#like thats why i dont care about spoilers or figuring things out first tbh

[queenerdloser]

one of my useless superpowers is that i am So Good at clocking plot twists. every time there's a hint of a plot twist coming my way, i can figure that bitch out so quick.

[krisp-xyz]

ok I'm gonna ramble about outer wilds.

if you haven't played it, even if you don't typically care about spoilers, PLEASE avoid spoilers bc this is the most delicate game ever when it comes to spoilers due to the way it's designed. it's one of the few games where spoilers WILL rob you of the experience. with that said,

OUTER WILDS SPOILERS

this is a very very special game to me fgkjldfjk the ending was really beautiful when i first played and the more i thought about and processed it, the more it really stuck with me to the point where i *will* just cry if i think about the ending too much and god i cannot play through that ending again without sobbing. since im assuming people reading this have played the game, yall already know the nature of the game. the only thing you have to gain from anything is knowledge, and once you beat the game, you cant really ever play it again. sure you could maybe go for achievements or explore things you never saw but the experience is kinda just over.

I very much interpreted the ending as being about death. the game has the whole supernova time loop thing going on which sorta makes the idea of respawning a canonical aspect of the game. the fact that you can just hop back into your ship and you dont really have repercussions from death which is a pretty much synonymous with games as a whole tbh is a canonical aspect of the game that you the player AND you the hearthian traveler exploring the universe are a part of. this doesnt immediately seem to special and didn't even click with me very much until quite a bit after i beat the game, but to beat the game is to accept that you're going to die, and truly dying in this game is kinda the closest media has come to communicating what death really means for me at least. you start aimlessly wandering this star system and eventually start to piece things together, you make goals and eventually figure out how to beat the game, etc. all the knowledge you have to gain in this game leads up to the ending. maybe you stop the supernova and save everyone! maybe thats why you're trying to find the eye of the universe! but no, all the stars are dying. you were just unfortunate enough to be born at the end of a dying universe. There's nothing you can do because death is inevitable for you and those around you.

to beat the game is not only to accept that the sun will explode for the last time, that the end of the experience is inevitable, that all your hearthian friends will die for good, but beating the game also requires accepting that *you the player* have reached the end of this experience, *you the player* cannot hang onto anything forever, that the end was inevitable for you too. sometimes i get genuinely sad that i can basically never play this game again, and i almost wonder if my little hearthian protagonist felt similar during the end of the game. that feeling of the inevitable end finally reaching us.

AND DESPITE IT ALL, you finally accept that you are not immortal, that this will not last forever, that the sun cant keep exploding and looping and exploding and looping forever, when you finally accept death on your own terms, when you have no idea of what's in store for you and what will happen next but you take that dive anyway, you just,, get to share a moment with the people close to you. you sit around the campfire as everyone's music comes together for the first time, once *literally* worlds apart, now, in harmony, as the little audio cues to find your friends on each planet become a symphony. they each share messages about how they feel and every single fucking one resonated with me so much sdjklfsklj stuff like "you cut it a little short dont you think?" and "i got to be a part of something really cool, so I've got no complaints" and "the future depends on the past, even if we wont get to see it" and MY FAVORITE FUCKING LINE FROM THE ENTIRE GAME. solanum, the only non-hearthian character around the campfire, a nomai, one of the species that made this all possible, a friend, says something different. she says that this is the end of our journey, and she asks you a question. she just asks if you're ready. its not required to say yes to finish, its not even required to talk to her to beat the game, but if you say no, she will ask again if you are ready whenever you talk to her afterwards, while leaving a message for you in case you are not ready for it to end. she says "its tempting to linger in this moment where every possibility still remains, but unless they are collapsed by a conscious observer, they will never be more than possibilities." when you finally take your final plunge in this moment, you watch the universe collapse before you, remarkably similar to all the times you watched the sun explode before your eyes, and you die.

even though you the player are clearly still alive, (its just a video game after all :p) the experience is over. you died in a way too. this world is no longer yours to explore and discover. after the credits theres a very nice touch where you see the start of a new universe after you enter the eye and the entire universe dies before you. you see some new creatures huddled around a campfire together to remind you that death isn't the end, because "the future depends on the past, even if we wont get to see it" and that maybe it was enough to be a part of something cool, to share those moments with your friends, to explore the universe in whatever unique way you did.

SO WHAT THE FUCK IS ECHOES OF THE EYE

DLC spoilers beyond this point ofc.

if you're like me or countless other players, you probably wanted more, well I've got just the news for you!! theres a DLC !!!! "but wait, doesnt this defeat literally the entire purpose of the game?" yes :D but that's not a flaw, in fact they do this in the best way possible. the DLC challenges the message of the game because there is a fundamental aspect of death that the game barely even touches that the DLC explored *thoroughly*: fear.

chances are, you realize you can beat the game and go beat it and are immensely moved and equally confused by the ending because it takes so much time to process that you never really have a moment to fear death. theres never a moment where you are scared of what comes next because it doesnt really click that this is the end of everything until after the end. in my opinion at least, this is pretty much the only flaw with their portrayal of death and the DLC remedied this.

so it turns out you want more and weren't ready for this to end! its time to explore the owlks and their contributions to this story. im not going to explain their story in depth because im assuming people have played ofc, but key traits with the owlks is that they feared loss. they archived what they wanted to destroy, they lost their home beause of the efforts they made to reach the eye and were horrified, they tried to escape by hiding in a world of their own creation. they hid the eye to prolong the life of the universe as infinitely far as they could. they stumbled across a way to similarly archive one's consciousness, and conquer even death itself, but it was all out of fear. they couldnt accept the end so they hid from it.

and let me just say THE DLC IS FUCKING SCARY. they lean into horror and I think everyone should play it even if they arent into horror. the puzzles arent actually too challenging in execution, and making the discoveries you need is no sweat if you've gone through the base game tbh, although it is very different in a very refreshing way. The real challenge and the real roadblock is fear. some of the things you are required to do are immensely scary and put you into situations you frankly dont want to be in! but if you quit, if you dont do this out of fear, if you hide and if you try to escape this, you're just like the owlks. you dont get through this by not being afraid, you get through this by not letting your fear paralyze you. you need to face your fears (often quite literally as you need to lure owlks away from things and I think its a nice touch that they can also hide from you by turning off their lights and then they can still see you by shining their light towards you even if yours is off FUCK that but this is a bit of a tangent lsdkfgljsd) and if you succeed where they failed, you learn one of the biggest mysteries of the game. you learn why the eye's signal vanished as fast as it appeared, why the nomai failed to find it as effortlessly as the owlks did, but more imporantly, you make a friend :] you meet the owlk that enabled the eye of the universe to be found with a brief decision that they made in a single moment so long ago. the efforts to build upon what the prisoner did were not in vain, and the prisoner accepts death by literally walking into the water as their light goes out. they leave a final message for you, urging you to ride into the exploding sun with them by your side, and you know its time to go beat the game again.

hopefully at this point the ending has sat with you long enough for you to realize what this means. now, more than ever, this is finally the end of the game. you wanted more and you got more but that desire for more similarly cant last forever. the game still needs to end and this is why there should never ever be another DLC for this game please,, a desire for more and a fear of the end kinda come hand in hand, and the fears that you chose to face were not in vain. this is it! theres nothing else! maybe you're sad that the game is ending for the last time, and maybe you still dont want it to end. but in those final moments around the campfire, solanum isn't the only non-hearthian friend around the campfire :] the prisoner is there too wondering if they even deserve to be there after what their kind did, but its over now, everything worked out. they say something really simple that was, without a doubt, the perfect addition to the game for me:

"...How beautiful. It’s different than I’d envisioned.

Whatever happens next, I do not think it is to be feared."

I think one of the reasons this game resonated so much with me is something that I really struggled to grasp until I watched shammy's outer wilds review. there's something so much more significant about *being* rather than just, observing. tons of movies try to tackle these ideas of death and even plenty of games, but with outer wilds, *you* are having this experience that will end that you can never have again. *you* are exploring a world in your own unique way that cannot last forever. and I think that's ok. I think that's what makes it special.

I'm a game dev and an artist and I think outer wilds is genuinely profound. it makes me want to make something that touches people in the way I felt touched by outer wilds. I'm so happy things aligned for me to get to use this same medium for art. I'm gonna go cry now thanks for reading <3