ok so i’ve barely read the thread but i think i’m gonna grab this now while the base game is on sale for the next few hours on ps4? will report back in time
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I played this a long time ago after watching Tulpa try it out and I really liked it, but I went several sessions with no progress at all and set it aside. I think I might have been trying to locate something in Dark Bramble. I remember it seemed like I was close to the end.
Maybe this would be a good time to pick the game back up and see what I remember. If the DLC has something of a horror theme, even better.
Decided this time I’d play on PS4. I’m surprising myself a little by how much better it was running on my clunky old laptop. PS4 has worse load times, slower character movement and worse responsiveness in general. I zipped through a bunch of stuff on Giant’s Deep as a refresher before looking for expansion stuff.
Gotta say, Outer Wilds hits different when you don’t have familiar Nomai text to turn to. When I reached the new environment, I gasped. In some respects, this feels like a completely different game.
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finished up the dlc tonight… i sort of wish it had been a different game, or at least a standlone .exe
it’s really quite good, and the main location is wonderful, but most of the time i’m just thinking about how good the original game was, and at it’s worst points it actually undercuts a lot of the wonderful work the base game does.
all the stealth stuff in the second half was really rough for me, and it very quickly became a drag having to leave the stranger’s halo environment to just brute force my way through them. even when i ended up taking some backwards routes, the puzzle of them never hits like the base game does. it always feels like they have designed puzzles in a videogame (yes, i know these things are a simultion), compared to learning how the quantum mechanics and then playing with them in different settings. the final puzzle being literally three locks in one location - even with the simulation framing - never reaches the joy i previously got from this game.
the storytelling is far less interesting with everything being shown to you. and there just isn’t enough there connecting it to everything else that makes this work as more of the outer wilds story.
it really feels like a much less mature game, like an earlier prototype they polished up for release.
sorry this is a mess of writing, but it’s been a weird week for me of things that are probably very good, but also quite disappointing. it still is the highlight of all of the week!
Just making sure, because I “finished” it early yesterday and finished it later, did you think of going to the Eye after freeing the prisoner? (Not on the same loop obviously, just like Solanum sometimes just meeting once is enough to make a lifelong friend) Not saying it’ll change everything but to me it was the emotional capstone that I first thought was missing.
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nope!
Haven’t totally finished it yet, but the DLC is a really well done horror game. I really appreciate them going for a different tone with this.
There’s a very well done push and pull of tension - the Alien-esque reveal of the DLC “shell”, then some pleasant excitement with first experiencing the actual DLC environment, then making you feel like you’re in a place you absolutely shouldn’t be snooping around (compare how the original game’s worlds were fairly comfortable to explore with tons of text guiding you and Nomai settlements built for creatures the same height as you; the DLC is cleverly built for creatures a fair deal larger than you). Then just as you start getting comfortable figuring out the DLC, they pull the rug out and switch things up. Curious to see where it goes next.
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Played enough to get to the new area and poke around a bit. Haven’t made much progress yet but I definitely like the new area. Gives me Myst/Riven vibes for sure.
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Mostly played through the DLC with a buddy and had a great time. I do think the ending could have benefited from slightly more clarity, but we had a good time getting there and there were multiple satisfying “a-ha” moments on the way.
I think the game probably has to compete with the main quest of Outer Wilds whether it’s an expansion or not, so I don’t really fault them there. It’s not as good at the main game, sure, but it’s still much better than most games I play! Outer Wilds gets a lot of millage out the larger-than-you-expect scope it has, so something that’s scoped tighter is going to have a hard time competing.
I went in with average expectations but still got sucked in harder than I thought I would. There were some cool revelations, the environments were neat, the atmosphere and setting were suitably spooky, the story beats largely worked me. I even got a little teary in parts. It’s a nice expansion!
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echoes of the eye is the best horror experience I’ve played in a long time and I’m not even done yet. can someone please give me a one word as-spoiler-free-as-possible answer to this question:
do you ever get the ability to translate their text?
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i didn’t
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Not to mention, crashes if you’re taking pictures with the probe right after launching it. Word is it won’t do that if you wait a second or two after launching, but I don’t want to keep thinking about this when I’m playing so I’m waiting for a patch.
This echoes (hehe) the base game which crashed at least twice back when I played it, corrupting my save data both times. The structure is a little less endearing when your rumor map is whiped clean leaving you to piece it together by memory. I did get frustrated eventually and looked up a walkthrough, which I’m kind of sad about in hindsight.
I do wonder when PS4 became the worst platform to play something on because I must’ve missed the announcement.
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You didn’t catch a while back when indie developers universally said working with Sony was hell?
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I did not somehow but I looked it up and yeah, that explains a lot, not only about this game but the state of PSN as a whole.
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Can someone give me a hint on how to access the DLC?
I checked the radio tower on timber hearth, and confirmed that there’s something wrong in one of the pictures (the big black spot on the sun in one of the pics right?) I then went out to the satellite and hung out with it for an entire cycle waiting for something to appear in front of the sun but nothing happened as far as I could tell and I’m not mathematically inclined so I’m not sure how to read the “forty degrees” caption. Am I on the right track?
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You’re on the right track. On the 40 degrees: the satellite is on an orbit orthogonal to the solar system, so you can take the planetary orbits as a horizontal base level with the sun in the center, trace the satellite’s orbit as an ellipse around it and determine any position of the satellite in degrees. So 0 degrees is level with the solar system, 90 is directly above the sun, 270 directly below it etc.
The best practical solution I’ve found:
the satellite is at the 40 degree angle early in the loop. At the start of a new loop you can mark it on your map, fly there with the autopilot, and hang around it for a little while, keeping an eye on the sun. Don’t bump into it though or your map will be inaccessible, lol
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you’re on the right track.
if you get close enough to the satellite you’ll see there’s a digital display with the degrees reading on it. it helps to get out of your ship and get as close as you can in your spacesuit instead because otherwise you will knock it out of orbit. I don’t think the event happens more than once per cycle, and it happens very early, so you pretty much need to head directly to the satellite from the start. it could be the reason you didn’t see it is because you went to the radio tower and the satellite in the same cycle?
failing that I’m not sure why you wouldn’t see it. you’re definitely supposed to.
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Oh yeah, forgot about the display, that’s probably the most helpful part
I crashed into it on my first trip there and broke it, so that took me a while to figure out
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Thank you!!!
I spent way too much time messing around with two of the final puzzles of the main game (sun station and ash twin project) where I had the right idea but couldn’t nail the timing, extending my playtime by about 3-4 cycles beyond what it could have been. I definitely should have recognized the digital display though, that’s 100% on me for being too impatient.
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I definitely spent the bigger part of a loop hanging around at what I assumed to be the right spot in space, staring at the sun
also don’t mind what I wrote a few days ago, talking about it made me really want to continue playing now
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