Outer Wilds is the one game I genuinely envy anyone who has not played yet, because it can only truly be experienced once. What looks at first like a cosy, lo-fi solar system exploration game slowly reveals itself to be one of the most profound mysteries ever put in a video game.
Outer Wilds gameplay: a Hearthian traveller strumming a banjo beside a campfire in a dim rocky hollow
Your only real tools are a rickety spacecraft, a scanner and your own curiosity, and the whole thing is gated by knowledge rather than by items or upgrades. Every loop teaches you something, and the moment a stray detail from two planets ago suddenly clicks into place is pure intellectual joy. The hand-built physics of the orbiting worlds are astonishing, and the soundtrack will live in your head for years afterwards. It asks for patience and a tolerance for getting lost, and it is absolutely worth both. Please play it before anyone has the chance to spoil it for you.
