Serenity Sketch

Inspirations

What Outer Wilds Means to Me

· Josh Veit

Outer Wilds logo beside a nighttime scene: a camper sits by a small campfire on a grassy hilltop, smoke rising past pine trees, with a ship silhouette and starry sky in the background.

WIP Teaser for an upcoming post. This isn’t complete!

SPOILERS BELOW! Don’t read if you’re considering playing Outer Wilds. And you should consider it. Or watching someone play it, if you don’t like holding a controller and such.

As I wrote in this earlier post, a game called Outer Wilds hit me hard, on several levels. So much so that it pushed me to change careers.

Here’s what I’ll be writing about:

  • Existentialism in Outer Wilds - why it’s more than just a fun game (and it is a fun game!)
  • Why the Nomai chasing the Eye of the Universe, and a moon that only stays put while you’re looking at it, hit close to my own persnal+family history with searching for something greater
  • The Coming of Age Pilgrimage every Nomai makes to that moon, and the young Nomai who admits outright she’s not even sure the Eye is real. Ouch - hits me in the existential feels.
  • My tattoo of Solanum, the last Nomai, stranded on the Quantum Moon. Why she’s an icon of hope to me, not proof. And that’s how my own faith now operates - hope and trust, rather than certainty and proof.
  • Outer Wilds non-linear, player-driven storytelling. It has no missions and no set order, you just follow whatever thread you find. Narrative designer Kelsey Beachum has written and spoken about exactly her ingenious approach.

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