Outer Wilds
Outer Wilds ($25 on Epic Games Store) was our favorite Game of the Year when we did our work-in-progress list in June. It almost took home the prize here as well. I went back and forth, back and forth multiple times in creating this list, and while all the games are ostensibly tied for number two on this list, some came closer to the top than others.
Outer Wilds is a fantastic detective story. It’s a marvel of design. A galaxy in miniature, trapped in a time loop, where every event plays out over 22 minutes like clockwork. There are no upgrades, no unlocks. The only element that improves is you—your knowledge of the various planets and how they connect, your control over your ship, your understanding of the underlying mystery. If you knew exactly what to do and where to go, you could finish Outer Wilds in 22 minutes.
And yet it will probably take you upwards of 10 hours, making progress one crucial piece of information (and one death) at a time until it all clicks into place. There are some annoyances in the back half, with key events locked to certain parts of the timeline, leaving you to twiddle your thumbs before you can make progress. Those once-per-cycle moments are also what make Outer Wilds special though, and without them it would be a lesser adventure.
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