My very last stop of another great year at PAX East was to check out Outer Wilds over at Annapurna’s booth. I hadn’t heard much about Outer Wilds since back in 2018, but a space exploration game scaled down from the massive undertakings of games like No Man’s Sky is enough to get me interested.
Unlike those massive procedurally generated space exploration titles, Outer Wilds takes place in a single solar system. There are a set number of planets each with their own secrets and unique look. The caveat, you’re stuck in a bit of a time loop. The sun in your solar system explodes every twenty minutes, and while your more significant progress carries over with each reset, you’ll need to hop back in your ship and set out from the start each time.
The demo I played started with me heading off to grab some launch codes to get started on my first big day as an astronaut. The people of your planet have some pretty modest backwoods dwellings for space explorers, even your ship is made out of wood, but it seems to hold up in deep space just fine.
Source: Destructoid Outer Wilds is No Man’s Sky meets Groundhog Day