The Problem with Outer Wilds (a game I love)

Outer Wilds sci fi game from Annapurna Interactive and Mobius Digital is an amazing game but what about the problem with Outer Wilds. Outer Wilds review and Outer wilds first impressions and Outer Wilds playthrough and Outer Wilds first blind playthrough. Outer Wilds is overrated and Outer Wilds issues, is Outer Wilds good? Gaming essays and deep dives into time mechanics in games like Outer Wilds and Prey Mooncrash. Best indie games. Most overhyped and over loved games.

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[razbuten]

I really don't agree with this premise. Like, to be clear, despite it being my favorite game, I do not think Outer Wilds is perfect and games definitely can be better than it. ALSO, it is 100% fair that its design left you wanting more, but I don't think making it more like an immersive sim would have made it inherently better--it just would have been more like an immersive sim, so it would've appealed more to fans of that genre. Personally, I think an immersive sim approach would detract from a lot of what Outer Wilds set out to do (btw for anyone reading this who hasn't played the game, I am about to spoil stuff, so beware I guess?). I think the argument that there being set answers to puzzles means a) you aren't actually discovering something and b) that it goes against the core tenant/theme of the game misses the mark a bit. While most of the puzzles have one intended solution (although there are a bunch with multiple), there are many paths to discovering those solutions and how they're to be applied. I have watched dozens of people play through the game at this point, and I am still in awe of how different each playthrough feels based on how they engage with world and information presented to them. The journey is their thought process and trying to make sense of how the solar system works. The core of Outer Wilds is not the player character, it is the solar system. And that solar system is unyielding; it acts on its own accord and the puzzles all center around understanding the established world, not changing it. Outer Wilds gives players the opportunity to create their own story by giving them freedom over how they engage with the puzzles they need to solve, To be honest though, I'd say it is a mistake to call "freedom" Outer Wilds' main theme—at the end of the day it is a title about the heat death of the universe. The main threat of the game is something that ultimately can not be stopped. The only power the player character has is witnessing the end to help usher in the new era. I think giving the player a set of tools that allow them to solve the various obstacles in a multitude of ways like Mooncrash does would undermine that aspect of the game. You are not meant to conquer the solar system; you are meant to understand it—to observe it. In my opinion, the player character's relative powerlessness is key to establishing this sense.

Outer Wilds is a puzzle game that gives players freedom in how they go about uncovering the mysteries of the solar system. That is where the personal stories are crafted. Just because there is an intended solution to the puzzles they make, doesn't mean there aren't discoveries. I don't think having multiple ways to solve something is inherently better or more free. In fact, I think it can lead to puzzles/obstacles feeling less impactful because having multiple solutions makes them easier to solve. It seems like you really value player expression in terms of mechanics, but I don't think those sorts of things belong in every game. Also, I'd say that by your logic the same argument about players not actually discovering things could be made about Mooncrash or really, any game ever. The devs created certain mechanics that could pair well together or be used in various situations, so did the player really discover anything if these mechanics were designed for them to discover? Is having the ability to choose what mechanics you engage with the true mark of freedom in a game? Personally, I don't think so. Mooncrash and Outer Wilds are trying to do different things, and while both have elements of player freedom, I don't think comparing them in this way is all that productive. Outer Wilds' player expression comes from how folks go about understanding the solar system, where Mooncrash's largely comes from the player's understanding of character abilities. Ultimately, the themes of Outer Wilds would not be nearly as strong if it was about the player character using their own power to solve the mysteries of the solar system and universe. To say that it not having tons of emergent gameplay makes it similar to a book in some way, feels really off to me. The non-linear approach to Outer Wilds' gameplay loop as well as it asking players to not only find information but apply it in various situations separates it from those other "static" pieces of media in a big way. The solutions you find are not always obvious and it takes experimentation to figure out how they work. There is a lot of reading, but I think that is about the only similarity it has to a book. Anyway, I think some of the ideas you describe could be really cool to see in a game some day, but it doesn't make all that much sense to me to fault Outer Wilds for not being that game.

[IMz]

I had 2 problems with this game: 1. it's too good. 2. it has an ending.

[masonstringfellow]

I think that outer wilds prioritizes narrative over creative freedom. There’s a necessary trade off. Moon crash has a weaker narrative in my opinion, but it allows for more dynamic options. I’m not sure you can do both.

[ChristopherCraven]

There was a dead end, but the exit was right next to that dead end. I'm guessing the developers figured it's more engaging going through the little maze as the sand rises for tension, rather than just follow the straight line to the goal.

[Lory]

I will save you 14 minutes "I wanted this game to be something that the game itself didn't want to be so mooncrash is better even tho they are nothing alike"
You're welcome

[DesignFrameCaseStudies]

With the way you describe Outer Wilds as just like any other puzzle game, I have to say it seems like to me you missed the design of the game and its founding principles.

Outer Wilds is a game centered entirely around the idea of the end being accessible from the beginning and your limitations being defined by your knowledge, rooted in discovery. As a consequence, every piece of design (level, puzzle, or otherwise) naturally leads the player where they need to go without any fail-safes or explicit railroads. Additionally, each discovery is applied to multiple different situations. There's a reason why these design concepts are never seen together -- it's incredibly complicated and difficult to design, where everything is open and complements each other, to the point where anything else that doesn't complement those elements would not only take away from the game but completely break it into an incomprehensible mess.

Saying Outer Wilds is imperfect because its open design still had designed solutions and puzzles is quite strange. Outer Wilds is a case study on non-linearity and discovery that produces quite a bit of emergent gameplay. The puzzles have multiple ways of discovering or getting to the solution. You're never banging your head against the wall (trial & error) because there are always hints and tools to get there (with perhaps one exception, but I believe they patched the game to fix it). Plus, your primary example of the rising sand didn't actually lead to a dead end.

EVEN IF Outer Wilds' puzzles were "figured out in the same way", much of your argument centers around reductivism. Your argument for calling Outer Wilds the "developer's puzzle", deterministic, "designed solutions and puzzles", or saying it "reacts according to our actions" can be applied to pretty much any game -- the distinction is lost. Mooncrash is designed in a similar way to Outer Wilds, giving you tools and an objective and you figure out the way to reach that objective. It's "one giant puzzle" that you discover and experiment with over time, just in different ways. I don't think being reductive in this case provides any meaningful distinctions, so it's difficult to be productive in this conversation. In that way I agree with Razbuten.

As a designer, I also want to address your immersive sim ideas toward the end because I find it interesting to engage with and talk about:
- The magma gun idea for the Interloper takes away not only the puzzle element but the emergent gameplay you desire. It's both mechanically simple and simplistic as a puzzle, way more so than the original solution, which tends to be problematic when one solution is trivial compared to others -- players will always choose the path of least resistance in those cases.
- The ship's jets interacting with outside elements in meaningful ways (interactions with sand, ice, etc.) would create more tedious and brute forced solutions.

It's also worth noting that the game would have to be redesigned from the ground up to avoid those problems, which would end up creating a similarly designed game but with different tools and restrictions/limitations anyway so I don't think it'd end up as the product you'd prefer. I want to re-emphasize here the core principles of Outer Wilds and just how tight the design has to be for any of it to work.

Finally, to be clear, I write this as friendly criticism out of respect and kindness and I mean no ill will! It's an interesting enough video for me to want to engage with it, so I think there's merit in that, and I'd like to follow you to see what you cook up next :)

In case you're interested at all, I have a video breaking down the entire design of Outer Wilds on my channel. It's a lengthy one 'cause it covers the entire game so I'd understand if you're not interested but thought I'd throw it out there in case it was of interest.

[asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa]

Outer wilds is a masterpiece. Doesn't mean it can't be improved.

However you're just thinking of an idea for a different game. Outer wilds does what it does well.

I have ideas about different variations of games everytime I play them. Doesn't mean outer wilds puzzles are bad.

[csidesummit]

I cannot get past calling the Nomai the Naomi.

[armandsolermarti]

Outer Wilds is exactly what you said: a puzzle, a 3D puzzle of planets that you solve with an intriguing story and the laws of physics. Sure, the developers decided how to solve the puzzles, just like they decided how the Nomai story would evolve. In my opinion, just like I wouldn't want to write the story of the Nomai myself, I also don't want to decide the mechanics.
I think the developers did a great job to make me discover mechanics I would have never thought of on my own. To me, that's the magic of this game. One of them.

[siddharthshishulkar]

The problem is you are looking at it from a perspective of a puzzle solver and not mystery and exploration.

I disagree with the argument that "It's not exploration because it's there's only one answer"
because that's literally what exploration means. You explore what is laid out for you by the devs, what makes it interesting is how the devs present it.


The core tenant of Outer Wilds is not freedom. It literally has 22 min loop which forces you to forge a path instead of just explore without an objective. That's why it works.

Making it like an immersive sim will dilute the design of this game. How would you tune the the loop time in that case? It would be highly unbalanced.

That's why The Outer Wilds is not an immersive sim and an exploration game.

Mooncrash is an immersive sim and not about exploration. It's more about experimentation.

[harley]

The problem with designing puzzles like you suggest is that it doesn't work with the design idea behind exploring different places to find clues that help you in other places. If the puzzles have open solutions, then you can't really do that as much.

There are some puzzles with alternate solutions. You can get to the Tower of Quantum Knowledge two ways, the Sun Station three (although you'll miss something one way), and the Black Hole Forge three or maybe four ways. EOTE actually has some parts that have a more open design to them as well, with different ways to go about solving them, but it didn't work as well as you seem to think.

[Jordan-kkiu]

You've mistaken the game to be about freedom when in reality it's about discovery and learning. This game is different as you aren't playing through the story but rather reading and discovering it.

[merezko]

So you want a Zachtronics or Breath of the Wild style puzzle in an open world Orbital dynamics simulator?

[yakovify]

As point out by others, I think freedom of expression actually goes directly against the themes of outer wilds. I would say the main theme behind the game is that a) you are powerless and b) that's ok. You don't get to play with the systems of the world because they are on such a grander scale than you ever could match. It builds supports the sense of existential awe the game is trying to make you feel. The solar system does it's thing, regardless fo what you want it to do, you have to follow it's rules because you are the visitor, it is not a playground, it is a gallery.

[trashcandave]

Bad take, “is a discovery really a discovery if it was meant to be discovered?” With that viewpoint no game has a sense of discovery as everything in it was programmed and designed to be discovered the same way this game does it. Complaining that you can’t discover things in a myriad of ways isn’t worth complaining about

[jordand]

I think you personally prioritize freedom and you’ve projected this belief onto the creators of the game. I think freedom is actually antithetical to the themes of the game, because the nature of the time loop is a cosmic destiny that the player only has limited powers to affect. To me, the puzzles having a single solution is extremely effective, because the player’s journey to uncover the narrative left by the developers is perfectly mirrored by the framing device of the pilot uncovering the work of the Nomai. The power of interactive media over other forms isn’t just freedom, it’s verisimilitude; Outer Wilds achieves verisimilitude and that’s why it resonates so deeply with us. The narrative of Outer Wilds combined with a structure of freer choice isn’t a better game; merely a different one (but maybe one that’s just better suited to your tastes).

[CeasiusC]

I think the two are inversely proportional. The more you add to randomness and different ways of discovery the more you sacrifice in tight narritive design.
It's like wanting both outer wilds and no mans sky in the same game.

[TikkaQrow]

The fact you called the Nomai 'Noami' told me everything i need to know about this video.
Also the American obsession with guns. Prey mooncrash is very constrained, it cannot be completed without being violent.

The DLC is VASTLY different from the main game, try it out, it touches a LOT of things the main game didn't, both mechanically and metaphorically.

[juanandrealvarezmeza]

While I think this video is awesome and I agree Outer Wilds isn’t perfect, I don’t think that the main theme of Outer Wilds was freedom, I think it was discovery. You aren’t supposed to create your own path, but to discover it

[NecroMoz]

You lost me when you complained that puzzles have solutions.