Outer Wilds Truly Understands Its Scientists

thegamer.com:

I’ve been working through my horrifically large video game backlog over the last I don't even know how long. I started with God of War and then moved on to Outer Wilds. The two games couldn’t be more different, but both had my attention in a chokehold - considering the sounds my PS4 fan was making, they may have been choking a little too hard.

Outer Wilds is a space-faring puzzle game that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. You take control of an alien - although, I suppose to them we’d be the extraterrestrials - hop into a cottage spaceship, and go off to explore the star system. Being an astronaut is a common thing among your species. Your homeworld of Timber Hearth is small and the heavens beckon, so you answer their call dutifully. Even the ones who stay on the ground pursue the sciences and archaeology, looking to understand their homeworld more. They venture off to dig sites uncovering lost remnants of the past, study ghost matter, and teach future astronauts in the zero-G cave.

RELATED: If Starfield's 1,000 Planets Scare You, Play Outer Wilds Instead

Unlike No Man’s Sky, which opts for a near-infinite galaxy that’s about two inches deep, Outer Wilds crafts a small-but-dense star system where every planet contains threads of a larger narrative mystery. Central to the plot is an alien species known as the Noami. Much like the Hearthians, the Noami are natural-born scientists, and you can find remnants of their experiments on every celestial body you visit. They’re an advanced nomadic species that experiments and investigates everywhere they go, returning to their main fleet every now and then to share their discoveries.

While the drive to solve the enigma at the heart of the star system is what propelled me