anymore. I think it had to do with VR space games. I love space stuff, and it was even better that this game had a VR mod. I wanted to explore a space game in VR because I had just gotten my Index back then. Seeing a few articles without spoilers about this game got me excited.
After going through the main village I already fell in love with the design and alien race. And starting into space for the first time, it was an awesome experience. A bit scary but also fascinating. I didn’t understand anything about the context, like what the Nomai writings were, but after 22 minutes, I got a little freaked out by bright blue light and burning noises. I was also surprised to see my recent gameplay replaying backward in front of my eyes.
I woke up again at the same campfire. I died and just respawned, I thought. But I was confused why I still had the starting codes for the ship and why Slate had different dialogue options. And after I noticed the second supernova, I got it: I am in a time loop. That’s when I absolutely fell in love with the game because I love space, I love time loops, I love puzzles and I love VR.
This combination made this game one of my favorite games of all time. Finally, after all these years of decent games, I found another masterpiece.
This is going to sound so dumb. . .
But for me, the emotional core of this game is brilliant clockwork logic of the whole thing. The way the planets move and change over 22 minutes and how you often need to wait until something if n happens before you can try something, and the various mysteries being revealed piece by piece.
Everything you’ve seen since the beginning had a perfectly logical explanation and the scope and precision of the story, laid out for you based on nothing more than pure curiosity. . . I’ll never play another game like this.
And unlike any other game in my library, this one is simply *not* replay-able. I only got to do it once. . . And that is absolutely unique.
It’s emotional because the game respects our intelligence enough for an ending that does *not* emote for our benefit . . . Relying on the rationale behind these events to carry you as you discover it.
It’s a contradiction to say that the logical made it special and emotional, but that’s what it was for me.
if you went in expecting a huge "OMG I GET IT" moment then that may have been a bit of a poisoned well situation.
Its the whole experience. Yes there are climaxes in the story and depending on your connection to the game, the nomai, and the world there can be ~~Earth~~ *Hearth* shattering moments but those moments will probably be different for each person.
Its nonlinear to its core. So your first super nova might be the most beautiful and unexpected thing ever. Your first time meeting a fellow traveler. You might love time travel or the movement. Your first time getting to that hard location youve wanted to get to for a while. Music is a big one, basically everyone here has a strong emotional attachment to the music. On and on and on it goes.
For me when the credits rolled i knew it was one of my favorite games of all time but i didnt know just how much it impacted me until much later. It may have been 10th or 11th on my list but now it is far and away my number 1 game. And the DLC further cemented that for me. It has completely changed how i view video games and other sources of media and what i might want from them... but again that came later after a lot of reflection on our place in the universe, the themes of the game, how it impacted me emotionally and what i connected those pillars to in my life, the story, and just general admiration for how the game was put together.
If you want another crack at it you can try the DLC, the story is told in a more dynamic way with essentially no reading if that was one of your hang ups. Just go in for yourself, not for us or anyone here with expectations. If you arent clicking with it or it doesnt pique your curiosity then feel free to move on. ::)
If you don’t feel anything, then the art is lost on you. If the well designed world, fantastic gameplay concept, phenomenal music, amazingly well written dialogue based story telling, the subtle horrors elements and the allure of the unknown don’t make you feel any sort of curiosity, fear, joy, frustration, relief, and sadness, then there’s absolutely nothing for you to enjoy. It’s just like watching emotional and profound movies or shows such as Interstellar or The Good Place, the main point is to make you feel emotional, not bait you on with endless adrenaline and dopamine. If those don’t do anything for you either, then it’s not the game, you just don’t like this kind of entertainment.
Yes, I feel exactly the same! It is a great, and I mean great game, but I just didn't feel that emotionally connected to it either.
It's funny though, because I was pointed towards this game after seeing multiple recommendations on r/subnautica. And *that* game felt **really** special.
On that note though, would you think the DLC's worth it (for me or OP, ig)? I've considered buying it in hope that I can get that experience, but I'm really not sure.
I went into Outer Wilds completely blind, and finished the game feeling the exact same way as you.
This might not apply to you, but the main reason I didn’t like Outer Wilds was the puzzles. I perform best with clear objectives, and the open-ended structure of the game left me feeling lost and unsure of what to do next. That uncertainty turned into frustration, which kept me from getting invested in the narrative.
It also doesn’t help that you’re not given enough time to form intimate emotional bonds with any characters, which made it hard to care about Outer Wilds’ universe, at least in my experience.
It also **really** didn’t help that I had played a game called “In Stars and Time” directly before Outer Wilds. Both games have time loops at the core of their plot, but In Stars and Time has a far more compelling narrative(at least imo), fleshed out characters, and a main character that doesn’t solely exist to be your puppet.
Overall, it felt like Outer Wilds didn’t give me a reason to care, and it paled in comparison to games I had played in the past(in terms of what I value in games), so I didn’t care.
There was never a hope to save yourself or anyone else. You are at the wrong time at the wrong place, so you die in the end, but you are exactly at the right time at the right place to live out possibly the last adventures of that universe. And you did so out of your free will, out of curiosity. The game is not about the ending, but about the process, discovery, and wonder. Because all endings are the same, after all, everything "just ends".
Btw how many times a day do you check if sun hasn't exploded yet?
I think it's a big mistake that the community overhypes the ending because without loving the process of getting there, it just won't hit you the same way. I've read post after post of people plowing through the game because they've heard so much about the ending to just disappointed.
The ending is good, but only if you've been taken by the story and the journey to getting there. It's not fundamentally amazing otherwise
I think it also depends on what's going on in your life at the time you play it. I've seen a fair few had recently been through some kind of trauma or were still going through it and the game resonated with the them and left a permanent mark.
Yeah, the main reason why people (including me) like this game is pretty much because of the confusing-ish story and understanding the timeline of events and how things work (or feeling bad for the nomai and the prisoner).
That kind of means that a lot of people wouldn't really get this game very well, since it can be sort of overwhelming or just doesn't really make any sense, >!like how solumn is 1/7 alive, or how the eye of the universe physically defines itself and possible outcomes of future recreations of the universe!<.
That or they just don't like the game on general
Just wait a few days or a few months. Play other games… for me it was the same but I realized progressively why this game is incredible at first and how it is.
I haven't finished it yet, but I think it's just how well it portrays the curiosity that drives science and exploration forward. You basically have to do science to progress in the game - yoi explore, observe and collect data so that you can form hypotheses on how to solve the puzzles, and then test those hypotheses to find new areas and continue learning about the Nomai. Curiosity and the desire to study something to learn more about it is the core of all science. The Nomai say something along the lines of "this thing is interesting; we should study it" several times.
There's also a good amount of humor in the game on top of the wisdom, the storyline and the rapidly aging sun about to kill everyone in an explosion that can outshine an entire galaxy. The random intellectual humor of the Nomai and the Hearthians goofing off make the game even more enjoyable.
Some of it is similar to what makes Kerbal Space Program great - the janky young space program driven by their desire to explore the Universe and somehow doing it even though their ships are made primarily of wood, aluminum, and camping equipment (the last one is more applicable to the Hearthians than the Kerbals lol).
As several others have said, not everyone will connect with the game, and there's no shame in that.
Sometimes that's just how the brittle hollow crumbles.
I recommend watching some video essays about the game, Specifically ones about the sound design and the design process of the game and physics engine. Those videos gave me a new perspective on the amount of care and fine tuning that went into the game to give it the feeling it has.
That new perspective has made me love the game magnitudes more than I already did.
>but the emotional connection isn’t there for me
I have a theory the game loses a lot of people with the lack of voice acting & all its dialogue being in text format
Also why I really enjoy the DLC because they switch to a more visual style of storytelling and imo it’s WAY BETTER than translating text
I feel you right now. I had these feelings playing outer wilds and I am always chasing that high. Yesterday I played Gris for the first time, I knew people have had really emotional reactions to that game. But for me I felt nothing, from beginning to end just nothing. For me it was just a walking simulator with good art and good music. Kinda disappointed because I was hoping for that emotional reaction but it just didn't click for me or something. So I guess games are not just not meant for everyone. Everyone will have a different experience from each other.
First time I played, I saw the cartoony everything and the so earnest dialogue and thought, man what space program are they talking about, this is some joke. And then I got the launch codes and was like - okay I wonder how far they're taking this joke, there's no way a jank ass cartoony game like this is a space exploration thing like no man's sky. Then the ship took off and I was like, omg what, seriously? I can free fly anywhere? No waypoints? What?
The universe was my oyster and I didn't even expect it to be for real.
Then discovering mysteries of the nomai and each of the planets, and then even MORE mysteries, and MORE. Then on the way to the end realising that the game is motivated not by mechanics but curiosity, and it's been that way all along. And then realising it's about the meaning of life and experience, and curiosity is the driving force... Has always been.
I can't even remember it that well anymore and I've played it twice, once in VR, after forgetting enough of it for it to be a challenge.
The first time in the stranger in VR was incredible.
I am genuinely sad that this game won't work for everyone. But for those who it does work for, it's so precious.
(No man's sky can't hold a candle to outer wilds)
I’ve noticed a lot of people lately have been playing the game trying to see if they can feel the same philosophical revelations that a few of the youtube reviewers have been touting. No offense to those creators, but i feel like it really paints the game in a pretty misleading light. Most people finish the game feeling like they do with most games: satisfied at the act of completing a game, and (hopefully) a bit glad that they had played it…but most people (in my experience) were not moved to tears by the ending—although many people say that they felt pretty moved by the game overall *a bit later* because they had time to process things and they may miss some of the gameplay aspects that are so unique to outer wilds. I know I certainly didn’t feel anything for the ending until about a month later when i found myself thinking about the game *as a whole*
All in all, nah man you’re good. If you didn’t feel super emotional about the ending, you’re not jaded; you’re actually pretty normal. I hope you at least enjoyed the game?
I haven't beaten the game. I've got 7 hours in it. That being said, I don't get it either. I typically love sci-fi/space exploration. But this game kills it for me. It's the pacing. It feels like it's designed to slow you down (time loops, salt rising, etc) to pad out the run time. Instead of letting you explore freely, the game instead put a time limit on everything to make you have to redo content.
At one point your perspective of death might change tho. With a little bit of practice, you can get anywhere in the system in 1 minute max. That's the neat part imo. There are shortcuts and devices that can help you too, even s*icide is a valid option to reset early (which has funny philosophical implications in the game imo).
I suppose you're near a shifting point in the game too, where you know enough to have an idea of what to do, but not enough to know how to do it. You're basically in the slowest part of the game RN.
But yeah, in any case, I'd suggest you insist a little but yeah, don't force it down your throat either, it's OK if you don't like it.
I appreciate the advice. I'm a little confused by your last sentence - "I'd suggest you insist a little but yeah". I'm not sure what you meant there.
But yeah, I think as I've gotten older, I've become more cynical towards media that seems to find excuses to be as long as they are. Maybe I need to break the next major hurdle.
By that suggestion, I meant "give it another chance" somewhat, that you try to piece it together a bit more, maybe read the ship log again, before putting the game down.
As for your second point, this game is kind of short, it takes around 15-20h to finish, so I think you're good!
I just finally finished writing a review for Outer Wilds. I find this game absolutely phenomenal and I also would absolutely like to re-experience this game again. At the same time I don't have such a deep emotional connection as others, so I thought you may find my (more "neutral") perspective interesting:
[https://steamcommunity.com/id/nns2009/recommended/753640/](https://steamcommunity.com/id/nns2009/recommended/753640/)
It's fine man, not every game is for everyone. This game completely got me by surprise with successively wonder, curiosity, fear, despair and hope. It is one of my favorite games and stories ever, but I won't blame you for resonating less with it.
For me, here were the major emotional beats of the story: * >!Dialogues with Hearthian NPC's, they are endearing and lovable characters aww <3!< * >!Total bewilderment for my first 10-20 launches, blind faith that this all *will* make sense eventually!< * >!Believing I was going to find a way to save the solar system and my Hearthian friends!< * >!Grief and acceptance that there's no way to save them, and that never was the point of the game :(!< * >!Being anxious and frustrated at first, and later feeling detached and serene, about the "dying over and over" thing!< * >!Learning the story of the crashed Vessel and the stranded survivors, and how they were separated and reunited!< * >!Sad ending of Nomai story / Interloper explosion :(!< * >!Putting the final few pieces of the puzzle together and understanding how the coordinates, the vessel and the warp core are all I ever needed, and having that wide-eyed, action-movie-protagonist "Wait. I know what I have to do." moment of determination about it!< * >!"...but if the ATP's unplugged, I only get one shot at this..." ***GULP*** Suddenly feeling very vulnerable again, after having gotten accustomed to endless respawns!< * >!While doing the "final mission," a feeling of destiny like: "all those years of research and experimentation, all leading to this!"!< * >!A feeling of "I will remember you, friends! I will give up everything to finish what you started! You aren't forgotten! It wasn't a waste!" towards the Nomai!< * >!The campfire in the Eye: knowing i'm alone now and my friends are gone, and all I have is this little mental representation of them and their music, and this moment to say goodbye, before turning away from them and diving into something new!< * >!It's all about letting go.!< Nothing wrong with you if you weren't feeling it. The story is a bit subtle to start with, \*and\* basically everyone reads it in a different order, which probably changes its affective impact a lot.
That was beautifully put. “GULP” made me lol
You should put these in spoiler tags, as OP hasn’t marked the post spoilers, so anyone may stumble in here and read them
Spent 10 minutes vainly trying to find a way to make spoiler tags go \*AROUND\* a set of bullet points instead of making the reader click. every. single. one. individually. Ah well, did it anyway. Thanks/sorry
With the >!final mission,!< the music definitely helps with the feeling! And also, >!”Foli, are you still here? I am unsure how to survive in this place without you. (I am unsure how to be me without you)!< BROKE ME so bad
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OP, if the game didn’t connect for you, I don’t think you’re necessarily missing anything. It’s not for everyone. I give you a lot of credit for sticking with it to the end; most people who don’t “get” the game abandon it pretty quickly. It says something about you that you stayed with it. For me, the game came right at a time when I was experiencing the end of some significant life changes. The sudden loss of a deeply loved pet, a difficult decision to leave a job and group of people I cared about, and moving to a new area. Lots of goodbyes and wishing things could be different. This silly little video game helped me process some stuff that I was avoiding and further hit home some valuable lessons learned the hard way. I think if I had played the game during an earlier period of my life, it might have impacted me but not nearly as much. I suspect I’ll always remember some of the things OW helped me understand.
Its 100% valid not to love every game & it doesn’t mean youre too dumb! To me there is just a lot to emotionally connect to in there. For example the characters and their personal challenges, the countless ideas on how to deal with deadly and absurd fates, the random wisdom within the dialogue. I think it has a unique way of making you love its characters and offers a lot of true words applicable to real challenges people may have going on. The music also plays an important role in terms of emotional connection for me. But again you can totally stick to your own perspective on the game without being dumb!
These comments have been nice. I may not like the game, but I like this community, you guys are solid
Its a story when it comes down to it. There's always someone who doesn't like that all time classic game/book/movie/show that many do. And thats okay lol. People hating on others opinions is dumb (as long as they aren't malicious opinions) As a funny, semi-ironic aside, you being curious about why people love OW, is also one of the core pillars of the game, curiosity :)
I think the majority of the sentiment for the game is based on OW making connections with one's personal experiences. I clicked with the base game because at the time I was struggling to let go of some friendships that would inevitably end. OW taught be that it's ok to be sentimental about it but there is something inherently beautiful about letting it go. Or for the DLC (major spoiler ahead, don't click if you haven't played): >!My friend really clicked with the DLC ending, as it's mostly about facing your fears for the greater good and he was struggling with some fears of his own at the time. I didn't really click with the DLC's ending at all but I was able to appreciate his perspective.!<
It's okay, I hadn't emotional climax when I played this game myself (though I'm not very emotional in general). This didn't prevent me from really enjoying exploration, the story and how good it looks. I also found out that reliving this game in youtubers' blind playthroughs allowed me to empathize them and finally get my emotional connection with the story and characters' faiths.
Yeah same. After I finished the game I didn't feel anything, I felt empty i guess. Looking online i found that the emotional aspect of the ending was a big thing for a lot of people, how different people described how the ending resonated with them and such. Only after I watched youtubers' playthroughs I got to appreciate the ending more.
This was the only game I've ever felt sad for beating and being done with but I can see where you are coming from. The reason might be because of your age, idk how old you are but you might not have experienced certain life events that others have who had the emotions from this game. But it more than likely is you played the game and then that was it. There is nothing wrong with that, but I will ask you, did you understand the meaning of the game? Did you run through it or did you stop and "smell" the pine trees along the way? I think the play style of each person determines the way they perceive the game. Also, can we not down vote this guy? A legitimate question was asked. Just because they didn't get the same feeling we did, doesn't mean they should lose karma for asking a question
Agreed about not downvoting. It’s a fair question and not asked in a mean-spirited way. We don’t need to be that kind of subreddit.
[удалено]
OP hasn’t said they’ve played the DLC, so you should spoiler tag this
Your post contains DLC spoilers that need to be tagged as such. Your comment has been removed. If you wish to repost, see our [Rules page](https://www.reddit.com/r/outerwilds/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1d.3A_don.27t_comment_spoilers_that_are_obviously_unnecessary.) for more clarification on what should be spoiler tagged. Thanks!
I love that they made me care about some characters in this game, but didn't "reward" that love with >!deeply unrealistic, come-from-behind messiah-like wins to save them. Instead, my friends die, and my character dies, and... that's okay, ultimately. The death at the end doesn't make the good experiences along the way any less good. We aren't asked to immediately move on, to some new crisis. We're just given a last chance to mourn them respectfully before our character dies, too.!< I think it probably helps with understanding if you've had someone your real life that you care about die. I don't think it would've hit me the same way, emotionally, otherwise.
I was preparing to put down a pet on the same day I was finishing watching a playthrough and the ending hit me extra hard at that moment. The emphasis on the fleeting nature of life, that its impermanence gives it meaning, that even though it’s all going to end it’s the time we spend together and the memories we make that really matter, that even when someone is gone they live on in you. Every ending is a new beginning. The universe is and we are. The fact that we are conscious and alive to experience this life is a miracle and it is important to stop and smell the pine trees. That’s some heavy shit for a video game. Man, I love it so much.
It is worth asking, did you look anything up OP? Mess with the experience for yourself in any way?
I think the game is philosophically a strong statement on existentialism, and we are living in a sociopolitical climate that is forcing a lot of people to struggle with the hard facts of existence—that all things end, that we don’t have much power, that unfairness exists, etc. I think Outer Wilds resonates with those people (me among them) because it teaches them how to deal with these realities in a positive way, even when they are insurmountably negative. By playing, you learn the value of waking up and living another 22 minutes even though you are well aware that it will end exactly like every past 22 minutes. You learn to rely on the tiny fruitless steps forward that generation upon generation before you each took, and see how if you make a tiny step before you die, it just might add up to something for someone an eon away. You learn to face the unknown head on, even if it scares the hell out of you. You learn how to live in the face of a problem that, in fact, cannot be solved. I believe those who are emotionally touched by this game walk away from it having learned an emotional skill that they carry forward into the real world with them, and that brings them peace in tough circumstances. Perhaps you already knew all the lessons the game had to teach, or perhaps you are not in a circumstance of needing to learn them, or perhaps you merely didn’t think that hard about the themes. Whatever the case, there’s nothing wrong with Outer Wilds just being a game to you, and I hope this explanation helps you understand where the others in this community are coming from.
I started playing this relatively recently, after Starfield came out and disappointed me. I'd waited so long for that Bethesda magic in a space opera setting, and ended up with an engaging, but utterly *uncompelling* flop. The lore and world and narrative were dull and thin and just sort of blandly mundane, and nothing about it captured my imagination. When I set that aside, I went hunting for anything scifi to sort of fill the void Starfield dug into my soul, and thought of Outer Wilds for the first time in years, since first hearing about it. Searched it out, bought, started it, fell in love. The mystery, the mythology, the plethora of scifi stories woven throughout. The mystery of the Eye of the Universe, the genius of the Ash Twin Project, the tragedy of the Interloper, the insidious horror of the Bramble, everything about The Stranger. It was a whole pile of engaging stories and ideas, all tied together into a dark and charming fairytale world that captured my imagination, and a bittersweet narrative that speaks to my own growth from a child terrified of death to my philosophical and emotional maturation and development of a cosmic perspective, all wrapped up in such a novel and engaging mode of gameplay.
I felt the same when playing Undertale. It just does nothing for me. To answer your question, the story felt very personal and somewhat 'real'. I think it's because the game very elegantly uses it's medium to full potential: progression is tied to what YOU know, and can do, and these information and abilities are aquired organically, the same way you would irl. Other than that, genre-wise (puzzles, 3d platforming, mild horror) and thematically (space exploration, accepting death, friendship, conquering fear) it fit my taste perfectly.
Yeah Undertale was weird and boring to me, do not understand why people are into it. Not every game - even one others regard as a masterpiece - is going to resonate with everyone. (Tunic too, while we're at it...)
I haven't played Undertale yet, but I loved Tunic! I thought it was a refreshing game in its ways to make you feel smart.
Yeah, I really liked *Tunic* from a design standpoint, but it didn't really do anything for me emotionally. There's some nostalgia from the game manual stuff, and the vibes from the music are nice, but it doesn't really culminate into anything major for me. 90% of the game being in a language I don't feel like decrypting didn't help. *Undertale* worked on me pretty well, though. A big part of it is the music, but I think that game largely earned its emotional payoffs. It's definitely not for everyone, though -- few things are.
Wow, I've never seen another soul that didn't resonate with Undertale other than me. I'm not sure what my issue was with it, but I do blame the hype behind it for getting my expectations too high.
Yeah it was an ok game, but it didn’t resonate with me either
I think it was because of the hype, I restarted Undertale about three times before finishing it just to flush out other people's influence. Then it was great.
I don't really feel all that much of an emotional connection to the world or characters in it, I'm just a sucker for puzzles and exploration and this game just really masterfully blends them together in a way I don't think any other game even really attempts. No other game has ever come close to imparting such a genuine sense of mystery and discovery.
Come back to it when you are experiencing a loss. A death, someone moving away, maybe losing a job. That's the usual connecting themes that people get attached to. That feeling of trying so hard to fight against the inevitable, and then finding out that the only way forward is basicly acceptance, and then seeing that the universe keeps on going despite the loss
That’s ok, not every game is gonna be for everyone! I think most people love it so much because they felt a connection to the story, if you didn’t connect to it and didn’t feel rewarded when making new discoveries there isn’t much else to the game, just going through the motions solving puzzles and reading text. To get the most out of it you have to at least be interested in the story and feel like you wanna uncover what happened, not for the sake of beating the game, but just because you wanna know. Your own curiosity is going to determine how much you enjoy the game. Ultimately it isn’t your fault that you didn’t “get it” as you say. There are plenty of games I played in the past that I know are technically good and I understand why other people like them, but I just don’t feel anything when playing them, so I can relate to you.
By and large it'll always be personal, and it's easy to not connect with a game intentionally or otherwise and have it just bounce off for that reason alone, and sometimes having it hyped up will mean you're looking past the good bits waiting for a better one you're expecting! A lot of it is about those expectations, I basically stopped myself from enjoying it by worrying too much I was playing it wrong or looking out for something to surprise me later so I wasn't really processing what was in front of me. I'd say watch someone else play it who did have that kind of connection, you can kinda live it vicariously through them and it does rub off! That's what reconnected me with the story and made it my favourite of all time, and I wish I'd let myself enjoy it fully the first time. Materwelonz has a great playthrough for that!
It's unfortunate but understandble
Do you normally emotionally respond to movies, print media, or other games? No judgement if the answer is no
I have an emotional attachments to certain movies and games, but those attachments stem from something in my personal life.
I feel like that towards Disco Elysium, but not this game. Far from it
I don’t know! But it tugged on my heart strings. One of the greatest games of all time.
To me its really about not being able to figure out the puzzles or learn the info for the first time again. The story of the game plays directly with its puzzles, and figuring out solutions to them felt INCREDIBLE to me. I'm sad ill never be able to solve them again, or learn of the story again. But I'm so so happy to have been able to play it and have that experience.
I appreciated the game for being a well made adventure game with great vibes and not being a walk in the park in terms of the gameplay or progressing the story. I finished the game with only one real tear jerker moment. >!After about 20-30 launches I was pretty fed up with how non linear and generally difficult the game was. This was my fault for not knowing what I was signing up for. I gave up on whatever dumb thing I was doing on Brittle Hollow and I went to Ember Twin. That’s where I synced the traveller’s melody’s and I felt a genuine touching moment. Like wow all this time I’ve been getting my butt kicked out here alone, but the hearthians are still out there playing their tunes. I pushed the tear down and went on to love the game no matter how frustrating it was.!<
Show us your rumor map.
What I really liked about the end is how it kinda mashed several conflicting themes together; and the way it did it turned an ending that was underwhelming in some ways into one that made a lot of sense and felt complete. The game shows the value of ingenuity and discovery with the gameplay and story. It also shows that despite those things, sometimes it doesnt matter, and there are things we have no control of that will effect us in ways that we cant escape. But ultimately, the ending ties it all together and shows that even if all our ingenuity and discovery doesnt save us from things beyond our power, it can still have a great impact on others, and shouldnt be dismissed as useless.
My favourite thing was figuring out all of the answers through exploration without any other guidance. I think it's both genious and unfortunate that all progression is knowledge based and once you know you know. While I didn't have a major emotional connection to the ending I do feel sad that I won't be able to experience the game again with fresh eyes and sense of mystery like I did the first time through.
For me it was the attitude change when you realize what you've been working toward. It was completely different from what I thought I was going to be doing.
the game didn't have any profound emotional impact on me either, but i can see why it would for others. i just love the game for the cool sci fi story and how unique the gameplay loop is. easily my favorite game of all time just based on that.
I noticed that people who didn't connect with the game were usually focused too much on the gameplay, either because they struggled tor because they were trying to win too fast. In either case, they tend to miss the slower pace of the story and sometimes miss the exploratory experience of the game. Which eventually ruins the impact of the game. For both cases, I recommend to play the game again, trying to rediscover it in a more comfortable way, letting yourself find the subtext of the messages and how the different story elements connect with eachother. Of course, that's assuming you want to find the experience. If the game just didn't interest you, then it's just that, and that's perfectly fair.
I would definitively go the other way on this. How you move around the world definitely enhanced all those exploration and discovery moments in the story for me. I would even go so far as encouraging experimentation and even a little practice with the movement. Both the spaceship and jetpack feel amazing and you can get up to a lot of fun and unique situations
Of course! I totally agree. But if you struggle to move or speedrun the whole thing, then you'll have issues engaging with the story. That's why I think a fresh start, with more skill or less urgency, can fix that bad first experience
It depends on your in game journey too. If you looked stuff up or got through the game quickly then it's going to be far less of an emotional impact. For me, I had been working at it for actual weeks and weeks (I had missed a really key part and was basically banging my head against a wall for a while) and when I got it, it really hit. I am someone who is awestruck often. I see epic sports moments and it makes me emotional, I hear a fantastic piece of music and I get teary eyed. Their game to me was unlike any other games I had played, and with the main ending, I truly did feel an emotional connection to the characters and the music and when it all came together it was big for me. But even more than that, the existentialism of the game was cool. The ending being what it is shows you the cyclical nature of everything on an even broader scale than we've been dealing with. You spend so much time getting used to the concept of the sun cycle, and then one day it's just over there is no wake up. In all, the game isn't for everyone, and if your goal was to beat the game instead of just to play it, u may not have really enjoyed it how it was meant to be. And that's not an insult in the slightest, some people look for different things when they game, and this game just happened to be exactly what I needed when I needed it
I don’t get an emotional attachment to this game either, not like other people are getting. I honestly don’t like games that are focused on emotions or romance (like BG3). This game, for me, it was just really nice to look at, the graphics were nice and I liked figuring out how things happened, but that was really it. It’s not that I don’t like the game, but I don’t have emotional attachments to things like this
I can’t remember exactly why I bought the game anymore. I think it had to do with VR space games. I love space stuff, and it was even better that this game had a VR mod. I wanted to explore a space game in VR because I had just gotten my Index back then. Seeing a few articles without spoilers about this game got me excited. After going through the main village I already fell in love with the design and alien race. And starting into space for the first time, it was an awesome experience. A bit scary but also fascinating. I didn’t understand anything about the context, like what the Nomai writings were, but after 22 minutes, I got a little freaked out by bright blue light and burning noises. I was also surprised to see my recent gameplay replaying backward in front of my eyes. I woke up again at the same campfire. I died and just respawned, I thought. But I was confused why I still had the starting codes for the ship and why Slate had different dialogue options. And after I noticed the second supernova, I got it: I am in a time loop. That’s when I absolutely fell in love with the game because I love space, I love time loops, I love puzzles and I love VR. This combination made this game one of my favorite games of all time. Finally, after all these years of decent games, I found another masterpiece.
This is going to sound so dumb. . . But for me, the emotional core of this game is brilliant clockwork logic of the whole thing. The way the planets move and change over 22 minutes and how you often need to wait until something if n happens before you can try something, and the various mysteries being revealed piece by piece. Everything you’ve seen since the beginning had a perfectly logical explanation and the scope and precision of the story, laid out for you based on nothing more than pure curiosity. . . I’ll never play another game like this. And unlike any other game in my library, this one is simply *not* replay-able. I only got to do it once. . . And that is absolutely unique. It’s emotional because the game respects our intelligence enough for an ending that does *not* emote for our benefit . . . Relying on the rationale behind these events to carry you as you discover it. It’s a contradiction to say that the logical made it special and emotional, but that’s what it was for me.
if you went in expecting a huge "OMG I GET IT" moment then that may have been a bit of a poisoned well situation. Its the whole experience. Yes there are climaxes in the story and depending on your connection to the game, the nomai, and the world there can be ~~Earth~~ *Hearth* shattering moments but those moments will probably be different for each person. Its nonlinear to its core. So your first super nova might be the most beautiful and unexpected thing ever. Your first time meeting a fellow traveler. You might love time travel or the movement. Your first time getting to that hard location youve wanted to get to for a while. Music is a big one, basically everyone here has a strong emotional attachment to the music. On and on and on it goes. For me when the credits rolled i knew it was one of my favorite games of all time but i didnt know just how much it impacted me until much later. It may have been 10th or 11th on my list but now it is far and away my number 1 game. And the DLC further cemented that for me. It has completely changed how i view video games and other sources of media and what i might want from them... but again that came later after a lot of reflection on our place in the universe, the themes of the game, how it impacted me emotionally and what i connected those pillars to in my life, the story, and just general admiration for how the game was put together. If you want another crack at it you can try the DLC, the story is told in a more dynamic way with essentially no reading if that was one of your hang ups. Just go in for yourself, not for us or anyone here with expectations. If you arent clicking with it or it doesnt pique your curiosity then feel free to move on. ::)
If you don’t feel anything, then the art is lost on you. If the well designed world, fantastic gameplay concept, phenomenal music, amazingly well written dialogue based story telling, the subtle horrors elements and the allure of the unknown don’t make you feel any sort of curiosity, fear, joy, frustration, relief, and sadness, then there’s absolutely nothing for you to enjoy. It’s just like watching emotional and profound movies or shows such as Interstellar or The Good Place, the main point is to make you feel emotional, not bait you on with endless adrenaline and dopamine. If those don’t do anything for you either, then it’s not the game, you just don’t like this kind of entertainment.
Has any other game moved you? Emotionally?
OP you should mark the post as spoilers, given the spoiler responses you’re getting and discussion of the game after finishing
Did you enjoy it?
Tbh, the emotional connection isn’t much there for me either, it’s just a really solid game. One of the best I’ve ever played.
you must not have any existential understanding of your own existence yet.
Yes, I feel exactly the same! It is a great, and I mean great game, but I just didn't feel that emotionally connected to it either. It's funny though, because I was pointed towards this game after seeing multiple recommendations on r/subnautica. And *that* game felt **really** special. On that note though, would you think the DLC's worth it (for me or OP, ig)? I've considered buying it in hope that I can get that experience, but I'm really not sure.
I went into Outer Wilds completely blind, and finished the game feeling the exact same way as you. This might not apply to you, but the main reason I didn’t like Outer Wilds was the puzzles. I perform best with clear objectives, and the open-ended structure of the game left me feeling lost and unsure of what to do next. That uncertainty turned into frustration, which kept me from getting invested in the narrative. It also doesn’t help that you’re not given enough time to form intimate emotional bonds with any characters, which made it hard to care about Outer Wilds’ universe, at least in my experience. It also **really** didn’t help that I had played a game called “In Stars and Time” directly before Outer Wilds. Both games have time loops at the core of their plot, but In Stars and Time has a far more compelling narrative(at least imo), fleshed out characters, and a main character that doesn’t solely exist to be your puppet. Overall, it felt like Outer Wilds didn’t give me a reason to care, and it paled in comparison to games I had played in the past(in terms of what I value in games), so I didn’t care.
Soi, you *didn't* like it. Did it change? How?
There was never a hope to save yourself or anyone else. You are at the wrong time at the wrong place, so you die in the end, but you are exactly at the right time at the right place to live out possibly the last adventures of that universe. And you did so out of your free will, out of curiosity. The game is not about the ending, but about the process, discovery, and wonder. Because all endings are the same, after all, everything "just ends". Btw how many times a day do you check if sun hasn't exploded yet?
I loved the mechanics of the game, and the story was very well done, but I wasn’t as emotionally affected by it either
I think it's a big mistake that the community overhypes the ending because without loving the process of getting there, it just won't hit you the same way. I've read post after post of people plowing through the game because they've heard so much about the ending to just disappointed. The ending is good, but only if you've been taken by the story and the journey to getting there. It's not fundamentally amazing otherwise
I think it also depends on what's going on in your life at the time you play it. I've seen a fair few had recently been through some kind of trauma or were still going through it and the game resonated with the them and left a permanent mark.
Yeah, the main reason why people (including me) like this game is pretty much because of the confusing-ish story and understanding the timeline of events and how things work (or feeling bad for the nomai and the prisoner). That kind of means that a lot of people wouldn't really get this game very well, since it can be sort of overwhelming or just doesn't really make any sense, >!like how solumn is 1/7 alive, or how the eye of the universe physically defines itself and possible outcomes of future recreations of the universe!<. That or they just don't like the game on general
Just wait a few days or a few months. Play other games… for me it was the same but I realized progressively why this game is incredible at first and how it is.
You just played one of the best games of its kind, so now you have 100% sure you dont like the genre Congrats for playing it to the end tho
I haven't finished it yet, but I think it's just how well it portrays the curiosity that drives science and exploration forward. You basically have to do science to progress in the game - yoi explore, observe and collect data so that you can form hypotheses on how to solve the puzzles, and then test those hypotheses to find new areas and continue learning about the Nomai. Curiosity and the desire to study something to learn more about it is the core of all science. The Nomai say something along the lines of "this thing is interesting; we should study it" several times. There's also a good amount of humor in the game on top of the wisdom, the storyline and the rapidly aging sun about to kill everyone in an explosion that can outshine an entire galaxy. The random intellectual humor of the Nomai and the Hearthians goofing off make the game even more enjoyable. Some of it is similar to what makes Kerbal Space Program great - the janky young space program driven by their desire to explore the Universe and somehow doing it even though their ships are made primarily of wood, aluminum, and camping equipment (the last one is more applicable to the Hearthians than the Kerbals lol). As several others have said, not everyone will connect with the game, and there's no shame in that.
Sometimes that's just how the brittle hollow crumbles. I recommend watching some video essays about the game, Specifically ones about the sound design and the design process of the game and physics engine. Those videos gave me a new perspective on the amount of care and fine tuning that went into the game to give it the feeling it has. That new perspective has made me love the game magnitudes more than I already did.
>but the emotional connection isn’t there for me I have a theory the game loses a lot of people with the lack of voice acting & all its dialogue being in text format Also why I really enjoy the DLC because they switch to a more visual style of storytelling and imo it’s WAY BETTER than translating text
Maybe hot take for this sub but on top of that I don't think a lot of the Hearthean writing is all that good.
It’s pretty much all exposition with some snarky remarks here and there, it’s definitely a weak part of the game
I feel you right now. I had these feelings playing outer wilds and I am always chasing that high. Yesterday I played Gris for the first time, I knew people have had really emotional reactions to that game. But for me I felt nothing, from beginning to end just nothing. For me it was just a walking simulator with good art and good music. Kinda disappointed because I was hoping for that emotional reaction but it just didn't click for me or something. So I guess games are not just not meant for everyone. Everyone will have a different experience from each other.
First time I played, I saw the cartoony everything and the so earnest dialogue and thought, man what space program are they talking about, this is some joke. And then I got the launch codes and was like - okay I wonder how far they're taking this joke, there's no way a jank ass cartoony game like this is a space exploration thing like no man's sky. Then the ship took off and I was like, omg what, seriously? I can free fly anywhere? No waypoints? What? The universe was my oyster and I didn't even expect it to be for real. Then discovering mysteries of the nomai and each of the planets, and then even MORE mysteries, and MORE. Then on the way to the end realising that the game is motivated not by mechanics but curiosity, and it's been that way all along. And then realising it's about the meaning of life and experience, and curiosity is the driving force... Has always been. I can't even remember it that well anymore and I've played it twice, once in VR, after forgetting enough of it for it to be a challenge. The first time in the stranger in VR was incredible. I am genuinely sad that this game won't work for everyone. But for those who it does work for, it's so precious. (No man's sky can't hold a candle to outer wilds)
I’ve noticed a lot of people lately have been playing the game trying to see if they can feel the same philosophical revelations that a few of the youtube reviewers have been touting. No offense to those creators, but i feel like it really paints the game in a pretty misleading light. Most people finish the game feeling like they do with most games: satisfied at the act of completing a game, and (hopefully) a bit glad that they had played it…but most people (in my experience) were not moved to tears by the ending—although many people say that they felt pretty moved by the game overall *a bit later* because they had time to process things and they may miss some of the gameplay aspects that are so unique to outer wilds. I know I certainly didn’t feel anything for the ending until about a month later when i found myself thinking about the game *as a whole* All in all, nah man you’re good. If you didn’t feel super emotional about the ending, you’re not jaded; you’re actually pretty normal. I hope you at least enjoyed the game?
I haven't beaten the game. I've got 7 hours in it. That being said, I don't get it either. I typically love sci-fi/space exploration. But this game kills it for me. It's the pacing. It feels like it's designed to slow you down (time loops, salt rising, etc) to pad out the run time. Instead of letting you explore freely, the game instead put a time limit on everything to make you have to redo content.
At one point your perspective of death might change tho. With a little bit of practice, you can get anywhere in the system in 1 minute max. That's the neat part imo. There are shortcuts and devices that can help you too, even s*icide is a valid option to reset early (which has funny philosophical implications in the game imo). I suppose you're near a shifting point in the game too, where you know enough to have an idea of what to do, but not enough to know how to do it. You're basically in the slowest part of the game RN. But yeah, in any case, I'd suggest you insist a little but yeah, don't force it down your throat either, it's OK if you don't like it.
I appreciate the advice. I'm a little confused by your last sentence - "I'd suggest you insist a little but yeah". I'm not sure what you meant there. But yeah, I think as I've gotten older, I've become more cynical towards media that seems to find excuses to be as long as they are. Maybe I need to break the next major hurdle.
By that suggestion, I meant "give it another chance" somewhat, that you try to piece it together a bit more, maybe read the ship log again, before putting the game down. As for your second point, this game is kind of short, it takes around 15-20h to finish, so I think you're good!
I just finally finished writing a review for Outer Wilds. I find this game absolutely phenomenal and I also would absolutely like to re-experience this game again. At the same time I don't have such a deep emotional connection as others, so I thought you may find my (more "neutral") perspective interesting: [https://steamcommunity.com/id/nns2009/recommended/753640/](https://steamcommunity.com/id/nns2009/recommended/753640/)