278. Outer Wilds (Mobius Games, Playstation 4, 2019)

Outer Wilds is an exploration-based adventure game that puts you in the boots of an alien astronaut about to embark on their first space mission. You are tasked with exploring the local solar system, made up of 6 planets and a comet orbiting a sun. Outer Wilds is notable in that it gives players no overt directions and relies on curiosity to spur the player forward and solve its puzzles and mysteries.

And what a job it does at inspiring curiosity. While the solar system is much smaller than our real one, you can land on and explore each of the planets, and every one has a starkly different look and feel. Not only that, how the environment on each planet behaves is a huge source of intrigue, as some pretty wild things are going down in this tiny star system. There is a huge, excellent sense of wonder and scale early in the game as you are constantly discovering new things and how every planet works. 

Probably my favorite thing about Outer Wilds is how it is absolutely an action game in addition to being an adventure game. The whole game runs on a (semi-) realistic physics simulation that is a joy to blast around in. Mastering the controls of your ship is a big undertaking, but by the time you have completed the game, you feel like a veteran astronaut. When outside your ship, you have a spacesuit with jetpack, and the jetpack physics are to die for. The universe is built to encourage a lot of daring jetpack jumps, and they never stopped feeling exhilarating, even 10+ hours in.

The writing is punchy and enjoyable. Just goofy enough to make your failures feel more comical and less dire, while always posing tantalizing questions to keep you going. It feels like they took inspiration from a bunch of games people love (Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, Majora's Mask), but in a subtle way that allows the final product to feel completely like its own thing. You as a player have almost no agency in the world, which I welcome in a game. Most importantly, it was a really great game to play with my wife, and I know we'll always have fond memories of our time with Outer Wilds, even if it's a game that you can't go back to.

5/5, the best escape room I've ever done