Outer Wilds

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959445#Comment_117959445

It is indeed. I’d highly recommend (late DLC spoilers)

Spoiler Warning

turning on ‘reduce scares’ for the stealth sections if you keep getting caught. I got through one without it, second had a puzzle twist so was easily overcome, but third one I eventually just turned on reduce scares as it was annoying me trying to get past the damn owls in total darkness. The option just makes the owls easier to run past from what I could tell.

There are game world states during the loop that do make it a bit easier automatically too.

Zero-Cool

Oh My God

so, I'll make this as vague as possible but made a lot of progress. I finally found the code for the temple which was through another secret door which I was kicking myself for not figuring out sooner. Anyway. Using the temple code unlocked 3 more secrets for me to find. Found 2 so far and the 2nd one blew my mind as it showed me exactly what I was looking for in Starlit Cove. Gonna look for the 3rd secret before heading back there as the Temple still shows 'more to find here'. I **** love this DLC so much.

Spoiler Warning

I couldn't find the device to extinguish the lights in Starlit. I completed the other 2 dream areas (I actually quit the first one and tried to kill myself.....and found the answer doing so :D, the 2nd one i must have fluked as I was legging all over the place and ended up where I was supposed to be) but stuck on Starlit but now no how to get down that well finally!

Late DLC spoilers

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So I have extinguished one symbol on the sarcophagus from following instructions from the hidden archives, I got a 2nd hidden archive but haven't tried that fix yet. I'm guessing down the well will give me the third and that will complete the DLC for me I'm guessing. The Story of the Strangers is **** incredible. I can't wait to see the end.

Zero-Cool

Also, as for temple with the broken bridge and how to enter it, am I doing it right...

Spoiler Warning

Going to the ghost matter cave at the other side and flinging myself through, coming out with a sliver of life yet? There has to be a more graceful way?

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959755#Comment_117959755

Much easier than that!

Spoiler Warning

There’s another, easy access route to that whole complex - have a proper look at the area from another angle.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959755#Comment_117959755

Yeah use the probe, I'd completely forgotten that was what you were meant to do.

But the route through is actually really simple.

Spoiler Warning

Assuming coming from the hidden gorge side hug the left way until you come to the tree and simply switch walls. Don't get too close to the tree.

Where did you find the door code? General hint/area?

Zero-Cool

Cool, i'll try that with the cave but sounds like Johnny has an even simpler way :D

As for the code for the temple

Spoiler Warning

The answer lies behind a secret door in the tower , cinder towers I think, room at the top which you can only get to by a secret entrance. A slide shows how to get the secret door open. I had tried what they suggested but getting nowhere. When I tried it again, it just clicked. Let me know if you need anything more on it.

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959863#Comment_117959863

Ah so I gotta get a birds eye view and try spot something. Damn, I love the map.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959920#Comment_117959920

I ended up trying that myself due to the dead end at the hidden gorge. I'd the vision on who to get in there fresh in my mind so copped what to do immediately.... well almost. 😀

johnny_ultimate

For the high temple area…

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Not all rafting routes are created equal, and some are a little more subtly placed than others 👁

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959959#Comment_117959959

Well now that's all I'll be thinking about until i return tonight.

You think you've seen everything and then in frustration you go back to area and wonder how you missed things much earlier on.

Like

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I'd missed the hidden passage in the river lowland temple at the start that takes you to the woods as I was sure I was done there, then as I was in the reservoir area at the dam I noticed there was a theatre in the building on the left and no reel. I noticed that the shelf was split in two and the rest of the building was in the water.

Zero-Cool

I just found the 3 secret location given to you in the temple, those 3 have been so much fun to find but be ready to take a picture of the hints with your phone, much easier than remembering from your ship log.

Just as i went into the location, the game hard crashed, twice it's happened me. At least it's just a couple of minutes back there, not like I'm not used to that first elevator ride a thousand times anyway :)

johnny_ultimate

Finished it there, a pretty hefty expansion - probably a good 9-10 hours gameplay.

Spoiler Warning

Only thing I did have a gander for online was how to take advantage of one of the 'errors' at the very end, everything else thankfully I managed to figure out myself.

Absolutely loved it overall, was enthralled by it over the past 48 hours and it didn't disappoint. The world itself feels like both a microcosm of what Outer Wilds is doing on the whole but also reminded me a lot of Myst crossed with a Disneyland attraction. I mean that in a really good way 😄 It's one giant puzzlebox to be poked at and dismantled, but also there's a certain sense that the world is built for you to explore to discover. I think the new main way the game communicates its lore is absolutely fantastic, and it all comes together with another hugely satisfying ending. Games rarely do endings well - Outer Wilds has done two great ones now (although the base game ending is an all-timer).

The DLC does a brilliant job adding new gameplay mechanics based around exploration and experimentation, and it's amazing how many things are hidden in plain sight and will have you slapping your head when you finally find the bit of info that'll allow you to take advantage of them. It's a constant stream of 'eureka' moments. I also love how everything design-wise has the overall theme of light and projection.

Mild mechanical spoiler about my one problem with the DLC:

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The only complaint I have about it is the stealth sections, which sadly I don't think work at all - they're just messy and imprecise where the rest of the game is clean and elegant.

Spoiler within a spoiler follows 😅

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There are three of those stealth sections, and one actually works really well - the one where you have to wait for the first area to be flooded to access the room with all the owls. That's a clever one deeply tied into the time loop, and is a smart puzzle that gave me a real 'ahha!' moment when I figured out why a seemingly impossible task was suddenly possible. The other two are just tedious sneaking moments, done under basically absolute darkness. I didn't like them, and I turned on 'lower frights' for the last stretch of the final one and have no qualms about it.

Thankfully the game didn't end with those irritating bits, and there was thankfully a final layer of smart puzzles to figure out before I finally finished up. I had a blast with it on the whole, and it's just such a beautifully designed piece of dense, clockwork design. From the very first moment you step foot into the new world you're going to spend nearly a dozen hours in - a true 'holy ****' moment of scale and spectacle - to its excellent conclusion, this is more Outer Wilds and it totally lives up to the sizable legacy of the first game. Easily the best thing I played this year, and pretty much as good as modern video games get - well, apart from those annoying sections near the end 😁

Zero-Cool

Those 3 secret locations you get from the location in the spoiler below are really really helpful. I thought they'd just be lore but they really spell out how to complete it.

I had already stumbled onto 2 of them but don't think i would have ever found the third. The reward from exploring in this game is just superb. Other devs need to pay close attention and trust gamers to go and explore.

Alright Johnny, spill the beans.

Spoiler Warning

I've looked up and stared at the different river paths went down them but can't see an easy way to the temple. I did try Enfilade's tip with the ghost matter cave and worked a treat, i must have forgotten not all ghost matter is harmful? I'm done with the temple now, won't be going back so feel free to spoil me with your rafting knowledge.

Bit fed up of the dark area. Unfortunately its taken front and center of the DLC now. I miss flying around in the ship.

I didn't read the spoilers Johnny but mentioning Myst is bang on the money. It's something that came to mind when I got into the swing of this as I'd only played Myst for the first time recently when it came to game pass. There's definitely an influence there I've no doubt.

Did anyone try to bring a you know what back to the camp fire at Timber Hearth ? One of my more desperate ideas last night.

Spoiler Warning

You get an achievement thats it.

EDIT: You know you've had too many attempts at this when you set autopilot to the stranger and blindly rotate the ship on the way to within 5 or 10° +/- of the correct orientation of the hanger 😂

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117960963#Comment_117960963

Haha, here’s what I did:

Spoiler Warning

It took me ages to spot the branch of the river that leads behind the temple. From there you have easy access to everything. The ghost matter cave is actually incredibly simple to navigate - if you use your probe you can take pictures (they show ghost matter - a mechanic I had to recheck in the opening village as it had been a while, but which makes life much easier), and that reveals that there’s a clear, easy path through the ghost matter - think it’s the left side and and then the right. Once you know it you can travel around the area with ease.

Also, the hull breach shortcut makes it even easier to get to that area again if you’re doing the specific quests in that spot 😎

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117960986#Comment_117960986

Wait a sec...

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How i get up there is take the right side path, then a hard right at next opening for the hidden gorge place. Light picks up my raft and i have access to everything on that side. Is that what you're talking about or another route?

I finally got down that well, Jesus that stealth bit was annoying as hell. Got down to the last hidden archive and.... Stumped. All symbols are destroyed. I can for sure switch off one by but not the others. Back to the lake dream i think.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117961266#Comment_117961266

Yep that’s it!

Spoiler Warning

Took me way too long to spot the hard right. You can get easily through the ghost matter using the probe then and that gives you total access to the other side too, once you have the password you need. No need for hurling yourself across any canyons or sliver of health stuff anyway 😀 There’s also a tiny hull breach in the ship if you haven’t found it - it shows you exactly where in a slide. Enter that way and it’ll bring you right through to the top of the gorge.

As for where you are…

Vague hint

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If you’ve been to the three archives and got all three ‘error reports’ in your databank you’ve every bit of info you need.

More specific hint, so very late game spoiler

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The ‘no alarm’ hint had me stumped, but do what it says in the location it suggests even if it seems counter intuitive.

Zero-Cool

Ah that's the way i was going all along, when i meant about flinging myself around with a sliver of health, i meant going through the cave 😂 damn this dlc is hard to talk about but also great that everyone has been on the same page and not spoiling anything :)

As for my progress, near end..

Spoiler Warning

I jumped off the platform between areas, extinguished the first. Put down my device and left the matrix to extinguish the 2nd. The 3rd has me stumped with the light. I know it's something to do with the error report like the other 2 but definitely trickier. Gonna think about it, thanks man.

johnny_ultimate

@Zero-Cool Yeah that spoiler is the exact same problem I had, the only part of the game where I had to go through the Steam forums to see if anybody else had figured it out. Hate to look anything up in this game, but knowing the answer honestly not sure if I’d have figured it out otherwise 😅

Zero-Cool

Just completed it. Fecking GOOSEBUMPS with that ending!

Johnny, i honestly thought i was missing something so you're advice helped me focus on the last piece of the puzzle.. ending spoilers below. Please don't click if you haven't completed it.

I looked up the trophies and there are some brilliant ones there, will definitely give them a try. But yeah, game of the year!

Spoiler Warning

I figured how is an old dead guy gonna help me and i was gonna head off and look for the light source to shut off but you made me focus on that error report and even though i didn't fully understand the consequences, i figured it's telling me you can die and still go to the real world so i said why not. I thought the bell was for if you're in danger while sleeping, it brings you back like the flooding wouldn't interrupt me if i was dead but not sure how that would help opening the sarcophagus. Anyway decided to jump on the flame and when it came to the last bit, it only dawned on me with the statue bells so i was able to move forward. **** genius design.

As for the ending, i can't even describe the emotion i felt during that, maybe all of them. What a perfect send off to the perfect game.

I also read it changes the ending to the main game so i looked it up on YouTube, absolutely do it if you haven't seen it.

Slightly disappointed by this tbh. I can appreciate the mastery of creating such a puzzling environment with light being a new theme, but I haven't finished it yet and today I found myself going to the other planets (as its a fresh save) rather than finishing this DLC. I really do not like the dark area. Getting back to The Stranger on every run is becoming a chore. I have to retrace far more as I can't see a meter in front of me. I've built up an idea of the place in my head but I still find myself having to rediscover the same areas over and over. It's such a change from what Outer Wilds is. Suddenly turns into a repetitive quasi horror game. Being without the ship and jetpack further compounds that its not about space exploration anymore. Loved the river and discovering various villages/temples though.

Zero-Cool

Just checking but are you lighting candles with your flame? There were only a handful of sections you have to do in the complete dark.

Still not done yet but it took me the longest time to realise that

Spoiler Warning

the aliens in the area where you dose off are the same ones in the dream world with you.

Might have made progress a little easier when trying to solve the first one. Felt stupid for not copping that sooner.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117964312#Comment_117964312

Yeah I am

I finished it last night.... I think????

Spoiler Warning

Freed the prisoner and he left in the lift after we shared memories. Found his artefact on the shore next to the raft. That showed us both leaving together???? Was there more to it?

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117966998#Comment_117966998

No that’s it. If you go to the Eye and finish the base game ending again there’s a few extra bits added following on from the DLC. But what you’ve seen is everything in the Stranger.

Thought so , truly happy for having paid for and played that. I did switch on "easy mode" though after a few failed attempts at those sections and it was a great option to have as I felt the challenge in figuring stuff out was enough for me without that some people will love others can leave it and not endure unnecessary frustration.

I've played a few games over the years that I would love to be able to play again for the first time, this being one of them and the DLC came pretty close to delivering that feeling. It was familiar and different at the same time. Not something they cobbled together for the sake of a DLC but something they put 2 years of work into and the final product felt like they put as much thought and work into as their main game. Easily the finest piece of DLC I've played in forever.

Working on the achievements now I actually think you probably could have played through the whole thing and not got a single one. I had no idea what was going on with the 1/900 one but my wife assures me it's a Zelda BoTW reference. I just though it was funny.

The one for

Spoiler Warning

Burning a reel was clear reference to Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, it's title was Celsius 232.78 😀

Only read that back in August. I'd recommend if you liked older stuff like I am Legend which was written around the same time I think. To me they've aged well.

skerry

Just started the main game earlier. Have no clue what I'm at. Visited a planet, got zipped off somewhere else and died. Will tool around with it some more later

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117984304#Comment_117984304

There is a computer in the ship that makes of log of what you have visited and lets you know if you missed anything.

Zero-Cool

Also, every planet will have story points that fill up the log helping to piece together the story and the log will tell you if there's more to explore. I read a few people went from planet to planet not knowing what was going on and gave up which i find tragic but i also have up 30 minutes into Subnautica for the same reason. Someone talked me into going back and it became one of my favourite games of all time, just like Outer Wilds.

I'm watching The Lore Explorers playthrough on YouTube at the moment. He dives deep into the OW lore and it's great watching him discover Echoes of The Eye secrets for the first time.

skerry

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117985200#Comment_117985200

Seen that earlier. Its saying there's more to explore in the last planet so I'll head back there and scope it out a bit more.

skerry

OK, Im intrigued now. Opening up a bit. This is good stuff.

Zero-Cool

Just watched a yootoober completing Echoes of the Eye and was confused how we got different endings. Turns out he either started a new save or hadn't explored the Nomai fully.

DLC ending spoilers

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After the Owl people locked away the prisoner and turned the signal blocker back on, it then showed the the Nomai crashing on a planet, living, dying and then the Heartian people discovering their remains. Completely misses the bit where the Nomai find the signal because the Prisoner briefly stopped the blocker and that's the thing that explains the Nomai coming to the solar system and then losing the signal. Bit sad if people don't see that.

Came back to this after leaving it for about week. If there was ever a developer that I'd give multiple chances to, its these guys. Started making progress straight away after accepting the dark area for what it is. I started making notes as I was going. One of the biggest issues I had before is I couldn't remember what "sleep portal" brought me to where. I previously found myself having to relearn the dark area over and over. It kinda looks the same up close and you can't really view from afar, nor can you cross reference your ship as you're going. Anyway... I think I'm very close to getting the last few passwords after making my own notes. This DLC isn't the quasi-space sim I wanted but it's still a fantastic puzzle game with a brilliant method of story telling and drip feed of hints.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118178002#Comment_118178002

Yeah, fair enough. I really think that accessibility options need to be built into the engines that developers use, make it so that these options require little to no dev time to implement.

The loop in Outer Wilds is actually about 22 minutes if I recall. Forgotten City I'm not sure about but definitely felt a lot longer. For me I found it was something that pushed me forward but I guess I could see it as annoying to some. Normally I'd have a problem with being rushed in a game too but with Outer Wilds it seemed to work for me.

The controls on the ship did bother me starting out and when I started back with the DLC but got used to them again fairly quickly. The less said about the achievement/trophy for landing in a certain place the better.

How many loops did you waste by rushing back to where you left off and forgot to suit up before getting out ????

Zero-Cool

I hope you stick with it TPP, especially since you liked Subnautica so much. That is one of my favourite games of all time but Outer Wilds is a level above it imo. The false sense of difficulty you're seeing is because the devs didn't want to waste areas of each map wondering aimlessly. If you see something that looks interesting, it more than likely is worth checking out so you'll constantly come across areas and things that fill out your ship log. Also, when the bigger picture comes together, you start to understand the loop and when you need to, you can take off go where you need to in under a minute. Some places are 1 way trips just to gain info for your ship log to figure out next steps. Basically, after exploring the planets a few times, you'll know where you need to go and be zipping back in no time

Once the bigger picture stats coming together, it's just beautiful. Then it's figuring out how to complete it which is fairly tough. I believe they added a patch because originally it was too obscure for people to figure out. Some really really tough parts to figure out but it's just great when you do. I had to Google hints a couple of times but replaying it multiple times, all the info you need can be found somewhere in the world and your ship log remembers it so you don't have to.

As for my first impressions on this, i nearly didn't make it off the hike planet as i just found it bad looking and janky moving around. Similar with Subnautica, i actually did stop playing that after 30 minutes. Took me about a month to try again and thank **** i did.

Saying all that, it's not for everyone, i think i just get excited watching people play and hearing about their experience with it.

johnny_ultimate

A year full of timeloop games - good and bad (Annapurna have the peculiar distinction of publishing both the best and worst timeloop games ever made) - has only given me a deeper appreciation of how Mobius Games took advantage of the conceit. It certainly has the most satisfying timeloop narrative and central mystery - a fantastic sci-fi tale with a killer ending. And aesthetically that supernova is an eerie, memorable thing. I also think it’s a smart way of regulating pacing and prodding the player to follow different threads, rather than getting them stuck meandering around in one little corner of the world.

But it’s the way the loop itself informs the world and puzzles which has yet to be bested. Both individual puzzles and the universe as one big puzzle are so intimately tied into that ticking clock. It’s a structure that offers more exploration possibility the more you learn the intricacies of what’s going on. In many timeloop games the world is fairly static outside of discrete levels or gameplay states, while others require you to prod at them to influence change. The worlds here shift majorly over 22 minutes (or in some cases in smaller cycles within that), and it’s our growing understanding of it that gradually reveals the scale of it all. The shortcuts that also reveal themselves are most welcome - there are very few spots in the game that can’t be reached within a few minutes when needed. To make such big, bold ideas work so clearly and concisely remains a remarkable feat of design.

The DLC is an interesting test of the game’s structural limits as that’s where the countdown feels more restrictive, given there’s not another planet you can go explore if you’re stuck (assuming you play it in one go after the main game like most of us in this thread have). It also has a few sections most players will have to repeat more than anything in the base game. But I think the fact the designers got even more ambitious in having an environment and puzzles that dramatically (and quite spectacularly, it must be said - experiencing that mid-loop cataclysm for the first time is my gaming moment of the year) change over the course of the loop on an even grander scale than the base came justifies it in the end.

God, if I could cleanse one game from my mind just to experience again… this wonderful thing would be it.

I'm curious... how would you simplify flying the ship and jetpack? I think the nature of flying in 3D space is inherently tricky at first. I've played a few space simulators and Outer Wilds is fairly simple in comparison. There's even an auto pilot.

johnny_ultimate

I think the ship movement is cool both thematically (love the sense of it being a sort of ramshackle, fragile thing) and mechanically. As @[Deleted User] says a lot of it can be automated anyway, but it is hard to create something that's easy to use with proper 3D movement and fluctuating gravity. I do get how people would be frustrated with it at first, mind you.

I do love the jetpack though - I think that just reveals more depth the more you play. When you reach a point when you're doing gigantic leaps over chasms or even in and out of the atmosphere it feels bloody fantastic. It's a refreshing movement set that rewards pushing the limits while still always having an element of risk involved. One of the better realisations of dynamic first-person exploration and lite platforming IMO.

Zero-Cool

Never knew about this, looking forward to giving it a listen!

https://youtu.be/tz8Sw6X-knM

Zero-Cool

Fantastic play through of Echoes of the Eye, hands down one of my favourite youtubers, one of the only ones I would site down and watch play instead of actually playing a game myself.

https://youtu.be/PD_Qb7A54XY

quokula

Finally got round to starting this now it's back on Gamepass, played around 4 or 5 hours but not sure I'm feeling it as much as most people. It's an interesting premise but I'm not sure I'm a fan of the aimlessness to be honest. I never know if I've seen all the things in the area or if I should keep looking around and I find it annoying when I find some structure or object but nothing is interactable and the game makes no acknowledgement of it, does that mean I've missed something or it's just some red herring? Then there's the clunkiness of the controls, the platforming is an absolute pain and controlling the ship isn't much better. The transition from being in space to being on planet feels quite awkward too in a lot of cases. There are also two fairly long sequences I was right close to the end of when the loop reset both times which was super frustrating, and I couldn't be bothered to go and repeat all the steps again as the process of getting there just isn't fun.

In the time I've spent playing I've been to every planet at least once, seen a bunch of stuff, got a lot of random snippets of story but nothing that's really given me much understanding of anything that's going on. I also spent one cycle going back into the village and to the museum to tell people what's happened and what I've learned and there's just nothing you can say at all to acknowledge that which seems really weak.

All that said, I still want to explore more and see if it starts to come together. My favourite thing about the game is probably the music and the atmosphere which is great when you're just exploring and not fighting controls or getting frustrated.

CatInABox

The computer on the ship keeps track of everything, and I'm pretty sure it'll tell you if you're missing anything in a location. Took me a while to figure that out.

Hard to give a direction in a game that lets you set your own direction so much, but I always tell people to investigate the explosion that see as you wake up from each loop. I'm pretty sure that it's meant to be the "start", and then you go from there, which is why it's the first thing you see every time. Took me a while to figure that out too.

johnny_ultimate

Yeah the ship's log is extremely helpful in telling you if you should keep exploring a particular area. There'll still be question marks and a hint there's still more to find if you haven't exhausted your leads.

Keep in mind there will be some areas inaccessible until you learn something somewhere else, but again the ship's guide does a great job pointing out how everything is/isn't connected.

Retr0gamer

I started this as well last night finally and totally captivated by it. Went to Brittle Hollow and there's so much to see in there.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118455858#Comment_118455858

How many times have you hopped out forgetting to suit up first in haste to get back to where you left off???? 😂

Must have done that a dozen times starting out.

Retr0gamer

Only the first time I got out of the craft on the moon. I'm sure I'll do it in future. Early days!