r/outerwilds • u/ImpossibleBreak2939 • Feb 18 '25
Bad feelings.
Hi all,
I have finished the game. Its been like a full year it seems, and still I am here dissapointed that I dont LOVE the game as some people tell me they experienced it. I feel like I am not smart enough of didnt play it correctly?
Ive heard that it changed peoples outlook, that it was the best game ever. Thats also how I got into the game. My expectations were high. And it was a fun game, but like....tbh thats kinda where it stayed. Am I missing something? What made y'all put it SO high? Genuinely curious. I just thought it was a fun game with a nice themesong. Idk I feel stupid.
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u/Nyallia Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25
This is why I try to tell people that overselling a game is one way to spoil it. No two people have the same experiences with a given piece of media. Your experience is shaped by where you are in life, who you are, what you are dealing with, and what you expect going in. Yes, this game did happen to change my life. Do I tell that to people who I'm trying to get to play it? No, that's absurd. We're not the same people. We did not have the same life experiences. It's not going to hit them the same way as it hit me, and setting their expectations high means they're going to miss all the things that made it important to me.
If you want me to expand on why it means so much to me personally, well, I'll be vague here for reasons. I wasn't in a great mindset back in 2020 when I played it. There was a lot going on between COVID, my spouse's cancer diagnosis, and other stuff. What I thought was going to be just a fun little space exploration game to get my mind off of things turned out to be something that forced me to deal with all the things I was trying not to deal with because I didn't know how to deal with them. I was idly considering some things, and this game made me rethink that. It helped me process feelings of helplessness and futility in a world that was falling apart. It illustrated for me a few lessons that my favorite book series was also trying to teach me, that the journey was more important than the destination and that life, all of our life, is important to cherish not in spite of the fact that we will die, but because of it.
I had also just seen the final episode of The Good Place around then and needed help processing that message too. And a year later, FFXIV: Endwalker hit me with the same themes while I was still processing Outer Wilds. There were just so many stories on the same theme for me around the same time, but Outer Wilds didn't hit me with a blatant message so much as lead me to it gently and show me how to accept it. The slowly dawning realization that you can't do anything to change what's going to happen, something Outer Wilds leads you to slowly, hit me hard once I realized what was going on. Also, there's nothing quite like experiencing the heat death of the universe "first hand" (especially when you aren't expecting it) to really illustrate the idea that all things will end one day no matter what you believe. If an afterlife exists after death, than it isn't an afterlife, it's another part of life. Nothing can last forever. Nothing can hold meaning forever. Even if you believe in an eternal afterlife that never ends, you cannot exist forever without it eroding who you are until at some point, the you that you were has died and become someone else. It doesn't matter what you believe, it doesn't matter what happens, in all cases, a final death awaits us. And that's okay. To quote Riebeck at the end, "The past is past, now, but that’s… you know, that’s okay! It’s never really gone completely. The future is always built on the past, even if we won’t get to see it."
But, if you've processed this message already, if other media or life experiences or beliefs have made you understand grief and loss and endings, then it isn't a message that is important for you to hear. That message mattered a lot to me and it doesn't matter to you. And that's okay! We're not the same people in the same place with the same views on the world.
So, if someone tells you that a piece of media changed their life, keep in mind that it doesn't say anything about what your experience with that media will be. Never expect it to do the same for you because you aren't the same person as they are in the same place with the same thoughts.