Outer Wilds is a Brilliant Journey of Horror, Sadness, and Triumph [Mild Spoiler Review]
Good works of fiction, no matter the medium, are the ones that can create an emotional response from a person. Fear, sadness, joy, anger, confusion, horror, anxiety, calmness, awe.
Triumph.
Even when video games were nothing more than a handful of pixels moving on a CRT television, the end goal for the designer was almost always to evoke a feeling of triumph in the player. From Pong to PUBG, we play games to overcome their many challenges and walk away victorious - whatever form that victory may take. Maybe it's a high score, defeating your friends in a simulated sport, or surviving 99 other players in a fight to the death (or Tetris).
In Outer Wilds, that triumph comes from the completion of a journey, and the beginning a new one.
Outer Wilds gets in all those other emotions too, don't get me wrong. Fear, awe, and confusion from the vast unknown of the star system you're charged with exploring. The joy of your first spaceflight, of learning something new, and solving a complicated puzzle. The sadness and horror of learning the ultimate fate of your solar system and people. The anger of knowing there's nothing you can do to prevent it. The anxiety you experience as you once again are running out of time, and the strange calmness of watching your entire existence wiped out by the brute force of a supernova.
Every piece of it serves the emotions it evokes. Watching one planet being slowly destroyed by the volcanic moon that orbits it, as large hunks of rock and long-abandoned settlements tumble into the black hole that is centered at the planet's core, you can't help but smirk at notion that soon this will be the fate of the entire system. When you find yourself floating alone in space without a ship, and all you can hear is your own breathing and the soft, muffled sounds of your spacesuit's jets as you try to maneuver yourself to some semblance of safety, you can't help but feel at peace. You'll come across myriad musings and correspondence of a long-dead civilization, who became both aware of their eventual fate and their futility to stop it. As the sun begins to expand and glow red with destructive intent, you hear the hum of a synth orchestra swell to a roar, only to fade as quickly came in, and you stare in near silence as the sun collapses on itself before exploding and engulfing you, your people, and your home in a brilliant, blue-white light - and then you wake up and have to see it happen again. And again. And again.
Outer Wilds is what modern adventure games should be. This game is all about exploring space, solving puzzles, and unraveling a mystery. The story is captivating. The exploration and puzzles are fun and rewarding. I'm not sure any game has truly captured the sheer terror and loneliness of space quite like Outer Wilds. It got its hooks in me deep. I'm talking "dreaming about black holes, the fabric of spacetime, and the very nature of our existence" deep.
