Then the expansion treats the player with the awe-inspiring discovery of a massive hidden world that makes up the expansion's primary setting. The opening for the DLC tasks the player with finding a remote satellite and solving a simple puzzle involving it. The developers managed to cleverly hide the DLC in plain sight, as if it had been there all along. Honestly, I think the single best puzzle in the game is the one that the player has to solve just to get access to the DLC! It's also the most " Outer Wilds" feeling puzzle in the game. It's like " summoning the tornado in Simon's Quest" levels of esoteric at times. But they are so esoteric that the game almost has to literally tell the player what to do. They hide some very fun and interesting surprises that really mess with the player's perception of reality in a very video-game-meta sort of way. Some of the late puzzles do start to embrace Outer Wilds's sci-fi nature. The puzzles just lack that sense of awe and discovery that comes with progressing in the base game.Įchoes of the Eye starts off strong with solving a space-based mystery. The use of light as the instrument for most interactions with Echoes of the Eye seems to be the result of a concerted effort by the developers to use base game mechanics that are under-utilized in the base game, such as the flashlight and ability to nap at bonfires. The actual puzzles are a bit more clever than this, but I just don't find it to be a very engaging or interesting gimmick, especially compared to how novel and creative the core Outer Wilds puzzle box is. I guess I should praise the puzzle design for never falling back on the tried-and-true (yet rote) method of reflecting light off mirrors or through prisms. I just point flashlights at things to trigger mechanisms, turn lights off or on to trigger secret passageways, or turn off my source of light to sneak past photo-sensitive sentries in the dark. Most puzzles involve the use of light, and feel like they could be puzzles in any earthbound adventure or fantasy setting. The puzzles of Echoes of the Eye don't seem to have that same sci-fi quality to them. Each world is a little puzzle box for the player to unlock, with the solutions to every puzzle involving some sci-fi physics concept that the player has to learn and apply. One of my favorite things about Outer Wilds is its open-ended exploration of the hand-crafted solar system. I wasn't going to pass up an excuse to revisit Timber Hearth! River rafting around the world Would they add more planets to the solar system? Would it be a stand-alone prequel with the player playing as one of the extinct Nomai?īut I sure as hell was not going to pass up an excuse to revisit Timber Hearth! I wasn't expecting an expansion because the game seemed so perfect and self-contained that I struggled to even think of what could be included in an expansion. It was also a compelling player-driven mystery game that doesn't hold the player's hand and which provides genuine "eureka!" moments. It was a compelling sci-fi game about the nature of science and the desire to find our place in the universe. When I played it last year (after waiting over a year for its timed Epic Store exclusivity to end), Outer Wilds quickly became one of my favorite games ever due to its innovative sci-fi exploratory gameplay in its dynamic sandbox solar system full of interesting places that are genuinely worth exploring. ( < indicates platform I played for review)ĮSRB Rating: E 10 + (for 10 years old and up) for: XBox One | Series X | S (via retail disc or XBox Live digital download). PlayStation 4 | 5 (via retail disc or PSN digital download), Not for playing hide and seek in the dark I loved Outer Wilds for its sense of awe and wonder,
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