Outer Wilds is easily one of my favourite games of all time

(I will not be looking at the amazing DLC in this review)

It doesn't go without some minor flaws (I'll go through them at the end), but it's an absolute masterpiece nontheless. Outer Wilds is one of those games that sticks with you inbetween your gaming sessions and after you finish it. It's present with you throughout the day. You keep thinking about the story and puzzles and what you'll discover next.

I'd say that Outer Wilds is mainly an exploration game with an amazing story and aspects of puzzle sprinkled all through it.

There is no combat
There are no upgrades
No items to collect
No progression (almost none)
Just pure exploration :)

The only progression here is the knowledge you gain through exploring and reading. (And the shiplog)
The main game took me around 20 hours to complete, but if you knew what to do, you could easily finish the game in 20 minutes.

In other games you get the ability to double jump, and that's how you progress forward
In Outer Wilds you learn that you could always double jump, you just didn't know how.

So, you're in a solar system, on your home planet Timber Hearth (somewhat similiar to planet earth) and your species is a Hearthian, 4 eyes, blue skin, long ears, very familiar of humans. And you live in a small village with other Hearthians. (The only Hearthian settlement in the universe)
The Hearthians study the space and they want to explore it. Few hearthians have set out to explore the planets in your solar system before you, and now you're going too.

It's your fist day of venturing into space, and you've got one thing that the explorers before you didn't have. You have a translator, a translator that can understand Nomai writing.
In your solar system there used to live an advanced species called the Nomai. But they disappeared long before the Hearthians came to be. Still, a lot of traces and information remained to be uncovered.
Why did the Nomai came here ? What were they looking for ? Why did they disappear ?

From the moment u set foot into your cute little spaceship, you can go anywhere. You can explore whichever planet in whatever order. Every planet will give you information about the Nomai and on how to progress on the other planets. The planets are beautifully handcrafted and you are free to explore them in their entirety because most of them are not restricted in any way. You see something really cool on a planet when flying through space ? Just go there, it's accessible :). Can't get there ? You probably don't know how to yet.

As you play and collect information, everything starts making sense and connecting together. And what really helps the player to bond with the game is the masterful music.

The music made for this game is absolutely amazing and definitely the best I've ever heard in a game. I even listen to the songs in my everyday life, which i never do.

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The only few negatives i have about this game:

- Story through reading, LOT of reading, without voice acting

I don't really mind it as much in this game because the text is usually so interesting, so it's not really a big issue. But if you don't like getting your story information through reading, you might find the game boring as that's by far the main way the game uses to progress you forward. (Btw this is beautifully solved in the DLC)

- few of the story's puzzles are a tad too hard and meh shiplog

It was not a big problem for me, i enjoy puzzle games (I love all 4 We Were Here games). I'm used to being ok with sitting back and trying to solve a puzzle for an hour. Here however, it can be a little frustrating to keep all of the infornation in your head while trying to figure out how to get to the main ending of the game. I would really appreciate if the shiplog provided more infornation or if the player could write notes on the map.
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Even with these small problems tho, the game is absolutely, absolutely amazing and i loved every second of it :)

It might not be everybody's cup of tea, but everybody should give it a try to find out.

The DLC is also absolutely amazing, but that deserves it's own review :)

My rating: 5/5

*added to my favourite games ever collection*