Outer Wilds and Waypoint

Spoilers Ahead for Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds is a game about the end of what’s important to you. Outer Wilds is about attempting to understand why things have to end. Outer Wilds is about falling in love with the world because it’s ending. Outer Wilds is about using science to fall in love. Outer Wilds is about learning how the world repeats, so you can break out of it. Outer Wilds is about appreciating how much there is to lose. Outer Wilds is about the work that got us to the point where we can learn how in trouble we really are. Outer Wilds is about how some things are only there if you are looking at them. Outer Wilds is about appreciating the work it took to get us where we are, which is at the end of the world. Outer Wilds is about sitting around a fire, playing music, until the fire dies. Outer Wilds is about doing the same thing over and over, and looking back to see how far you’ve really come. Outer Wilds is about seeing everyone’s work get destroyed right when you were beginning to understand how important it all was.

Outer Wilds is about falling in love with the world because it’s ending. We’re given a ramshackle spaceship and set loose in a spinning solar system. We crash land on the planets we could see in the sky growing up, and find mysteries and systems and physical relationships between all things. We learn of a terrible fate that is drawn in the orbits of the celestial bodies. We are trapped in a time loop, with the sun inevitably exploding when it comes in contact with an explosive material that crashes into it, sending us back to the start. We collect information from an assortment of instrumentalists scattered across the solar system making music, all spinning around a sun whose days are numbered. We learn of another ancient species that befell a ruinous fate. Building on the work of the ancients, building on the advice of contemporaries, building on the intuition of the player, building on the drive of the story, the game builds and builds and builds, crescendoing into a scene in which we learn the final truth. We can’t stop the end. The sun is going to explode, if not from this collision then from the fact that nothing lasts. Our sun is going to explode.

Outer Wilds is about seeing everyone’s work get destroyed right when we were beginning to understand how important it all was. I played this game on recommendation from a gaming podcast called Waypoint Radio. Austin Walker was vociferous with praise for this game. So much so that I skipped those episodes in my feed, knowing I would go back and listen after I had played the game, brightening my commute. Instead I listened to every other episode, and shared my time with the team that made every episode a joy.

Outer Wilds is about doing the same thing over and over, and looking back to see how far you’ve really come. Outer Wilds was released on May 28, 2019. At the time I was working at a miserable and abusive job, trapped in greater and greater debt and losing the will to keep going. One of the only things that gave me hope was a writing habit I began with this blog, writing about video games. It gave me something to think about that wasn’t the endless loop of days. And then, when I lost that job, I found another. When I lost that job, I found another. When I lose this job, I’ll find another. Or I won’t!

Outer Wilds is about sitting around a fire, playing music, until the fire dies. Waypoint Radio is ending. Everyone there has lost their job, and needs to find another.

Outer Wilds is about learning how the world repeats, so you can break out of it. I have been replaying Prey {2017} recently, my favorite game ever. It’s probably my fifth playthrough. It’s part of the inspiration for my name, May! That game is about losing your memories over and over and over. You start the game trapped in a loop, and the only way out is to revisit the memories you stored externally in a robot body. Each robot you make is named after a month, and the months have different personalities. They are essentially journals that mark your change over time. The first thing I did when I restarted the game was go back and listen again to all the Waypoint episodes in which Danielle Riendeau talks about the game in glowing terms. It makes me feel seen!

Outer Wilds is about attempting to understand why things have to end. I’ve been reading through the extensive journaling I wrote while trapped at work in May 2019. I was planning blog posts almost exclusively. Writing about video games was one of the only things that gave me meaning. I was posting here a lot more back then. I’ve since found many more things that give me meaning. I don’t write here nearly as often. Perhaps one day I won’t ever post here again. This blog will end one day. I’ve written so much about starting! Starting over, starting games, starting the project. I don’t get a chance to talk about endings as often. One of my posts here will be my final post. This blog will end one day. One way or another.

Outer Wilds is about using science to fall in love. In December I started recording all my gameplay in a big spreadsheet. I write how long I played, and notes about how it went. It’s given me a greater appreciation of how much love is in my heart for video games, and how sad I am that Waypoint is ending.

Outer Wilds is about appreciating the work it took to get us where we are, which is at the end of the world. It’s May 28, 2023. It’s four years since the release of Outer Wilds. I’ve written 177 pieces for this blog. I’ve learned so much about myself, looping through time, counting down to the end of the world, and counting up from whenever I decide.

Outer Wilds is about how some things are only there if you are looking at them. Waypoint Radio has 568 episodes as of today. And soon it will have its final episode. And my blog will end. And I will die. And the sun will explode. I guess all I can hope for before then is that I feel seen.

Outer Wilds is about appreciating how much there is to lose. I’m going to miss Waypoint Radio. Goodbye!

Outer Wilds is about the work that got us to the point where we can learn how in trouble we really are. Fuck capitalism.

Outer Wilds is about going home.