History Videogame / OuterWilds

** [[spoiler:The Prisoner's body, like the rest of their species, is long dead; however, their mental-self within the simulation has been trapped in the Vault (which consists of two small, sparsely-furnished rooms), essentially on house arrest, for hundreds of thousands of years, with no way to end their life within the simulation so they can finally die. Tellingly, once the Hearthian finally finds and releases them and they share stories, by the time you're able to reach the surface again, the Prisoner is gone, and is all but outright stated to have walked into the water and extinguished their Artifact, finally able to die (and at peace with themself, to boot).]]

* ArtificialAfterlife: A major feature in the DLC is [[spoiler:a massive simulated reality that can be accessed much like a shared dream world by sleeping near specialised green fires with a special artifact,]] as a major mechanic. However, near the end of the DLC's story, it is revealed that [[spoiler:physically dying will still allow entry into the simulation, as long as the artifact is held and the death occurs near a green fire - enabling the mind to persist long after the body's physical death. This allows its inhabitants to persist in the simulation long after their real bodies have rotted away, and creates certain loopholes/bugs in the simulation that the player can exploit. Of course, exiting the simulation after this will obviously result in actual death instead of waking up]].

* DreamLand: A new major mechanic that is introduced is [[spoiler:what is apparently a [[SharedDream shared "dream world",]] accessible when sleeping next to the hidden green campfires with a working Artifact on The Stranger. The dream world is a bizarre reflection of the real world, covered in darkness and inhabited by actual living (and hostile) aliens. However, this turns out to be a SubvertedTrope as more lore is uncovered, and it is revealed that the "dream world" is in fact [[InsideAComputerSystem a giant simulation]] modelled after the aliens' home moon.]]

* InvisibilityCloak: The Stranger is hidden by a cloaking device which renders it completely invisible to the naked eye. However, from a very specific angle, it doesn't work correctly, reflecting space instead of what's actually behind it. The Heartians stumble upon this flaw by accident while testing out their mapping satellite and write it off as a glitch, which serves as the beginning of the DLC quest.

* NoNameGiven: Thanks to the LanguageBarrier, the owl-deer-like alien species featured in the DLC is never given a name in the game, since, unlike with the Nomai (who have a written language that the Hearthians are able to translate), the player character is only able to learn these aliens' story through visual reels. The fan community has taken to calling them "Strangers" and "Owlks". [[spoiler:The alien you meet imprisoned in the Vault is, thus, never properly named either, only being known as "The Prisoner". Datamined code calls them Kaepora, a ShoutOut to the owl from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''.]]

* SurvivalHorror: [[spoiler:The simulated world has many elements of the genre. Unlike the main game's Dark Bramble, where you at least got to keep all your gear and the terrifying anglerfish were in gameplay terms essentially just stage hazards that can be safely avoided once you learn the trick, here you're placed in pitch darkness where you have to escape from aggressive, invincible pursuers actively patrolling the area with the only thing to your disposal being the Artifact which provides a ''very'' miniscule light at the cost of potentially alerting said pursuers. The already ominous atmosphere of the non-simulated world is cranked up to eleven, with the only music being a DroneOfDread and the pursuers greeting you with an obligatory ScareChord should they catch you.]]

* SuddenSoundtrackStop: At the moment the music End Times is finished, the sun starts to collapse into a supernova.

->''"My role in this ended long ago, and now I've learned my efforts weren't in vain. Thank you for facing what was hidden in the dark."''

* ChildlessDystopia: [[spoiler:There is no sign of children on The Stranger. This is a notable contrast to the homes of the Hearthians (where several kids play around the village) and Nomai (where multiple generations were raised in this solar system). There is no indication the inhabitants reproduced after launching The Stranger.]]

** The game has been building up [[spoiler: the Sun Station]] as TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon. As you learn more of the processes surrounding [[spoiler: the Ash Twin Project]], it becomes more and more apparent that this Project is responsible for the supernova: [[spoiler:the Sun Station]] detonates the sun, kicking off a complex system of processes and machines whose history is detailed across the solar system. [[spoiler:But then you make it to the Sun Station, ready to solve whatever malfunction is destroying your solar system, only to find... the Sun Station doesn't work. It ''never'' worked. The supernova is not man-made at all. The Sun Station crashes into the expanding sun halfway into the loop, most likely taking you with it shortly after, giving you plenty of opportunity to think about this information as you start a new loop.]]

* WhenThePlanetsAlign: One achievement requires you to hear all four Hearthian songs at the same time, which requires waiting for the planets each one of them is on to align so all four can be picked up by your Signalscope. The conditions for this one are fairly lenient, however, merely requiring all four to be audible. [[LoopholeAbuse You can cheese it by simply flying far enough away from the solar system that all four can be detected regardless of their position relative to each other.]]

* NoodleIncident: The history of Outer Wilds Ventures is full of these. In particular, one of the museum exhibits states that Feldspar was the first Hearthian to be ''intentionally'' launched into space.

The game was first released on UsefulNotes/XboxOne on May 29, 2019 (and on PC the next day), with the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 release following on October 15. It was later released for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation5 and Xbox Series X/SA on September 15, 2022, with the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch version's release date to be decided.

** Discussed by a couple of Nomai regarding the Ash Twin Project -- [[spoiler:namely, that not only would the Project activate if it was successful, it would also activate if it failed, potentially trapping any paired Nomai in the time loop for a very long time if the project wasn't shut down properly. Indeed, the numbers in the Probe Tracking Module show that the probe that successfully found the Eye was #9,318,054. In other words, after that exact amount of 22-minute timeloops, a total of 389 years, 276 days, 21 hours, and 48 minutes passed before a probe found the Eye. The implication is that they were expressly trying to avert this trope, so they only made the statues pair up when the Eye was actually found, rather than forcing anyone to sit through what could potentially be millions of cycles]].

** Nomai installations often use gravity crystals, either attached to the floor, or inlaid as part of the flooring. This allows anyone walking on them to adhere to the surface the crystals are attached to. The exceptions to this are locations that already have their own gravity, and don't need extra, such as installations on planet surfaces, [[spoiler:or the Ash Twin Project, located on the inside of a planet, and relies on centrifugal gravity generated by the planet itself]].

** No matter how much time you spend in the Hearthian village, you will always return to the Nomai statue at the exact moment it activates. From a story perspective, this would mean that the entire series of events comes down to a massive coincidence; had you taken too long, the statue would have paired with Hal instead, and had you run through too quickly, it would have had no one around to pair with, [[spoiler:leaving Gabbro as the only one aware of the loop]].

** The Ash Twin Project contains a long set of Nomai writings that detail its history and all the steps to finding it, so that anyone who may have skipped some steps would get the clues added to their Ship Log.

** If you talk to Gabbro before the first loop ends, they have unique dialogue reflecting the fact that the time loop hasn't started yet.

* InfoDump: Finding the Ash Twin Project is usually the culmination of hours investigation and following clues. It also contains Nomai writing detailing every major plot point along the way, in proper order, [[DevelopersForesight just in case you]] [[SequenceBreaking blunder on it by accident]].

* UnfazedEveryman: Gabbro spends the entirety of each loop playing their flute while reclining in a hammock, even when the storms of Giant's Deep throw their island up into space. Even [[spoiler:being trapped in the time loop along with the player]] is something they seem unconcerned about.

* ExpansionPackWorld: The Stranger, a [[spoiler: ringworld ship. Justified in-universe in that the ship is [[StealthInSpace permanently cloaked]] and undetectable in most situations. The Hearthians detected the ship's silhouette from a satellite before the start of the game, but wrote it off as equipment failure.]]

* AdvertisedExtra: Despite not being the main character, Hearthian astronaut Riebeck gets featured in a lot of promotional screenshots and trailers, and the prominence of the banjo instrument in the soundtrack (which they play) makes them more significant, often to the point that the character is considered the face of ''Outer Wilds'' as a whole. In-game though, you only encounter Riebeck camped out beneath Brittle Hollow's surface and they're revealed to be a bit of a coward when it comes to space flight. [[spoiler:In the finale, Riebeck's banjo is the first instrument you gather out of the others, so the game at least acknowledges their status]].

** [[spoiler: The Sun going supernova isn't artificially-induced. It's a completely natural event as a consequence of the star's aging, which itself stems from the [[NaturalEndOfTime heat death of the universe]] occurring around you. This also means it's completely unpreventable - no matter what you do, no matter how many loops you go through, the solar system is doomed, and every single person you meet (including a few ''children'') will inevitably die after 22 minutes, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it, save for [[RestartTheWorld restarting the universe in a new Big Bang]] as to make sure life in general can continue to exist]].

* DevelopersForesight: [[spoiler:While you are supposed to use simulation bugs to bypass the Prisoner's second and third locks, there is a correct combination (found via datamining) for each of them that the in-game player could never know. Entering these will allow the Hatchling to unlock the Prisoner's cell without being dead, which means they can return to the real world where the sarcophagus has opened to reveal the Prisoner's corpse, and a lantern which is either lit or unlit depending on whether the Prisoner has been freed.]]

* DevelopersForesight: [[spoiler:While you are supposed to use simulation bugs to bypass the Prisoner's second and third locks, there is a correct combination (found via datamining) for each of them that the in-game player could never know. Entering these will allow the Hatchling to unlock the Prisoner's cell without being dead, which means they can return to the real world where the sarcophagus has opened to reveal the Prisoner's corpse, and a lantern which is either lit or unlit depending on whether the Prisoner has been freed.

* ArtificialAfterlife: A major feature in the DLC is [[spoiler:a massive simulated reality that can be accessed much like a shared dream world by sleeping near specialised green fires with a special artifact,]] as a major mechanic. However, near the end of the DLC's story, it is revealed that [[spoiler:physically dying will still allow entry into the simulation, as long as the artifact is held and the death occurs near a green fire - enabling the mind to persist long after the body's physical death. This allows its inhabitants to persist in the simulation long after their real bodies have rotted away, and creates certain loopholes/bugs in the simulation that the player can exploit. Of course, exiting the simulation after this will obviously result in actual death instead of waking up.]]

** What [[spoiler:happened to the Strangers themselves]]. After [[spoiler:destroying their homeworld to create a massive starship to travel to the Eye of the Universe, they arrived, only to find out that the eye would destroy it. Having no more home to go back to, after destroying it to make the Stranger, and the journey having been a waste of time, they created a simulation of their home world, and lived in that]]. [[spoiler:Staying in it for so long that their real bodies died, and they would no longer be able to return, being sustained only by the simulation]].
** The cloaking field established by the strangers meant that the [[spoiler:distress calls sent out by the Nomai Vessel, and the escape pods went undetected]], because of [[spoiler:the inhabitants of the Stranger encasing the entire system inside of a cloaking field]]. There [[spoiler:was no chance of rescue]]. According to [[spoiler:the modern Nomai, Escall's Vessel (the ship the Hearthian Nomai arrived in), simply vanished one day, and searches revealed no trace of them]]. Said [[spoiler:cloaking field]] also meant that the [[spoiler:Hearthian Nomai]] were [[spoiler:no longer able to detect any signal coming from the Eye, with some believing that it had abandoned them]].

** A major lore thread [[spoiler:focuses on the Stranger's inhabitants having burned the majority of the slide reels containing their lore as part of the rejection of the Eye and fall from grace. Secret safehouses filled with burned slide reels can be found hidden throughout the Stranger as major clues. It is somewhat [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] after the Forbidden Archives are discovered in the Stranger's simulation, and it is revealed that they made sure to scan all the reels into the simulation to store them digitally in pristine condition - only destroying their physical representations afterwards.]]

* ChekhovsSkill: The DLC continues the standard of making use of abilities you've always had to achieve unexpected results. In particular, a late-game puzzle requires you to [[spoiler:die in a fire.]]

* DreamEmergencyExit: PlayedWith due to being [[spoiler:in a simulation as opposed to a dream, but the mechanic operates similarly under the original ostensible belief that it is a dream.]] In the [[spoiler:Stranger's simulation]], [[spoiler:inhabitants can be immediately booted from the simulation world in a number of tangible ways. Most common and easiest is having their Artifact flame extinguished in either reality or the simulation. Also viable are simply dying in the simulation or specialised alarm bells linked to bells in the real world, designed specifically to wake (living) inhabitants up.]]

* ExplosiveResults: A laboratory in the Hidden Gorge shows the testing of three Artifact prototypes [[spoiler:to enter the Stranger's simulation]]. The laboratory can only be entered through [[spoiler:a hull breach in the Stranger, leading into the lab's second testing chamber. Reviewing the burned slide reel for the second Artifact test in combination with the slide reel showing the very explosive creation of the hull breach]] makes it all too clear what caused [[spoiler:the breach.]] An achievement can be gained by [[spoiler:[[SchmuckBait attempting to use the second Artifact prototype]] at a green fire anyway, with obvious results that immediately end your loop.]]

** In relation to the game as a whole, finishing the game after beating the DLC [[spoiler:adds the Prisoner to the group at the Eye of the Universe. If the player elects to have them participate in the final song, then the new universe sports a touch of mysticism (some glowing ritual stones in the distance) and new aliens who look a little similar to the Prisoner's species (they're just as tall).]]

* HolodeckMalfunction: An odd, PlayedWith variation. A key element of the [[spoiler:Stranger's simulation is that perturbations in the real world to both the body and their Artifact's flame can affect the body in the simulation, to the point of forcibly ejecting the user from the simulation. This includes the sounds of alarm bells, water dousing the green flames, to even the entire environment tilting. This is normally not dangerous and only a setback/timed obstacle -- as the dam breaking and flooding the Stranger submerges some of the simulation rooms, permanently booting its inhabitants out. However, it becomes very dangerous when the bug/feature that allows ''dying'' beings to enter the sim is taken into account. In the case of the Stranger's inhabitants and potentially the player if they use this method to enter the sim, some of these perturbations become incredibly dangerous -- the flooding of the sim rooms will immediately kill all inside by dousing their flames, and getting caught by the aliens/accidentally losing your flame now has very fatal consequences.]]
* InsideAComputerSystem: The DLC introduces what is ostensibly [[spoiler:a shared "dream world", accessible when sleeping next to a green campfire with an Artifact, appearing to be a bizarre world of darkness inhabited by the living inhabitants of the Stranger, where light can do apparently supernatural things. However, as more lore is uncovered, it is slowly revealed that the "dream world" is in fact an incredibly advanced simulated reality modelled after the inhabitants' home moon -- one with glitches and bugs that can be exploited.]]

* LanguageBarrier: The language barrier is far more severe with the Stranger's inhabitants than the Nomai, as the player's translator tool is completely useless for the Stranger aliens' language, which is entirely unknown to the Hearthians. In contrast to the base game, the story must be discovered entirely visually. This is [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] and [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] directly should the player talk to Hal about the new language - they ''could'' put in the new language into the tool... if they had a ''ton'' of texts to work with and at least 6 months. Obviously, 22 minutes and at best a few samples is hardly adequate.

* PsychologicalProjection: A CenralTheme of the DLC and the FatalFlaw of the inhabitants of The Stranger. They seem to believe the Eye of the Universe is destructive, blame it for leading them to a terrible fate, and decide to [[spoiler: block its signal to protect other people from its evil influence]]. However, the AwfulTruth is that [[spoiler: ''they'' are the ones who are destructive: they pillaged and killed their world. They are responsible for their own fate. And they seem to overlook the possibility that others ''would not'' go to the same awful extremes]]. This becomes a VisualPun as you discover their favorite medium for art and communication: slide reels viewed through projectors. Sometimes you must darken or turn off a projection to reveal the truth it was concealing, something they seem unwilling to do themselves.

** Making this a total subversion, the intended experience's route relies on exploiting "glitches" in the in-game simulation that resemble actual sequence breaking & metagaming techniques: [[spoiler:Debug mode, wrong-warp, and client-cracking.]]

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: The inhabitants of the Stranger are clearly mourning the loss of their home. Images of it are displayed prominently. In one reel, they gather around such a memento and begin to weep. [[spoiler: They don't want to remember that they are responsible for the loss, and The ArtificialAfterlife they construct]] seems an elaborate effort to cure their homesickness.

* MinusWorld: [[spoiler:If you drop off the raft when transitioning between two areas, you'll fall through the world and into a flat pond connecting the four endpoints of the simulated areas. Learning this trick allows you to bypass one of the three locks, as it drops you on the opposite side of the final area. It also allows you to enter the Shrouded Forest Forbidden Archive directly.]]

** A reel depicts the aliens testing three different Artifacts, but obscures the results of the second test. The intact reel is [[EasterEgg hidden]], but it clearly shows what is otherwise concludable from the condition of the testing chamber - that the artifact [[ExplosiveResults violently exploded]].

* SealedGoodInACan: [[spoiler:The final Traveller you can meet, The Prisoner, is sealed in a locked Vault within The Stranger - in both body (the physical Vault submerged in the Reservoir) and mind (the Vault within the simulated reality "dream"). Breaking the three locks that bind the simulation Vault and meeting the Prisoner's mental projection is the ultimate goal of the DLC, where the player learns it was their actions and sacrifice that led the Nomai to originally find the Eye, and therefore kickstart the entire story of the game.]]

* StabTheSalad: In the event that you [[spoiler:are grabbed by a pursuer, they will rear their heads back, mouth agape, as if preparing to take a bite out of you, before instead turning to your artifact and blowing out the flame.]]
* StarfishLanguage: The language used by the Stranger's inhabitants is written vertically and features branches and limbs like a tree. Scanning it with your translator throws up an error message, as no Hearthian before you has ever laid eyes on it.

* ViolationOfCommonSense: Yes, Feldspar's note says that jellyfish can protect from electricity, but he's referring to the rubbery top part that in real life would be harmless. The only way in is through the writhing mass of tentacles below, and anyone who's seen ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'' will tell you that the tentacles are the part of a jellyfish that you ''shouldn't'' touch. Plus, the one in Dark Bramble was clearly dead and no longer electrified.

* VideoGameTime: Averted. Not only do the 22 minutes loops play out in real time, but TakeYourTime is also averted, in that events pass whether you are aware of it or not.
-->'''[[https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2019/7/23/20706307/outer-wilds-game-of-the-year-interview Polygon]]:''' If [the player] show[s] up to the planet that’s being destroyed late in the time loop, many of the platforms and features that [they] would have seen early in the loop are gone. Likewise, on the planet that’s filling with sand, any tardiness means that useful clues will be buried. These are facts that [the player can] learn and process as [they] play through dozens of time loops, accruing knowledge.

''Outer Wilds'' is an open-world exploration sandbox game with heavy inspiration from immersive sim games, developed by Mobius Digital and published by Creator/AnnapurnaInteractive. As the newest recruit to Outer Wilds Ventures, you are an astronaut who's just completed their training and is ready to embark on their newest job: strapping in a ship, blasting off into space, and finding out the secrets of the Nomai, a race of [[{{Precursors}} precursor aliens]] who mysteriously vanished long ago. About 20 minutes into your first flight, however, disaster strikes. The local sun somehow goes supernova and violently explodes, wiping out your whole solar system and [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt killing your entire race]] in a blast of nuclear fire. (Or possibly you die before you even reach that point; the solar system is a dangerous place, after all.)

''Outer Wilds'' is a first-person exploration game that focuses around exploring different planets in your solar system. Each planet is unique and has a gimmick to it that makes exploration different, from the crumbling crust of Brittle Hollow to the sky-high water spouts of Giant’s Deep. Your main task is to uncover the history of the Nomai and their people, and to follow in their footsteps to discover the mysteries of the solar system.

* BambooTechnology: Downplayed; Hearthians live in a society that's rustic and nature-oriented, their entire civilization essentially resembles [[SummerCampy a summer camp]] and their main building material is lumber. However, they're advanced enough to have an observatory and a functioning space program. Your spaceship contains enough metal and electronics to function, but its hull is still mostly made of ''wood''.
** Justified in-universe as the solar system and its planets are very small, not requiring any advanced astrophysics to navigate their gravitational fields and distances between. Metal also seems to be relatively rare on Timber Hearth; except for a large deposit of an unnamed exotic metal so dense that even direct contact with the sun takes several minutes to melt it. Naturally, they never learned to work it into anything useful.