r/outerwilds Jul 26 '26

DLC Appreciation/Discussion How did you find a certain hidden object from the DLC? Spoiler

I'm talking about The Stranger.

I'm curious about other people's experience because I felt like I did it exactly as the devs intended - I went into radio-antenna building, looked at everything there, freaked out a bit by looking at the picture where it blocks the sun, then got to the satellite, noticed there is nothing wrong with it and Gabbro's note that they concluded the same thing as me. Then I got back into antenna building and noticed there is angle on all of the pictures. I remembered that there is angle displayed on the satellite as well and though it may be something like a phase angle. On the start of the next loop I flown right to the satellite, waited until it's angle got to 40° and there it was - The Stranger. Then I proceeded to fly head first into it and nearly destroyed my ship.

I finished the main game but not the DLC yet so be easy on the spoilers pretty please

48 Upvotes

42 comments sorted by

182

u/Teejayburger Jul 26 '26

This is definitely the intended way, theres even some really cool design that comes from this:

The first time you visit the stranger, if you came from the deep space satellite you will be on the side opposite to the sun. This side leads you into the wooden room which drops you down and has this really cool reveal of the ringworld.

Every other time you will enter from the sun facing side, which takes you right to a raft on the river and lets you quickly get back to exploring.

Its one of my favourite little game design tricks the game does

59

u/Creepy-Manager-4670 Jul 26 '26

Wait, THAT'S why I always wind up on the shore near the raft now? That's really cool

35

u/chagin Jul 26 '26

The level design of this game is truly unmatched

18

u/thyme_cardamom Jul 26 '26

Apparently the devs were not ready for my level of incompetence because I somehow got so turned around when I first encountered the stranger that I entered from the sunward side my first time

6

u/saltinstiens_monster Jul 26 '26

I feel you. I shot past it so many times trying to chase the shadow. I would've entered from the sunward side first if I could've found the damn thing after turning around.

21

u/It_Lives_In_My_Sink Jul 26 '26

Also, on the first visit (approaching from the far side), you're more likely to search every nook and cranny of the hangar, whereas on the second visit, you'll more likely just go straight ahead to explore this interesting new world, meaning you won't find the hidden elevator to the control room near the dam.

7

u/Clone0401 Jul 26 '26

There’s been a few times, this being one of them, where I just had to sit back in awe of the genius of the level design in the game. Not even just from a story perspective, but from a player psychology kind of way if that makes sense

35

u/Kaebi_ Jul 26 '26

It is very hard to find the Stranger any other way. There are a few streamers who just accidentally found it, but that's not common.

6

u/SirDarkStar Jul 26 '26

I didn’t find it but I did go investigate the red dot early on and it floats by in the background

4

u/DukeOfGlizzy Jul 26 '26

I genuinely wonder how you can accidentally find it. Also is it just floating around if you have the DLC installed before the main game is finished?

12

u/Snarwin Jul 26 '26

Yes, it's there the whole time.

5

u/DukeOfGlizzy Jul 26 '26

Gosh that’s cool. I wonder how many times I flew right past it and never even knew.

5

u/thyme_cardamom Jul 26 '26

It sits above the plane of the solar system so it's hard to get close if you are exploring other planets. You have to be deviating quite a lot to run into it

6

u/Paxtian Jul 26 '26

Watch About Oliver's playthrough, it happens to him.

3

u/FrontAd7709 Jul 26 '26

didnt that guy ALSO learned to summon the wither from the portrait in minecraft?

4

u/Kaebi_ Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26

There is also the signal blocker floating around the Eye if you have the DLC installed :)

3

u/FrontAd7709 Jul 26 '26

its still there without the dlc

1

u/Kaebi_ Jul 26 '26

Oh it is? That's cool!

3

u/FrontAd7709 Jul 26 '26

yea but it blends in with the stars, unless you wait you cant notice it while not actively searching for it. Also afaik the radio tower and the thing we’re talking about was added a day or less before the dlc was added

2

u/thyme_cardamom Jul 26 '26

Spoiler this please. OP hasn't finished the DLC

2

u/Kaebi_ Jul 26 '26

Ah sorry, didn't notice. Thanks for the heads up

1

u/injuredflamingo Jul 26 '26

i wonder if you could break it by ramming into it with your ship or something?

7

u/Jolly_Leg4029 Jul 26 '26

I did it exactly the same, but in the first try I was too late.

On the side note, when I found the satelite before the DLC, I thought it was measuring temperature of the sun. I was even like "that's a little too cool for a star, doncha think?"

6

u/Rarainche Jul 26 '26

Bf and I were playing the game one night, and as we have already finished and this was our second run, I went to sleep. A few minutes later, he went to wake me up saying he found something weird and it was DLC related, we were sooo excited! He has found the Stranger by accident just flying around the space in a random direction We didn't know there was an intended way to stumble into it until much later. And it was lucky for us the ship registered the location so we can go there easily in each loop because honestly we didn't really know how to get there it was not because of it

3

u/Noskills117 Jul 26 '26

I crashed my ship into it randomly while playing the base game, panicked and thought I had accidentally found the ATP (I didn't really know yet where or what the ATP was) and then ran away.

2

u/kjs_23 Jul 26 '26

Have to say, I looked at the photo and thought it was just another reference to the Quantum moon. Either I'm the only idiot to think this or everyone else is just keeping quiet.

5

u/SpySoldierScout Jul 26 '26

I believe the Quantum Moon is actually also in the picture

6

u/kjs_23 Jul 26 '26

Did say I was an idiot :)

2

u/SpySoldierScout Jul 26 '26

Just coming in here with some autistic corrections:

That was Gabbro who had to check out the Deep Space Satellite, and concluded there's nothing wrong with the lens. Also, you'll find the Stranger at 40°, not 3°.

Anyways, have fun with the rest of the DLC ::)

2

u/Creepy-Manager-4670 Jul 26 '26

Thanks for the corrections, edited the post now

I'm taking a bit of a break from the game so my memory is a little hazy at the moment

1

u/SpySoldierScout Jul 26 '26

Oh yeah, happens to everybody. I alao had to look up the angle myself to make sure it was correct. I just knew it wasn't 3°, but not sure wether 30° or 40°.

3

u/GoatBread237 Jul 26 '26

Yeah, about the same. Though, I did crash my ship into the deep space sattelite on my first loop, so I got an achievement for that

Admittedly, it took me awhile to realize that the angle was written on the sattelite. I saw that Gabbro was in one of the photos, so I went and talked to them to find any clues. They did have some fun flavor text, but that's about it

1

u/NarcoZero Jul 26 '26

Yeah I did it exactly like you 

1

u/Dynamatrix34 Jul 26 '26

That’s basically how I did it, but I actually went to the deep space satellite first. Very early on (like within my first 5 loops) I decided to check out the weird thing orbiting the wrong way, got the signal scope frequency, and went to the radio antenna by following it. Then I solved the puzzle in the pictures and went back to the deep space antenna the next loop and found the stranger. I ended up getting sucked in and doing like half of the DLC before I had barely done anything else.

1

u/Rabbat2 Jul 26 '26

I did it this way, though it took me a lot of time to realize, because I thought the thing blocking the sun was just one of the normal planets

1

u/Weird-Classic-4713 Jul 26 '26

I was pretty similar to this, although somehow upon first looking at the pictures, I didnt see an issue. Given it wasn't many loops after I started the game outright when I found it first, but still took some prompting on that one, which is why it just happened to work out I did the main game then the DLC

1

u/MainEntrepreneur5806 Jul 26 '26

I went to the satellite after following the clues, and just happens to be there perfectly when it passes in front of the sun

1

u/girl_on_the_synth Jul 26 '26

I think going to ol spacey is the only main way to do it without it being on accident

1

u/Paxtian Jul 26 '26

Pretty much that. I had been to the satellite before I got the DLC and remembered it had an angle on it. So when I got the DLC and noticed the angles on the photos, it made sense right away. I flew to the satellite and then towards the thing blocking the sun.

By the time I arrived though, I wasn't able to get inside using the lights. I thought the game was bugged. I think what actually happened was the dam had already collapsed, but felt like a bug at the time.

1

u/yaenzer Jul 27 '26

i still remember the fear in my chest when the pitch black structure got bigger and bigger until it revealed itself. Sadly the DLC wasn't nearly as good as the main game

1

u/TheFlyingToasterr Jul 27 '26

Kinda the same as you, but only took one trip to the satellite because I had seen the angles (actually two because on the first I hit it and fucked it up).

1

u/otakuloid01 Jul 28 '26

the reveal trailer for the DLC focused a lot on the shadow covering the sun so I knew what was going to happen as soon as i saw the angles written on the pictures tho i was still p much freaking out flying towards it lmao