I know, finally! I’ve meandered around not playing the game and now I have begun. I went in knowing only:
time loop <–even reviews said this part
unfold the mysteries as you go type game
I will share my thoughts after about 2.5 hours of play. I have flown around in space some, landed on some stuff and found a deep satellite.
My thoughts and wonderings, etc.:
Maybe the sun isn’t supernova-ing, but is having its energy absorbed/used to drive ships. The foreign, ancient alien race has notes about crashing here(escape pods). Perhaps they used the sun to warp out, but it is creating a time loops due to hitting light speed. That would make us the ancient aliens, though…and they had 3 eyes instead of 4.
Maybe it isn’t even a time loop? Sometimes I die and go back in time…even if the sun didn’t blow up. Maybe I’m dreaming? Every cycle starts with “wake up”. Uh, and my ship maintains its logs between cycles…which it should not be able to do.
Flying is a bit of a pain, but I get it. Match velocity, slow down way early instead of waiting.
I’m 100% blind as to where this will all go. I am looking for any swirling/spiral language from the alien race and just updating my ship logs, which again I notice do not reset…
This game is what I hoped Subnautica would be. I enjoyed Subnautica up until the late game, but this game is even better and I am still in the early game.
It also reminds me of a great game called Antchamber. In that game, things changed depending on whether or not you are looking at them and in Outer Wilds, I have learned that Quantum Objects change or move when I look away.
I wonder if I am one of the ancient creatures or at least their consciousness. I wonder if they found a way to send their own brains/minds to a living creature and I am one of them, but my memory is lost.
I’m enjoying it, but there is definitely some frustration along the way. Autopilot helps.
By the way, I am pro-autopilot. I see no reason to avoid it, though it would never get me to land on the comet no matter what. I spent the first few hours zipping around and struggling to match velocity, etc. I’m a good pilot, but I do suggest anyone play with autopilot.
Not a spoiler given what you’ve seen so far, but a friend showed me the game and I played a bit. On my very first run–just exploring around and doing stuff–I managed to literally destroy the universe. Not a normal repeat–I got a “game over” screen and it kicked me back to the title (it did allow me to reload the game, though).
Just total dumb beginner’s “luck”. I played the game for real later on and wasn’t able to repeat what I did (or even understand it) until several hours in (at which point it clicked).
By sheer luck, I managed to teleport to the Ash Twin Project. I unlocked and grabbed the advanced warp core… but had no idea what to do with it. So the timer ran out and the loop ended. But that core was what was powering the loop in the first place! So I ended the loop without having solved the main puzzle (which, as you say, involves bringing it to the crashed ship).
You just have to stand in the right spot at the right moment. The sand level lowers, and around 2 minutes in the room is uncovered enough to teleport. Normally you’d have to unlock a bunch of clues to know what to do! But like everything else in the game, it’s not actually locked behind anything; you just have to know what to do. Or totally stumble into it, as I did. I literally just pointed my ship toward the most interesting looking place and then wandered around. I didn’t know about teleportation at all.
Well, it was certainly a bittersweet ending. At least we find out that life, uh… finds a way.
It is apparently possible to grab the warp core, then speed far enough away from the sun to avoid the supernova. But then you’re stuck in darkness forever until your supplies run out.
I did see some alternate endings. You can even return the warp core to the ancient-guy you meet on the quantum moon.
I’m just a bit into the DLC right now. I’m not entirely sure what they are asking me to do here, but I assume there are clues that will send me on my way. I am certainly expecting/hoping for a new area, like getting warped into a new content zone.
I dunno about the specific team, but the producer is Annapurna Interactive, which is now defunct. They made Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, which I know you played. I enjoyed most of Kentucky Route Zero, and Stray as well. But they’re very different games.