Well, there it is; the sequel to possibly my favourite game of all time! Im pretty happy to say that 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 it met my expectations.

Im glad they've experimented with the formula they set up in the base game. Some experiments are more successful than others of course, with one dud being big enough to sour my experience and make me audibly go "what in the fuck were they thinking", but yeah more on that later. Let's start with the positives, which make up the majority of the dlc, in my experience at least.

The soundtrack is great, it is on par if not at points better than the base game. I'm sure they noticed the overwhelming positive reaction the ost got in the base game, so they decided to weigh in on that aspect more. It's noticeable in how the music is implemented with the slide reels, that level of synergy between in-game events and soundtrack wasn't quite there in the base game. Andrew Prahlow of course delivered in his own composition as well, it's some of the finest in the game. This dlc has been confirmed to be the last of Outer Wilds we will see, so I really hope he doesn't drop this style. Hopefully he'll develop and build upon it in his future works, be it games or films. It would really be a shame if he dropped this unique style in favour of the indie game composer stereotype of either doing synthwave or chiptune.

As far as the new content goes, "The Stranger" is a really sick concept. A rotating space habitat/dyson sphere hidden in plain sight, only visible by way of observing the object from a series of dead angles. Getting to the Stranger for the first time was amazing, finding out there was this ancient civilization predating the nomai in this solar system all along is mindblowing. The way this was made clear was very clever as well, you really dont need much more than the first text you come across at the entrance to be untranslateable. This kills 2 birds with one stone; it lets you know you're not dealing with the nomai anymore, and sets up the manner in which you'll be receiving information from now on. That's right, from now on you wont be doing ANY reading anymore, everything is being visually conveyed! I have to admit that I missed reading the nomai messages with the banter and all, it made the big reveals more impactful to me personally, but I can't call this change anything but an improvement.

In terms of gameplay it is a mixed bag. Going into the Stranger ultimately means you have to abandon your ship, so that means no more funny space shenanigans with whacky crash landings, and no more mandatory self immolation by means of flying, totally intentionally, into the sun. What you get in return are the rafts, which are admittedly very fun to control, but the fact that the space ship is completely out of the picture is a giant bummer. The first 4 hours or so will mostly involve you exploring the vessel, swimming across the whole thing with your raft and finding out about the new aliens through the picture reels. I will unabashadely say that during the whole duration of these 4 hours there was nothing but childlike joy in my mind, it's more Outer Wilds for christ's sake! Not only that, it's arguably the sickest looking place in the solar sytem yet. It's the "exploration fuels progression" gameplay loop that you expect from the base game and it's simply good, nothing more to add.

And now comes the other 3 hours... you know, the "what the fuck" part. At a certain point you start running out of leads that point towards anything on the vessel, so you start going into the artifact worlds. This is the point where the game genuinely turns into an aimless mess for a while. The first red flag you notice is that your jetpack is being taken away, immediately making movement in the world a slog. What it boils down to is this; you have to walk through these many corridors that blend together and are so dark you can barely see shit, hoping to stumble upon something that will let you progress. The only tool you have is an alien lantern which has a stupidly small field of light. The only way to see well in front of you is to focus the lamp - but, get this; if you focus the lamp, your movement grinds to a snail's pace! Great, so not only dont you have a jetpack anymore, if you want more visibility than right in front of your feet, you'll need to walk around like you just took a deadly dose of painkillers.

I can confidently say that until you get the lead to search for the bottom of the tower in the second artifact world, your endeavors into these worlds are 100% aimless. You literally dont know what the fuck to do there. The logbook is uncharacteristically unhelpful as well, marking out the worlds as fully explored while youve literally gained nothing from visiting them. Finding out later that you were definitely not done with those places was just unbelievably annoying.

The purpose of these aimless visits becomes apparent later on. After you find the 3 secret reels which reveal secret passageways in the artifact worlds, you'll need to go back to the stupid artifact worlds. Now you finally find out why you were made to walk around aimlessly. The purpose was; to make the amnesia parody segments slightly less annoying... they dropped the ball hard.
When you illuminate the secret passages you were told about by the reels, the inhabitants of the world suddenly and inexplicably go out for your blood despite you already tresspassing on their domain before this happened. There is absolutely nothing engaging about these sneaking missions, you can even skip 2 of these if you have enough patience and time on your hands. Its like the anglerfish except there is absolutely nothing unique about this, its just a generic horror game walking in the dark segment. You better have the layout memorized because youre gonna lose a lot of time otherwise trying to juke the elks and finding out youre going into a dead end instead. I highly recommend turning on the the reduced frights mode for these parts, it just makes it less of a headache.

Thankfully, it gets better from here. Once youre done with the sneaking I'd say the payoff is reasonably worthwhile. What you get out of finishing each artifact world is solutions to the "main problem" so to speak. These solutions are quite interesting and definitely worth the trouble to go after, so dont get discouraged by the sneaking segments. The final "conversation" was quite a gut-punch for me personally, and the extra stuff in the ending of the base game was a nice little addition.
It's no surprise that the dlc doesn't have a particularly huge impact on the base game, but it certainly doesnt sour it. It does raise a question of how the Nomai, a highly advanced civilization that deals with black holes and shit, weren't able to notice this vessel, but heartians somehow did. Unless I missed something, this reeks a bit of retcon.

All in all this is an admirable final send-off for an exceptional base game. Despite a big dirty spot in the middle it is a very enjoyable experience as a whole. If you enjoyed the base game like I did, this surely is worth your time.

Disclaimer: I was a playtester on Echoes of the Eye, so my initial playthrough of the DLC was quite different to everyone else. It was spread out over the course of several months, which allowed me time to speculate on the story. I think this helped my impression of the DLC - but reviews are always subjective, so.
I am proud to have helped with the building of the DLC in this small way, and I cannot claim that I came at this second playthrough without that in my head.

The Outer Wilds is comfy, right? There's a bit of gentle creepiness in the base game, but ultimately, it's a relaxed game about exploring and discovering new things at your own pace. It is fair to say that Echoes of the Eye is not the same experience. It is much, much creepier all the way through, and has some outright horror moments. I think it is perfectly reasonable to be turned off by this, and I completely understand how that vibe will have made people dislike expecially the latter half of the DLC.

With that said, god did it work for me. The exploration of The Stranger manages to truncate the planet-hopping of the base game into a single(ish) location. The Stranger feels homely in a way to me in a way that is unexpected considering the general creepiness that lurks in its deeper recesses, and sailing down its river is a fun and compellingly relaxing mechanic.

The second half of the dlc dives into something much spookier, with chases, a creeping dread, and the sense that something is truly, horribly wrong. I don't think I ever truly got over The Strangefolk coming after me. I am glad that a Less Frights option made it to the final release.

But what really made Echoes of the Eye sing for me was the tale it weaves.

SERIOUS STORY SPOILERS FOLLOW

The two races you come to know in Outer Wilds both embody the explorer's spirit completely. Nomai and Hearthians alike are voyaging across the dark, seeking answers, eventually finding what noone could have ever predicted. The contrast of The Strangefolk immediately understanding the Eye and their visceral hatred of it screams at you. Where Outer Wilds wants you to think about the future, to hope - Echoes and The Strangefolk asks you to ponder if that future is worth it?

I could not dislike The Strangefolk, no matter how many times they caught me. It is no wonder they do. The guilt they must have felt over the destruction of their home, all in pursuit of the Eye - it crushes me.
And yet somehow, someone in that simulation still believed, still hoped, still found a profound beauty in the End the Eye presents. Their actions are what sets up the events of Outer Wilds. Their reach into the blackness inspires the search for millenia afterwards.
I will carry that hope with me. And when that one-horned prisoner asked if I wanted him to be part of what was next - how could I refuse?

Outer Wilds is my favorite game ever made, and I would consider it a flawless masterpiece. Every now and then I think about Outer Wilds and my love grows for it evermore. So of course, when DLC is announced for the game, it has quite a lot to live up to. Echoes of the Eye is able to deliver on the fantastic story and world building of the original game, while providing a vastly different but still fun experience... for the most part.

I want to get the bad out of the way first; The virtual world parts really needed to go through a second revision. I do enjoy the horror of it, and I'm fine with a slower paced style of gameplay to contrast the original speeds. However, the stealth portions are just badly made. You have Strangers that walk around in complete darkness that, if seen in the light, will chase after you and send you back to the start.

So you have to bumble around areas completely blind, praying to God you're going the right way and are not about to fall into water, with turning on the light for even a second potentially causing death. And what I can only think was added just to add further misery, the light has an incredibly limited range, and even when you focus it to see further ahead, they had the audacity to make it so you slow to an agonizing crawl. For a game as masterfully crafted as Outer Wilds, seeing these glaring mistakes is a shock.

And the worst part is, the fixes are so easy. First, get rid of the focus crawl. There is zero reason for that. And while you're at it, maybe increase the size a bit so I can actually see somewhat. Secondly, have the Strangers have their lights on much more often. I remember the first stealth segment I had to go through, in the woods next to the house with the fireplace. Strangers are walking through it with lamps, making it less of a chore to walk through and explore without being killed. Make more of them have their lamps on, ESPECIALLY the ones inside that big mansion. That entire mansion is an absolute nightmare to crawl through. From what I can tell, there's really no point in actually going through it, but tell that to me when I spent 30 minutes walking around aimlessly. Adding light would make this so much less agonizing while also now being fun and stealthy.

There were only two I liked the complete darkness of, the first being the Stranger down below the bell alarm in the virtual tower world. What makes it good is that at the end of the hallway, there are actually lights, giving you a point of reference while exploring, which the other areas completely lack. This made stealth fun as I had a visible end goal while also having to try and keep track of the Stranger. It falls apart when you leave the light area and discover that the other end is not lit up, leaving you in total darkness yet again. The second one, while not nearly as good, is alright. It's in the aforementioned mansion, next to the tree mural you have to turn the lights off to get to in the first place. There's a single Stranger down there, and to get past you have to hide behind these two shutters and wait for him to pass. I thought this was clever, but it was still way too dark.

And that's it for the bad. It may seems long and really bad, but honestly I can excuse it for the rest of this incredible DLC.

The game really ignites that feeling of Outer Wilds again. Exploring an unknown land, piecing the story together piece by piece, until eventually you figure out what to do and can never experience it again. And the writing is done just as well. EOTE goes for a different approach than the rest of the game, telling its story completely visually without any text. While this does sadly remove the unique characters like those that made up the Nomai, I'm actually fine with this as it makes sense. The Strangers are, well, strange. They're meant to feel more foreign and unsettling compared to the Nomai, so for their civilization to have barely any text outside of an odd sign here or there makes perfect sense. The story itself is fantastic too, telling a really sad story just as, if not more tragic than that of the Nomai, but I won't go over it as it really speaks for itself.

There's also the general gameplay. I think the gameplay is a slight downgrade but nothing bad at all. Outer Wilds' gameplay was near perfect, flying from planet to planet and getting into shenanigans along the way. EOTE takes place in a much smaller environment with no spaceship, which is a little disappointing. However, it does give rafts, which are really fun to control, but aren't nearly as silly or fun as the spaceship. I can understand this choice though, as at this point a spaceship just wouldn't work and would ruin the feel, and having stuff happen to the raft would feel more annoying than what can happen to your spaceship. One more thing, I never felt lost during my playthrough, which is actually a step up from the main game. EOTE is very clear on where to go, and it never oversteps in giving too much information. There's only two times I felt like it gave me something I didn't need to be told, that being the underwater cave to the tower and the third reel burn spot, however these are also kinda easy to miss so I can understand pointing towards them.

There's also the second half of the gameplay, inside the virtual world. I went over all my gripes already, so I wanna go over the positives. The horror is done fantastically, for a long time the suspense never pays off, leaving you in a constant feeling of discomfort and dread which I love. Outer Wilds was a scary game at times, especially Dark Bramble, however this takes it to another level and I love the way its done. The overall puzzle for it was also really fun too discover, going glitch by glitch until you finally unlock the strange locked box.

The music, as always, is just fantastic. Some of the best in the entire soundtrack. Getting on the raft for the first time and being thrusted into this strange ring planet vessel while an exciting melody plays with the travelers theme snuck in was just an amazing moment.

And speaking of moments, EOTE is just full of them. One of my favorite parts of Outer Wilds was the moments. Some of them were things expected of you, like finding the Nomai grave or getting the last piece of the puzzle for the eye, while some were completely unique to my experience, like accidentally going into the Ash Twin project or being hit by the Interloper out of no where and instantly dying. EOTE is filled to the brim with these, and there might be even more of them than in the main game (but my memory could be a little foggy).

Finally, I want to talk about, well, the finale. After you finish everything in The Stranger, you can finish the game yet again and have the Prisoner in the ending. He is finally able to speak in the Eye, and says that he apologizes for his species actions and asks for forgiveness. You can actually deny him forgiveness, which I'm curious on the outcome, but of course I welcomed him in as a friend. Along with this he brings a new small event to grab his instrument, which perfectly fits with all of the DLC. The instrument itself is really fascinating, and when he begins to play it creates a foreign but beautiful sound that fits perfectly into the travelers theme. I'm not going to lie, during the credits I nearly cried. When I first beat Outer Wilds, I didn't really feel anything. I was sad the game was over and that I would never experience it again, but nothing else. After experiencing EOTE, which is arguable a sequel in disguise, my love for Outer Wilds as a whole rushed out. It was only after viewing it for a second time that I realized I never wanted to expereince it again. Not because it was bad or anything, but because of how precious my journey was. As I said before, many things happened both during my original playthrough and EOTE that are unique to my experience, and to forget those and play it blindly again would just feel hollow. I will always treasure my experience with this game, and just as I accepted the doom of one universe for the rebirth of another, I accept the loss of experiencing this masterpiece ever again for the birth of a new experience that I will be looking forward to, whether it be from Mobius Digital or somewhere else.

Overall, Echoes of the Eye is a flawed, but still fantastic addition to the original Outer Wilds. It had a lot to live up to, and while it didn't hit the nail everywhere, where it did hit the nail it hit it hard under the guidance of what came before it. Finishing EOTE caused me to fall in love with the game for a second time, something that I once thought impossible after beating the game for the first time. This game and the DLC are truly masterpieces, and I suggest without hesitation that you play Outer Wilds.

the Hearthians are born into a world without choice. you are going down with the ship, so to speak, whether you want to or not. the base game toys with the idea that maybe you might be able to stop this, maybe you can evacuate everyone, maybe you can just fight and do.... Something, anything in the face of inevitable annihilation. slowly through exploration, you learn more and come to terms with your fate. pulling the warp core from the Ash Twin project is looking your own death in the face and choosing Yes, like a warm handshake of a deal for one last goodbye to all of your friends. you understand what Solanum has known for what must feel like an eternity. the Nomai were wrong: the Eye of the Universe was not malicious or cruel, it simply Is. and we Were.

in Echoes of the Eye, it reframes this question. who are we to deny the universe the privilege of hearing the siren's call of the Eye? how do you come to terms with your world's inevitable death when your species is what caused it? how do you cope with the fact that your people destroyed their only home in the stars in pursuit of an unknowable power, only to discover they were wrong about it from the beginning?

the answer is that you do this violently. you hide yourself from the public world. you destroy the evidence of what you've done. you imprison your own kind. you kill intruders. you enact this so that you can maintain the idea that things can go back to The Way They Were, despite the glaring cracks in the façade. it is these cracks that the player is able to exploit and push through, and eventually cause the dam to break.

only at the end of everything, after the waters have flooded and put out every fire keeping the Strangers alive, The Prisoner accompanying you to the Eye is able to see what their kind was so afraid of: Uncertainty.

how strange to meet obliteration this way... not alone by blowing out your own lantern in a prison cell, but surrounded by new strangers that care for you. i wish we had more time together. ah, oh well... until we meet again

Echoes of the Eye seems kind of like a square peg, round hole situation, to be honest. They wanted to tell this story about owl matrix and a prisoner, but had to fit it into the confines of the game they had already designed, and I dont think it worked.

I need to get more objective distance from it, but letting it sit with me so far, I think I Intensely Dislike the DLC, which I feel has nearly none of the elements that I liked about the base game. I just kinda wish I could forget I ever played it, and not so that I could play it again fresh like I wish I could do with the rest of the game. The initial puzzle of figuring out what and where The Stranger is is fantastic and straight out of vanilla OW, as well as the first couple times around the track as you greedily explore the surface world. It’s incredibly atmospheric; even the dream world is full of great atmosphere. But unlike the base game, there’s zero substance to any of it. In the DLC for the archaeological simulator, you learn nothing about the people on The Stranger nor what they were about. Other than they’re spooky horror aliens that communicate entirely via homemade found footage horror movies and jack into a big VR simulation of an early 2010s Slenderman fangame that you need to scour to assemble a strategy guide for. The goal of the whole thing is to find three sacred cheat codes, all to release a dude who’ll play the theremin.

The biggest problem is that it feels like an entirely different game stapled on top of Outer Wilds. OW’s biggest strength is that all these disparate areas that operate according to their own rules are cohesively tied together by a common set of systems and mechanics that work everywhere. Except in the DLC area, where none of the tools from the base game do anything, not even your knowledge of how to move your character around because you spend hours of it outside your suit slowly walking around in the dark. Even your rumour board stays blank because there are no rumours to learn. One of those mechanics in the base game and a fantastic piece of design work are the quantum laws, which are so consistently applied in so many places that you can just organically pick them up via osmosis. There are a few places in there where they give an explicit lesson if you need a little help, but most people I’ve talked to seem to figure out and apply at least one of them on their own, and it makes you feel like a brain genius. Here, they super transparently try to recreate that with a set of rigid laws within such a confined scale that solutions feel arbitrary and are often found by repeatedly beating the same brick wall.

SPOILERS FOR ENTIRE GAME

Admitting that I didn't love EOTE is deeply painful. Outer Wilds is one of the best games I've ever played and I was beyond thrilled to try the expansion. While it didn't ruin the original game for me, neither did it improve upon it.

I would describe Outer Wilds as combining three key aspects: space exploration, a time loop, and a mystery which you gradually piece together. EOTE delivers only the last aspect.

Space Exploration:
Discovering the Stranger and getting the first glimpse of the ringworld got an audible "holy shit" from me. It's visually striking and impressive from a technical standpoint. But that's where it ends, you can't take your ship inside so once you enter the Stranger you are essentially on foot for the rest of the expansion. The fact that it's a ringworld is almost incidental and isn't explored in any creative way within the gameplay.
In any other game this wouldn't be a gripe, but the base game uses the diverse properties of all the other planets as core parts of the overall puzzle. Not so here.

Time Loop:
This aspect of the game is almost entirely lost in EOTE. Other than the dam bursting about halfway through the loop, which is used for only one major puzzle, having to restart the loop every 22 minutes is nothing but an impediment to your progress within the Stranger. It's almost baffling that the developers treated the primary mechanic of the base game as a complete afterthought here. Remember, this isn't a standalone expansion, it's very much crafted to be a part of the overall experience and narrative of the base game.

Mystery:
In this one regard, the game does not disappoint. I love the story which is told in EOTE, and found myself relating a lot more to the existential terror of the Elks than the reckless curiosity of the Nomai. Piecing together the story was a thrill, and the eventual reveal of the prisoner was a wonderful moment. I especially liked the emphasis on visual storytelling rather than text logs, something the base game relied heavily upon.

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Traditional Horror:
This is probably the most notable aspect of EOTE. Now let me just say, Outer Wilds is one of the scariest games I've ever played. But that horror was something unique that I have never experienced in any other game.
Hurtling through Giant's Deep's atmosphere to reveal an ocean covered in enormous waterspouts. The eerie drone of the enigmatic Quantum Moon's signal before it suddenly reappears on the other side of the solar system. Dropping feet-first into a black hole.
So many moments in Outer Wilds made my stomach lurch without relying on traditional horror tropes or video game mechanics. EOTE retains a little of that cosmic dread, but it mainly relies heavily on scrambling through the dark as screeching monsters hunt you. It's like they took the most frustrating part of the base game, the Angerflish, and decided to make that a major part of the expansion. While certainly terrifying, this is something that we've seen done in countless games before.
Combine that with a 22-minute time loop, and the initial horror rapidly gives way to annoyance as you rush past your foes for the umpteenth time.

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EOTE didn't sour my love of the base game, but it left me feeling deflated. A day may come when I've forgotten enough about Outer Wilds to replay it all over again, but I doubt I will be revisiting my friends on the Stranger any time soon. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to sleep in the simulation where this expansion doesn't exist.

This DLC made all the right decissions to justify its existence. It feels like the missing half of the main Outer Wilds plot. Accepting the eventual death of everything and living to your fullest feels a bit half baked when every character was awfully stoic and seemed ready for that eventual end; not to mention the pristine honesty the Nomai and Hearthian records are composed.

This DLC provides that other, pessimistic half we needed to elevate the message. The consequences of fearing the future all too much, how individuals are twisted by their longing to a long past era, and how said longing can be weaponised to turn them into lifeless husks of what they were; and the sad reality of selective archival to make civilizations seem better than what they are. The fact that an individual stood tall against these odds and gave more importance to truth and acceptance feels more rewarding than the optimistic Hearthians and Nomai eras.

It makes me gain appretiation for the Outer Wilds base universe, its equally stoic and tragic tone and how powerful the message hits now that we see what could've been of the universe if handled by a civilization closer to our own.