The Most Touching Moments of the Outer Wilds with Brad Shoemaker

Brad, I really love how much you love this game. Your enthusiasm really sold me on it.

I’ll come back and watch the rest of the video once I‘ve played some of it myself.

Right there with you, Brad! There were a lot of moments in Outer Wilds that struck me as profound, and the developers were able to convey ideas such as our individual small place within the universe and the inevitability of death and the end, and how we can come together in spite of those things to build a sense of optimism and community. Not only does the story include these concepts, but there are plenty of small gameplay moments that resonated these same ideas and I will forever cherish the time I spent discovering all the small and large moments the game included.

I've been dying for some spoilercast discussion of Outer Wilds somewhere, everyone I love in games media also clearly loves this game but will not talk about it for obvious reasons.

I too was really caught off guard by the emotional resonance of it all. How strong the themes run through everything and how beautifully it comes together... The ending makes me well up with emotion even just thinking about it, and the music, god, the music. One of the moments for me is close to one of Brad's in the video, actually: The sun Station. Specifically, the moment where you realize that while they did fire the Sun Station to cause the sun to go supernova... They failed. It didn't work. They didn't cause this. This is just natural, inevitable, the universe dying, not a matter of human (or Nomai) folly but just a fact off the nature of being. And just having that sink in while you stared right into the sun growing larger and larger with the bodies of the Nomai next to you... What a moment.

There's a couple of cool little easter egg esque things that I'd encourage you to look for @brad, I'd even give you subtle hints to 'em if you need, but I feel like you'd really appreciate seeing them.

There's no "The" in Outer Wilds!!!

Honestly I was hoping for a "best outer wilds moment" ala Wolfenstien from a couple of years ago, so, this is perfect. The way this game makes you think is profound.

Yes! This is a great way to relive those moments. I'd also add the moment you emerge with the warp core ready to race to Dark Bramble (so stressful!) and THAT music starts to play, signifying an ending, but then you realise it's different this time, more triumphant, and the run to the mothership is pure goosebumps. God, I loved this game.

Such a great game. I've always considered the emotional impact and how a game makes me feel one of the most important factors of the quality of the game. Games that evoke joy based on pure mechanics are not as good as those that really resonate with me or are able to really make me feel.

There have been many games that have managed to really evoke strong emotions in me (Mass Effect 3, Undertale, What Remains of Edith Finch, Life is Strange etc.) but often they have used "cheap" tactics to achieve that. It's hard not to get emotional when shown characters you're attached to dealing with the death of a loved one or similar tragedy. But due to the scale of the events in Outer Wilds and the existential nature of the questions it raises, the emotional impact feel more earned. And the fact that it can somehow mine optimism and hope from tragedy is not an easy task.

The end, where you talk to all your friends by the fire and get a few lines about how they're dealing with the situation followed up by hearing all of the separate music tracks combined for the first time (with a bonus o track from Solanum) is perhaps the most touching and beautiful moment I've seen in a game.

Thanks to this video I got to see the inside of The Interloper for the first time. Don't know how I managed to miss that...

Hey, if 2020 happens to contain regular one on one fire side chat style videos with Uncle @brad, I definitely wouldn't complain.

It's optional, and not spelled out how you get in there. Kind of one of those things you have to intuit. Basically the ice on the "face" cracks when the Interloper is near the sun. So you have to land, then wait for its orbit to get to a certain point before you can explore it.

Seeing this and the podcast talk, I NEED to replay this game. Easily my GOTY, top few of the generation, decade, and maybe even all time.

I hope you eventually managed to land on that Sun Station Brad. After doing everything else, it was one of the most satisfying things I've done in a game in a while. :)

this makes me very happy

Really enjoyed having Brad go over something that truly affected him this year. A super thoughtful look at a great game. Thanks Brad!

Nice list, Brad. I really like how in-depth you've gone for your videos.

Thanks for doing this Brad! Was a great watch and very fulfilling from another fan of the game.

Glad you enjoyed it Brad!! Great recap of the moments. This game just did not hit with me but that happens sometimes, glad others are enjoying it!!

Great category! Thanks Brad.

I really want to get back to this and complete the chart and get all the achievements. Already landed on the sun station, so I figure I've got the hardest one out of the way

This game really hit home for me and had so many powerful moments. Obviously everything you pointed out in the video but also so many little things.

Early on I was investigating Ember Twin and came upon Chert. I went up to talk to him and found him completely losing his marbles about the end of the world. The star charts! They were wrong! Everything is going to die, and there's nothing we can do to stop it!

This was the first time I saw someone actually acknowledge what was happening but, to be frank, I just thought it was kind of funny. I went through all his dialogue (though he didn't say anything else) and went on my way. After running around the planet I ended up back where Chert was sitting around the time the music kicked in signaling the end of the run. I didn't have anything better to do so I blasted back to him and started talking to him...and he was completely different. His acceptance of what was happening caught me completely off guard. All he said was that he was happy to see me again and would I like to sit with him by the fire. An interesting idea but instead I jetted off hoping to have some fun with my jet-pack before the end.

And this is the moment of the story. As I was heading away from him for some reason I stopped and turned around. I saw Chert sitting by himself silhouetted by a sun about to die...and then I was next to him again. I didn't think about it, I just went. I talked to him one last time, pulled out my marshmallow, and we watched the world end together.

This was the first time I could feel the game grab me. It was here that I stopped thinking about the game as a "game" and started thinking about what I could do to stop everything that's happening. I wanted to protect these people and I needed to figure out how.

Thank you Brad. Such a beautiful game, and you did a great job of explaining why it's important on GOTY and here.

Not gonna watch this. If nothing else, this GOTY has convinced me to play Outer Wilds, and am sure enough has been spoiled already.

Awesome list. Thanks Brad!

I had a totally different feeling about the ending and thought that was the weakest part of an otherwise amazing game.

The game does such a good job of building this universe and teaching you the rules that govern it. Your only tool of solving these mysteries is the knowledge you become equipped with of how the physical space in this universe works.

Then we get to the final 15 minutes of the game, where it seems to throw out that attention to detail of its physical world to become super abstract. It's as if the game changes from a Leonardo da Vinci engineering drawing, to a Picasso portrait at the very end. Its final moments didn't seem to build on top of what the game had already built, is why the conclusion didn't feel as satisfying.

Regardless of how I felt the ending was presented, the game is fantastic and can't recommend it enough for anyone who enjoys adventure puzzle games.

This was good. Such a special game and great look back.

I love the message of this game so so much. Nothing is ever really the end of everything. There will always be a next time 💖

I finished it so I can watch this now!

I am actually honestly bummed out, that I won't ever get to experience this game for the first time ever again.

Just finished the game, simply awesome. Wonder how many people watched this video thinking they had finished it before realising you could warp the Vessel to the Eye!

After that ending, there was only ONE video I knew I could watch to decompress.

just finished the game, and time to watch this