Hummeldon
2 reviews liked by Hummeldon
This review contains spoilers
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.
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.
This review contains spoilers
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.
--
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.
--
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.
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.
--
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.
--
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.