Outer Wilds: the Hidden Design with Emotion (Full Review/Video Essay)

outer wilds the open world space exploration game or you don't progress and death is merely a setback there I just summarized the entirety of the game for you however there is a big thing that I believe a lot of people overlook when it comes to this game there is a divided yet balanced mix of eager curiosity and emotion driven culture that seems to be left as a backbone for how this game is as good as it is I'll be going through this game in its entirety examining every planets environments the phenomena each one brings and the emotional impact the player will experience on each planet each part of the video will have timestamps on screen and in the description welcome everybody to outer wilds [Music] [Music] ah [Music] the way this game starts out is perfect for an open-world game there is a prompt to start giving the player the eagerness to see what awaits them the first thing you see the brightly lit sky full of stars and the green orb with the blue light and you're already questioning what the hell is going on so let's take a step back shall we the game has a rather soft opening allowing you to see what you want and discovering as much as you want about whatever rate you want you could talk to everyone and interact with the environment to your heart's content or you can be a speedy boy and take a shortcut to the museum this also allows you to examine and observe as much as you want allowing you to establish your place in the world and as much information as you wish while most of the NPCs and things you can interact with are blown over they can be really important simply for the fact that they seamlessly teach the player how to play the game without being in a hand-holding Department you can waste hours just in the starting area appreciating every detail and discovering every nuance there is to discover now onto the museum the one part of the game that can carry so much value but with so little context when you first start out this place contains a plethora of information at the ready for the player but there's a catch there is a lack of context that playing the game will fill in naturally this especially applies to the know my statue all you are told is that it's one of the only intact ones that has been found and nothing else despite that it still gives a nice overview of what is to come without ruining any of the experience in any way once you get the launch codes and begin to head towards the ship the most important part of the game happens the statue activates and links with you this alone is what allows the core function of the game to happen the function being the time loop no explanation no apparent reason just all of your memories being saved in an ancient cloud storage but this is important for other parts of the video so we'll worry about it later now off to flying the ship the moment you press the elevator button you're in the deep end there's no more benevolence no more comfort no more secure feeling of being around friendly faces just you in the vast open space you strap in check the landing cam take one last breath and activate the thrusters the atmosphere is breached and you've now been liberated to explore the music kicks in the setting is perfect what once was thought to be a terrifying place to navigate has become a place of sheer curiosity nothing holds you back anymore not even death just sit back and listen from it maybe get a couple marshmallows while you're at it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] ah [Music] Ashlin the planet of sand with much to explore under the surface if I were to describe the atmosphere this planet brings in one word I would say boring from the very start of each loop there's nothing Ashton has to offer it's a bland orb of sand sand falls to umber twin in the giant sand column as this happens over time some structures begin to emerge some more can be revealed about these structures on their own but for the most part other planets fill in the gaps these structures are warped ours each design representing the receiving planet to each one of the towers the gimmick here is the warps only activate when the towers aligned with the receiving end on the targeted planet the core of ashwin is also accessible but that topics a little a little more important for later on amber twin is the planet on the opposing end of the hourglass twin orbit member twin is the polar opposite of ash twin almost no sand rough and rocky terrain and a large canyon on the equator that stretches across the entire planet as the named hourglass twin suggests the sand that rises into the massive pillar on ash twin is falling as a beam of death to ember twin serving as a mere nuisance to the exploration not only that but the planet is filling with sand constantly if I were to describe the atmosphere in one word it would be anxiety in contrast to the patient waiting required for ash twin you're on a strict time limit on number twin traversing the weaving tunnels can lead you being trapped by the sand if your path is uncoordinated on the bright side of things we can meet our first hearth Ian that's not located on timber hearth shirt shirt plays a fitting tuned for ember twin a wooden drum with the base of a large drum and the rattling sound of a snare drum all coming from the small egghead that studies the Stars there's quite a bit of Lord to this planet but we'll hear about that soon enough the start of it all for the hearth Ian's if I were to describe the atmosphere in one word it would be bittersweet the beginning village presents so much enveloping comfort that this planet seems to be a safe haven however the rest of the planet is a smooth orb of grass and occasional patches of trees there are many mysterious ruins in areas with little explanation there's even an entire underground water system that supplies all the geysers with all the water they need there is so much that's hidden from you at the start it almost creates an atmosphere of distrust timber cars can even be deadly in some of these hidden areas other than that timber art seems to almost be a waste to me even though there are no my ruins to explore I feel there could have been a lot more lore associated with timber hearth maybe even have some information blocked off and some items on other planets would unlock it just a thought the Rock is one of the most interesting yet lackluster places in the game if I were to describe the atmosphere of the adil Rock in one word it would be historic the Autobot carries one of the first pointers to the goal of the no mine and it is where wrecked ships with land before things changed and no one really needed to land there anymore however this place serves as a good starting point to explore other than that it served as a starter planet and that's about the only value it carries sadly brutal hollow the name says it all really a hollow planet with the core being a black hole and everything is slowly crumbling around you if I were to describe the atmosphere in one word it would be tense at every moment you're above a gaping black hole with a stronger and stronger gravity the deeper you travel through the planet what is interesting is how dynamic this planet is you have the surface where the planet is normal as you'd expect but on the inside there's a completely different area one with in many ways of navigation think of it this way the surface on the planet is constant ground beneath you at least somewhere with an open sky underneath there's an infinite fall with a ceiling of rock above the only things keeping you in contact with that ceiling are the suspended buildings and gravity tunnels set in stone for traversing the innards of the planet there's a lot of very narrow passages that one slip-up can end up with a fall into the black hole the black hole sends you out through a white hole instantly on the other side is a place called the white hole station in which you can be warped back with no issue hollows in turn what am I even supposed to say its sole purpose is to make Myrtle hollows core gameplay mechanic work I'm aware there's a bit of lore hidden away and there's some no my skeletons on there but honestly it's just a mini Sun it barely even provides light to the planet anyway what is kind of interesting is apparently hollows Lantern was so terrifying back then that they thought being exposed to a black hole was safer you Giants deep the big green planet everyone sees at the beginning of every liberal where do I even begin with this planet this planet is massive and contains so much that's pertinent to the lore of the game it's fun to navigate and it's fairly challenging to explore as you get goddamn hurled into space in a matter of seconds now take the concept of a Waterworld make it entirely water welcome to giants TV the planet in it of itself doesn't necessarily have any land masses everything you can land on are disconnected islands that provide almost no safety or security while you explore them if I were to describe the planet's atmosphere in one word it would be soothing ironic isn't it calling this planet pure chaos soothing I'm not pulling that out of my ass and I have a damn good reason for calling it such a thing the moment you enter it's cranked from 0 to 100 faster than you can gasp to scream it's loud wind rain smearing on your cockpit and the flurry of vicious cyclones are ready to kick you out at a moment's notice so why the did I call it soothing this should I believe be glaringly obvious to any player who has played the game thoroughly whenever you are outside you can withstand all the chaos and white noise with no issue yeah you'll get the occasional from getting hurled into space Fiasco but that's besides the point you have no problem standing outside in the harsh conditions you stand fair in the face of the most chaotic planet in the game try as it might you overpower the harsh conditions a lot of this is why I was so excited to talk about Giants deep from the moment I even conceived the idea for this video this planet creates such a stark enigma for what you could imagine a Waterworld being this is even reflected in the behavior of gabbro the only other hearth Ian to be in a time loop with you gabbro has already come to terms by the time you meet them and bear completely calm in the face of danger even when I hold into space gabbro is completely unfazed in every regard they're even completely aware of the supernova and they just don't give a so gabbro lays down plays a soft and low tune that contrasts the blaring noise of the environment they live on their own in isolation and they're living it well probably was even more fascinating about this planet is the deeper you go the calmer it gets I'd say the core is the calmest place on the whole planet I've talked about giants deep too much let's let's move on to the next planet this this abomination thus abomination in which the deepest steppes of hell wouldn't even accept this thing the anglerfish I'll get to those things in a moment let's talk about the planet the dark bramble is a strange phenomena it's an organism that exhibits some terrifying way to take over planets to be used as hosts the dark bramble originally was supposedly some sort of ice planet but the bramble grew out from the corn destroyed the planet from the inside out once you enter you'll be enveloped by a thick fog that prohibits your visibility to a staggering degree within this space that strangely expanded to accommodate your entrance are more entrances to other pockets if I were to describe the atmosphere of this space in one word it would be ominous this place exhibits nothing but dread as you traverse through each and every space that's even explorable what this planet does so well to create this dread is the lack of visibility the name dark bramble serves as a warning of the contents within not only that but there is an eerie muffled sound of distorted music accompanied by not knowing what is directly in front of you on to the worst part of the whole game the anglerfish these horrid abominations are literally just that regular angular fish like the ones we know from the sea here on earth however they are much more than just fish these things are massive able to consume the entire ship with no effort the one thing that sets them off any noise of your ship's thrusters within a visible vicinity of the anglers that's it and once they're set off they are booking it at you with almost the same speed and ferocity of your ship combined with your will to get the out the Antelope bear honestly I don't have much to say the only reason this thing even exists is for the story the only thing it has to offer is a fairly linear puzzle to get to the core the puzzle being entering and navigating the tight tunnels and making sure to avoid ghost matter at all costs as it is literally everywhere I'm actually not going to talk about this comet until we talk about the lore the quantum moon we have seen a strange gray blob occasionally shift in and out of existence this place also like the interloper serves as merely a puzzles to unlock lore however this place also serves as a test for your understanding of the in-game universes quantum mechanics in which successful manipulation of the moon superpositions will yield an interesting surprise I'll also talk about this within the lore a little bit ah the first thing I want to say about the movement it is absolutely fantastic a big problem with games is that they're extremely responsive there is no drag or weight to the way players move and it can be a detriment to gameplay on the contrary if the game tries to be realistic and goes overboard then you'll lack control and it can break immersion outer wilds accomplishes that perfectly you have control that semi-realistic but at the same time it's not a detriment to the overall gameplay it feels smooth before I move on I'd like to mention something about rockets and physics there's a fairly new company called gravity they have made what can only be described as a literal Iron Man suit it's a suit that has a large thruster on the back and two thrusters on each arm the youtuber called be hack Smith has done a video with a suit and describe the force of the rockets as spongy it's really weird sensation is that it's quite gentle it's just this gentle spongy push almost like holding a firehose of water it's why do you watch when I compare the controls of the ship that's all I can describe it as myself a spongy and soft push but it carries its own weight and it's affected by the gravitational force of nearby planets this game does everything it can to provide a realistic and intuitive movement whether it's on foot or in space some sacrifices were made for the sake of making the movement comfortable such as the player always orientating up right went on a planet such sacrifices of realism are completely worth it in my opinion from the start of the game you're equipped with three tools a translator a signal scope and a scalp each of these tools is pretty unconventional but they work in this game extremely well the translator is a tool the hearth Ian's developed it is used to translate no my text into something the hearth eenz can read and it just so happens this text can be found everywhere throughout the game the signal scope allows you to listen to sounds at a very specific location with a seemingly limitless range the Scout is your best friend in this game it is your saving grace it can take pictures be shot out at random stuff provide light at its landing position take pictures at many angles at its landing position tell you the distance from the scout using a questionable version of the meter allow for navigation through the dark bramble tell you exactly where ghost matter is and so much more I swear this isn't an advertisement one part that makes this game so fascinating is the sound design and the music everything sounds perfect nothing is out of place the music serves its environments with ease the ambience provides fluid exploration there isn't much dynamic music in this game but it's not necessarily needed the biggest part in my opinion is space theme as you've heard earlier it reinforces the culture aspect of the game everything feels foreign to you but familiar and comforting wherever you go you're being impacted by new information but it has that familiarity to it now allows for a balanced experience a quick message to Andrew Prado the composer for the game though I'm aware he probably won't see this how the did you do this each sound and song contains such an egregiously ridiculous amount of detail I'm aware this game took at least six years to make and that's a lot of time to improve the music but I still don't understand how you're able to compose such a masterpiece anyway I'm moving on each planet contains different ways to traverse it with different challenges in each one as well the hourglass winds provide a large surface to traverse across however mber twin specifically has many narrow tunnels underground timber hearth is fairly bland and simplistic but that's not a bad thing it is the starting planet after all brutal hollow is interesting not on the exterior but on the interior the closer he gets the black hole the stronger the gravity becomes a simple mistake can send you plummeting into it giant steep has five islands to traverse on four of them are constantly being thrown up by cyclones so only have a limited amount of time on each of them before getting shot out into space ramble it's a like a void to space sigh I guess once you enter all the natural gravity ceases to exist and you just float with a little momentum you have left it's not pleasant but as you can see there's a diverse amount of environments to explore sci-fi biggest scapegoat quantum physics it's pretty well known at this point that quantum physics is used as a way to fill the unexplainable gaps in most sci-fi related media what outer wilds does successfully is that it makes it into gameplay that's compatible with the Lord and isn't necessarily a burden I'm gonna make this very clear outer wilds does not follow quantum physics as it really is it simply has its own botched version that makes more rational sense and is better for development in game play let me give you a little tutorial on how outer wilds handles quantum stuff quantum objects all resonate with a specific frequency that matches across all quantum objects these frequencies are known as quantum fluctuations in real life quantum fluctuations are a physical manifestation in outer wilds they are a means of identifying quantum objects as long as you are watching the object or a picture of the object current state it will remain there the moment you lose sight of it gone to some new location that's within the relative area ah the no my are an ancient species that roams the gloaming galaxy with no real goal but to search for knowledge a signal was detected from a certain know my vessel the signal was nicknamed the eye of the universe and they made an attempt to warp to it for the fear of losing the signal when they worked they lost the signal and were instead screwed over by the dark bramble so much so got its own node to chill in three escape pods were launched number 3 crashed in another node number 2 crashed on brittle Hollow and number 1 trashed on ember twin the no my on ember twin made an underground city called the sunless city to avoid the heat of the Sun while they attempted research on how to locate the I you know that sounds a little interesting let's check out the city real quick [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] what happened here that's what I would expect most players to think after seeing this place it's full of dead no my taking part in everyday tasks yet all of them seem to have died suddenly with no warning this detail will be important later on let's move on let them rest in peace and talk about the rest of ember twin after more time the high energy lab was developed it's a laboratory that was constructed to research a phenomena with black holes and what adding more power does to them the no my own brutal hollow located the safest ground they could and made multiple structures such as the temporary settlement the hanging city the Tower of quantum knowledge the black hole Forge and the South Pole Observatory each used to further research on locating the eye and understanding the whys and how's of the solar system let's take a look here shall we [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] just like the Sun the city everything is dead and desolate so much activity went on here and now it's left to ruin yet it seems to be more peaceful no worries about rising sand just the soft hum of the black hole and the possible occasional explosion that may cause you to plummet down to set black hole five towers were constructed on Ash twin each allowing fer wormhole like travel to each planet except for dark bramble for obvious reasons after the use of the work course specifically the white hole station a phenomena was found where the more energy is put into a black hole the sooner anything entering comes out of the receiving and white hole which by some loophole allows for some weird indirect time travel so the gnome I got together to create the Ashtyn project where they made a machine that can store inanimate and conscious data and it was completely solar-powered Elon Musk would indeed approve the no mind were able to calculate approximately how far back they could send something through a powerful black hole but they needed a lot of power to do that their conclusion the solar power of a supernova so the creation of the Sun station came to be this made a very polarizing divide between the no my one side praise the idea for its possible success others shun the idea for its possible failure along with this the orbital probe cannon was constructed on giant steep a device that's supposedly capable of firing a probe fast enough to locate the eye of the universe within 22 minutes the final piece that was created the statues that linked everything to the mask storage inside project all of this is what allowed for the creation of this time loop first the Sun station detected increasing activity within the Sun thus causing the Ashtyn project to start the orbital probe cannon fired a minimum of nine thousand times until the eye was located and coordinates were transported 22 minutes in the past this caused the hatchling to be linked with one of the working masks inside the ash twin project after all of that the time loop has been made to know my tested the Sun station and with complete failure soon after an interloper comet was arriving in the Solar System three dome I took a shuttle to the interloper to investigate once they arrived two of them ventured in and one stayed behind after carefully navigating through the tunnels with the interloper they safely made it to the core quite a sight to behold really I guess the log contains a little bit of information [Music] and once that information is put together we can make an inference here the interlopers core burst under the tons of pressure releasing ghost matter everywhere and killing everything [Music] [Music] [Music] you there is one exception to ghosts matter it does not affect water or anything inside of water as much as it doesn't appear to pee this is pretty relevant information seeing as how this explains how hearth Ian's are alive her thines were originally amphibious but after the 281,000 42 years they have evolved into something more mammalian moving on to the air and soon to the skies and beyond you ah so on to the ending starting with the true death this one's pretty simple if you want to end the time loop and you die well you are dead with the advance work core in hand venturing out of the solar system before the supernova kills you roughly 50 kilometers out you'll see the supernova in all of its glory [Music] everything is dead silent all of you here is the rocket's of your ship all you see is the last remnants of the universe all you feel is dread the dread that you were the only thing left in existence now beyond the reach of the solar system you drift through space until your ships resources are depleted once again with the advanced work core in hand venturing to the quantum moon and staying at the sixth location until the supernova happens will result in something fairly interesting you are still alive well not exactly you see similar to solanum you have died five times because of the other quantum superpositions then why are you still here I'm not exactly sure but I believe there can only be one superposition of you that is conscious things change however with no way back you lose track of your perception of time how long have you been here minutes years you don't know but it seems your journey has reached its end you know I always said as a joke this was the best ending besides the main ending but with the recent update I actually follow that statement 100% oh did so why that's the case in a moment this ending requires three things your scout a linked black and white whole and quite a bit of power the way to do this ending is by going to the high energy lab on ember twin either by entering a normally or just speed runner style honestly clipping is way too easy once you're in link a black hole to a white hole power with an entire city's worth of solar power and do one more thing [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] as we can see with the Ashton project powering a black and white hole allows whatever goes in to arrive before entering the time of differentiation must not be broken if you take one of the work pores while you can see the same Scout after arrival and before entering this duplicates the same object there was something added in the most recent version as a variety the script one point zero point four includes a little secret with big implications for the longest time we've been able to see the ashton project actually send the data 22 minutes in the past this is done by the masks sending data up into the advanced warp core now you yes you can actually go in the black hole [Music] you [Music] but what just happened as you can see two points are saying you are here a little bizarre right traveling back to the ash twin project reveals that indeed there are two of you but why hasn't space-time been destroyed this actually makes sense when context is added the ash twin project sends data 22 minutes in the past you have 22 minutes to keep the cycle going so you actually have to go in the black hole to keep the loop going if not you'll destroy the fabric of space-time because it is no longer possible to enter the black hole this little secret believe it or not actually affects every other ending if your duplicate self is in the game all endings are substituted with the destroy space-time ending [Music] you you [Music] so we've reached the end of all ends and you've done it all you need to do is break the cycle and go there to the I you know the location of the vessel you memorize the coordinates the final object you need the advance or Core [Laughter] now what you just done is broken the cycle no longer will your memories be sent 22 minutes into the past once you die you are dead the advance work corn hand you need to head to the dark bramble Adventure to the vessel as fast as you can I'm just gonna do that the speeder in a way though just give me a minute you [Music] all right now here we are at the fabled eye of the universe once you work to the eye you may have already pieced together where you need to go especially if you've been to the quantum une sixth location which you are technically at right now go south a swirling vortex is the source of the strongest quantum fluctuation signal with no other option you jump in knowing nothing of what will come of it [Music] you you after observing the entirety of the gloaming galaxy you enter some weird quantum realm where you can see all of the galaxies enforced known as the ancient Glade there's a lot of time to kill here so that's exactly what I'm gonna do thinking back to when I first started out er while those now what it seemed at all my expectations were really low seeing as the game came from an indie developer everything felt natural as if it was a playground more than anything else as I discovered more and more just seemed to be regular events that occurred than no mine however as each puzzle was solved I was given another piece to a larger puzzle everything fished together almost seamlessly now what does that have to do with the ending well outer wiles has been able to take a finite concept and make it infinite what it does so well is take that away from me each step you take through ending his sentence stone once he put the cord to the vessel there's no going back once you've warped the eye there's no going back once you enter the eye there's no going back finally once you observe there's no going back [Music] within the absence of light you can expect too many things to happen you're in the I the universe after all soon after some flickering of your flashlight you appear how well I have nothing concrete but I believe this may be a superposition of you as to why you observing it doesn't cause only one possibility to happen well I think being in a quantum realm requires a little more input than that a quick transition we're back in a forest or to our proper scale after looking around and gaining a full scope of your surroundings all there is presence is a campfire esker and the darkness is esker alive are you alive talking to him doesn't yield much information only the phrase do you hear music sounds a little arbitrary doesn't it well it's for a good reason and your signal scope will reveal why as you can see this building is similar to that of brittle Hallows architecture take advantage of some quantum principles to cause a very quick decay and grab Rybak's banjo returning to the campfire reveals that Ryback is there to exclaiming that it's not quite time yet and urging you to be patient for someone who knows nothing about the situation he seems very informed about what's going on the signal scope reveals a few new locations of sounds the harmonica leads to a ghastly angler encounter followed up by a pleasant surprise a small glowing jellyfish two instruments down approaching a telescope reveals a plethora of suns and using the zoom function the signal scope allows you to collect the drums three instruments down the next signal comes from a three of all things the quiet shade across old Park in the aging lake it's always dark pretty ominous ring floating up reveals the next instrument on the hammock four instruments down if you've interrupted with Solan um in any way you'll see the fifth signal and it's a piano I'll just let this scene speak for itself [Music] [Music] everyone is here however real they are their musical talents remain with some sort of emotional atmosphere the synchronized instruments make a harmonic convergence with nothing else to do and no turning back collapse the fog sphere and one last thing once you collapse the innumerable possibilities there's no going back [Music] [Music] you [Music] you no matter how much of this video you've watched I only have my thanks to give the creation of this video started over three months ago through school work and keep my channel alive I've been working on this in the background and I'm so proud that I'm finally able to complete it this also was done with the help of many members from the outer wilds community no matter how long you've been watching my channel whether it be months or years or even if you just found my channel please consider subscribing and thanks for watching [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: 8-bit bulldog

Views: 26,494

Rating: 4.8944192 out of 5

Keywords: 8-bit, bulldog, outer wilds, full review, review, essay, story, ending, space

Id: AHYZ62mMazM

Length: 55min 7sec (3307 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/VkM51]

Wonderful review!

Edit: Are you sure our Sun is in the Glooming Galaxy?

[u/kvantu]

I can see you put a lot of work into this so big respect for the capture and editing!

Here I hidden all my negative thoughts in case you didn't want them: What is up with Outer Wilds videos overusing some phrase? First was the guy with "death is inevitable in OW" now you with "If I were to describe the atmosphere in one word..." Why would you describe them in one word, when you are making an hour long video anyway? About the length and the content in general, it is more a thorough summary than a review or analysis. You talk much more about what is in the game instead of why and how those things affect players from a design point of view, which is what I was expecting from your title. And a technical issue, why blur all that footage, what was your goal with that? Instead of the blur I would've watched something like faster timelapses of the whole loop on planets that I couldn't do while actually playing the game.

[u/[deleted]]

Any spoilers?

[u/Tentaclarm]

Great editing! Thank you for compiling this together, was a real treat to watch after just completing the game last night.

The kazoo song rendition had me in stitches! You should send it to the game’s composer, I think he would love it!

As for a little critique, one thing I noticed during the “endings” segments was your voiceover wouldn’t always match the text exactly, exchanging a couple of words at times. Also, the text before the QM ending quantum is spelled “Qauntum.” As others have stated, I was expecting more of a “review” of the game, but I really enjoyed the end product explaining many aspects of the story and world, and going through the various endings and outcomes.

Keep up the great work, I would definitely watch another video like this!

[u/VkM51]

So, Arkose says, "GM takes su-u-u-per long time to evaporate" Does that mean it changed it's properties and became less volatile after spreading all over the system?