Outer Wilds
2019 · Mobius Digital · 15h to beat · our rating 94
Has it aged?Why ↓
You can finish it in fifteen hours and think about it for the rest of your life. Go in knowing nothing — the not-knowing is the entire game, and everyone who spoils it for you is stealing something.
Named Game of the Year 2019 by Giant Bomb, Polygon, Eurogamer, and The Guardian, Outer Wilds is a critically-acclaimed and award-winning open world mystery about a solar system trapped in an endless time loop.
The publisher’s description, from its Steam store page.
What it looks like
the trailer, then the store's own shots
The verdict
The best argument anyone has made that games can do something no other medium can. Its only currency is knowledge: nothing carries between loops except what you understand, so finishing it is literally a matter of having worked it out. Buy it, avoid every wiki, and let it take the fortnight it wants.
by the editor94our score
Play it if
Anyone who liked being lost in a Zelda game before the map filled in, and anyone who reads the environmental detail rather than skipping to the objective marker.
Skip it if
Anyone who wants a quest log, a difficulty curve, or a reason to feel powerful. There is no combat and no progression — if that sounds like nothing to do, it will feel like nothing to do.
Common questions
- Is Outer Wilds worth playing in 2026?
- Yes, and more so than most things released since. It is not a game that ages, because its content is understanding rather than spectacle.
- How long is Outer Wilds?
- Around fifteen hours for most people, though it varies enormously — you finish exactly when you work it out.
- Should I play the Echoes of the Eye DLC?
- Play the base game first, completely. The DLC is excellent but assumes you have already finished, and it is markedly darker.
What everyone else said
we link, we don't reprint- Eurogamer4/5
Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
- Rock Paper Shotgun
Outer Wilds is a jubilant adventure of discovery and peril among the stars, an astronomical game in more ways than one.
Brendan Caldwell
Has it aged?
How does it hold up today? Based on recent reviews, how opinions have changed since launch, player activity and updates.
% positive each month, last 4 years.
Reviews via Steam ↗Peak: 2.3k in Jun 2020.
Player counts via SteamCharts ↗As well liked as at launch.
No update in the last year.