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GOTY OTY TOTY YOTY 2OTY4

Video games continue to exist, despite it all. And I continue to play them, despite being 27.

This year, I reached my video game playing zenith. Becoming one with the controller, in sync with play. My body is made of graphics. This glorious, truly enviable point in my life will not last forever. Something will tear me away from this gamer euphoria, perhaps sooner than I’m OK with. But I’m going to keep doing this shit ‘til the wheels fall off. I will persist in engaging this deeply in my favorite hobby. Because it is not only what I need, it’s what the world needs right now. A balding, middle aged WHITE GUY spilling his heart out about electronic toys. And looking this damn good doing it!!!!!

SHORTEST GAME OF THE YEAR: CELESTE 64

BEGIN PLAYING THIS VIDEO AS SOON AS YOU BEGIN READING!!

Celeste 64 is pretty cute. It was quite the surprise coming at the 6 year anniversary of the original game. I’m a sucker for retro-style 3D platformers, so I couldn’t wait to try it out. It’s got some cute character models, fun design, and has a surprising amount of depth for a little -

aaand it's over. Honestly kind of shitty that they only made the game 16 seconds long…..

KILL ME IF I BUY ANOTHER ONE OF THESE AWARD: WWE 2K24

I don’t know why I keep doing this man. I tell myself every year that I won’t buy into the hype, that I won’t waste money on purchasing another one of these fucking WWE games again. And here I am, wasting ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS on the deluxe version of WWE 2K24 + Season Pass only to reach the same disappointment again as 2K25 peers over the horizon.

Look, these wrestling games mean something to me. They were very foundational to my love of gaming and pro wrestling when I was a little boy. Hours spent creating my own wrestlers, multiple full playthroughs of the endlessly replayable story modes, and hilarious hardcore battles with my brother at WrestleMania.

But they’ve lost so much of that original spark. The story mode has been reduced to two separate modes, one that literally just recounts classic events that have already happened, and another that gives you two boring story paths which have very little room for expression and branching paths beyond your created character’s appearance. The gameplay is horrid, slow and plodding, not at all demanding of your mechanical skill. To top it off, they keep leaning every year into microtransaction fuckery, with so many alternate skins locked behind a hilariously awful amount of grinding or payment.

If I buy another one of these games again, please hit me in the back of the head with a 2x4.

LMAO OF THE YEAR: MULTIVERSUS

LMAOOOOOOOOOO

OK TIME FOR THE ACTUAL LIST OF NUMBERED VIDEO GAMES IN ORDER OF GOOD

10. Penny’s Big Breakaway

It’s a little sad what happened to Penny. First revealed at a Nintendo Direct two years ago, it would ultimately be a shadow drop this past year during another Direct (partner direct, which nobody watched) that in my view doomed the launch. That, plus a bevy of technical issues clearly brought about by the game being rushed out the door, killed off any chance of this game taking off in its early months. It flopped commercially, and its developer, Evening Star (AKA the folks that created Sonic Mania) had to lay folks off later in the year. Given that its publisher, Private Division, has torpedoed and sank to the bottom of the ocean , perhaps this option is better than the game never coming out at all.

What makes this so much more heartbreaking is that, at its core, Penny’s Big Breakaway is very fun. There’s nothing that controls quite like Penny, despite influences from various other titles. Sure, there’s rolling and slope physics like Sonic, but the overall flow of movement is very different. You need to use your yo-yo moves in addition to the slopes in the level to gain and maintain speed, while also making sure to interact with the environment to keep your combo going. In that sense, Penny feels like a neat combo (SKULL EMOJI) between a character action game like Bayonetta, where half of the fun is going through each level while keeping in constant motion, and a 3D Platformer. Sure, these controls can be a little unwieldy when you’re not used to them. But with a little bit of time, I found a peculiar rhythm with the movement that was able to carry me pleasantly to the finale sequence.

Games like this aren’t for everyone. It’s no wonder why so many bounced off of this oddity. The visuals, while stylish, certainly aren’t blowing anyone away. The technical experience still to this day leaves something to desire. And the music… well the music is another Tee Lopes slapper. But the game as a whole just fits into a certain niche. A niche I happen to fall into pretty nicely. And I wish that games didn’t have the pressure of deadlines, or shitty publishers, or like, fuckin’ money, to be able to just live in their niche and provide the best overall experience to the audience that best appreciates it. Hopefully Evening Star can bounce back to fulfill that promise in a future title.

9. Animal Well

I have FOMO with Animal Well. It’s an onion-type game. I think I referred to it as an “unraveling-type game” in a previous year-end write up. Surface level impressions are pretty strong. It’s a master class in minimalism, with gorgeous lighting and striking detail fitting into a concise, pixelated image where you play as a circle with eyes. A Metroidvania, Animal Well opens its world up to you with literal toys as its upgrades. While the frisbee item seems like it’s just there to counter the giant dog that wants to eat you, it has plenty of other uses that give it utility across the map. With no text, the world needs to convey itself to you entirely through visuals, and expects you to play around with its mechanics enough to get through to the end. But I think anyone can get to the “end” of Animal Well with a little bit of effort.

But the end of Animal Well isn’t the end. Not even the end of Animal Well is the end. There is so much to dig into, and the map leaves no wasted space. We’re getting to the next layer of the onion, where puzzle solutions get a little more abstract. You need to pay a little more attention to the striking details I mentioned earlier, no longer just being set dressing and instead being important to see every corner of the map. It’s now required to fully understand all of the intricacies of each upgrade to get through platforming challenges that seem impossible at first glance. There are upgrades that you only see in this onion, with abilities that hide itself beyond first glance. But with enough time, I got to the end of this layer, and had a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

So why do I have FOMO? Simple, there’s another layer. One with puzzles that go far beyond anything an individual can find themselves. Puzzles that are so mind-blowing in how they fit into the game, with solutions that require genuine communication with other players to solve. But of course, these puzzles all were solved by rabid fans before I even got to the end of the first layer. So all I can do is appreciate the story of how these secrets were found, unfortunately only from afar. I highly recommend the videos from FuryForged detailing the craziest puzzles within Animal Well. While I could not take part, just knowing these are in the game at all elevates Animal Well for me. Clearly so much attention to detail went into these puzzles, and that level of devotion from a player base to solve them so quickly is everything a creative person can want.

In conclusion, make sure to play this on groundhog’s day. There’s a groundhog in the game that gives you beer.

8. Pseudoregalia

In life, you are either Mario 64, or you are Mario 3D World. Pseudoregalia is Mario 64. Controls in a 3D platformer like this are everything. It actually doesn’t even matter that much what content is in the game, or even how long it is. If you create a fun character to play, then that is all that matters. That was the mentality Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of the Nintendo theme park) had when tweaking the player control in Super Mario 64 (for the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack - Nintendo 64 application). Famously, early prototypes had no level design, and simply focused on making the act of chasing a bunny fun (the bunny of course was named MIPS, named after a shitty programming language).

Pseudoregalia seems designed with this same philosophy. Sybil just has so many moves, which makes every session of play unique and fully expressive. You’ve got the long jump like in Mario Galaxy. You’ve got the ground pound jump like in Mario Odyssey. A backflip like in Mario Sunshine. And man OH MAN do you have this wall kick. I’m one of the sick FUCKS who actually likes the Mario 64 wall kick, where you need to be extremely precise with the inputs to kick off of the wall. I understand this makes the basic movement a little tough for most players, but it always feels extremely satisfying when pulling it off. Pseudo’s wall kick maintains that satisfying feel, but since you can just hold the button down to pull the move off, it is far more forgiving. But since it isn’t as easy as, like, how MOST platformers do wall jumps, they don’t restrict you as much, allowing you to chain wall kicks together to jump off of the same wall or an adjacent wall to gain ludicrous height.

This game is so good that I don’t even care that it’s sort of furry bait. I kept those pants on the whole time, thank you very much. There’s definitely some sort of story going on, but for me it was the atmosphere that really stuck out. The music combined with the sort of empty, colorless world gives this a unique feel to other platformers. It’s not very long, but I actually think that weirdly works out in its benefit. Games like this are built for speedrunning - even if you aren’t built like that, there’s still plenty of reason to utilize your moveset to just sort of mess around in every level. Being able to get somewhere you’re not supposed to, or way before you’re supposed to, just sort of appeals to me in a deeply innate way. If any of this piques your interest, give it a try. It’s only $6, Christ.

7. Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree

First of all, this counts as a game. Whatever, my list fuckers!!!

Second, this was probably my most anticipated game coming into 2024. There wasn’t a ton of competition at the start of the year. As such, there were a lot of expectations, and in many ways Erdtree fulfilled its end of the deal. The game world is just as fun to explore as the original game, with actually more of the Dark Souls 1 layered world design that really drew me to that game originally. You’ll see an area, wonder how the fuck you’re supposed to get there, and the solution is abstract and not at all what you expected. You get to a major area of the game by going into a coffin hidden by a fake wall. FromSoftware is back baby!

There’s also the usual stunning visuals on display, which I feel like I take too much for granted anymore. Like, yeah, of course the new Miyazaki game has screenshots that just look like a painting, with vistas that just stop you in your tracks sometimes. Comes with the territory. Although it does seem like these visuals, on top of the dense world geometry, are stretching the hell out of this old-ass Soulbourne engine. My game ran like absolute shit, to the point I had to disable certain cores of my CPU to get it to run better. Damn Multi-threading!!!

There’s a word though, stretching. I think this game is stretching the limits not just technologically, but in terms of its difficulty. Some of the boss fights in here are straight up fucked. And not in the Ornstein and Smough fucked where you jump in like “oh man how is a human supposed to do this!!!” but with enough time, you see the flow and beauty to the dance of the fight. No, the fights in here are fucked. With attack windows so short and boss attack strings so long that every failure feels like you happened to get greedy once and you’re paying for it. The final boss literally has an attack that makes the framerate 20fps and unless you immediately start moving back, you are just going to take a free hit.

It really feels like this isn’t the best use of this engine, and incentivizes you to basically make a build that plays the game for you. I don’t play these games with magic that creates a fucking laser right in front of you that annihilates every enemy. I play it for that dance in proper boss fights, the feeling of satisfaction in understanding their design to pass overwhelming odds. That is there in Erdtree, granted. Just in between a bunch of approximations of what that appeal may be.

6. Half-Life 2

I’ve had Half-Life 2 on my steam account for 14 years. Less than some people, but still far too long to have only beat it this year. HL2 is so foundational to modern gaming that reviewing it seems useless at this point. The Source Engine went on to completely revolutionize how games incorporate physics, how characters emote and talk to you. I’ve played and loved Valve games made in this engine for years. But I was never able to get through the progenitor, until this year.

The frustrating thing is, I know I would have loved Half Life 2 in 2011 if I had reached Ravenholm. Because this game shares a lot of DNA with the Nintendo classics that shaped my love of gaming. Because the Gravity Gun is a toy! Because the act of picking up a razor blade off of a wooden plank, and thrusting it at a zombie at a million miles an hour, watching their limbs explode across the map, is fun as shit!! The first act of Half Life 2 takes itself a little too seriously, with most of its gameplay focusing on just shooting a damn pistol. But it’s when HL2 gets a little more playful, with plants vs zombies turret segments, summoning Antlions to eat the Combine, and blowing up helicopters with a rocket launcher, that it really started clicking for me.

I originally wasn’t sure what to do on this list for Half-Life 2’s episodes, which I also played this year. Are they separate games, as originally released? Or do I consider them as part of the overall experience of Half-Life 2? Thankfully, Valve answered that question later in the year for the 20th anniversary, and confirmed that these 3 games are actually one game. So now I can tell you, in this section, that Half-Life 2 Episode 2 is actually the best Half-Life 2. It is pretty short, but has so many amazing gameplay scenarios that just keep you engaged the whole time. The fight underground against a swarm of antlions. The encounters with the hunter. The trek through White Forest on a massively upgraded 1969 Dodge Charger. And, of course, the final gameplay sequence, where you need to protect a facility from waves of Striders by using your gravity gun to pick up and chuck remote bombs at them. By far the best bit of gameplay in the series.

Episode 1 is kind of mid, with its core gameplay moment being a Sheep Herding Mini Game where you need to move NPCs through two rooms while under fire. But it's worth it to get through to Episode 2, which is a bittersweet glimpse into Valve at the height of their powers. 2007 was the year they released Episode 2. And Portal. And Team Fortress 2. A generational year from a generational developer, reaching heights they would never reach again.

5. Shadow Generations

Although I’ve written at length about Sonic in these year-end lists and on this blog in general, it has never even sniffed the top 5 section. Shadow Generations breaks that cycle.

Maybe all Sonic needs is to make Generations style games forever. Ones that take old level ideas, maybe even from games that sucked, and bring out their full potential. Shadow Generations takes Kingdom Valley, a level from a game made by Hitler, and turns it into one of the greatest 3D Sonic levels ever. With so much replayability, branching paths all over the place, with just enough variety in gameplay with the doom surf ability to keep things fresh. Every level of Shadow Generations is like this, but it’s the reverence this game even gives to terrible, putrid parts of Sonic history that brings it over the edge for me. These aren’t vapid references preying on nostalgia; they’re transformative experiences that elevate the series as a whole.

What I find interesting is that Shadow Generations and Sonic Generations, which share the billing in the hilariously titled SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS, are basically two sides of the same coin. Both are referential towards Sonic’s odd past, sure. And their style of boost Sonic gameplay is similar on the surface. But it’s in how these levels are presented that really shows their distinctions.

Take Classic City Escape from Sonic Gens, for instance. It is just optimism curled up into a ball and thrown into your face. Fun, upbeat music, coupled with Classic Sonic riding on a 90’s-ass skateboard, all while escaping this comically-destructive GUN truck that obliterates chunks of the level as you go through it. One of the most iconic levels of that game, and shows the snarky, lovable Sonic we all know and love.

Now compare that to the Mephiles boss fight from Shadow Gens. Odd comparison, sure. But this is bringing back a character from a game, again, made by Hitler. One that was very famously erased from existence both contextually within his original game and in real life as that game left a stain on the franchise. There was no need to bring him back, but they did anyway. Because they found a way to give Mephiles justice. Because he isn’t just fighting you for no reason, he’s fighting for his right to exist. Again, both within context and outside of it. He puts his best foot forward, tricking you with clones and erecting towers of purple doom juice for you to climb up. He screams in anguish once you get ahead, crying out to you to let him come back. Shadow, meanwhile, is here because Mephile is a mere bump in the road, and needs to take care of him and move on. As he does.

Both of these technically exist in the same game you can buy, and both are trying to present the Sonic series in a very different way. And both of these are awesome, and prove that despite the Sonic fanbase being very split in what they want, that it is possible to please both sides. The world could use more Shadow games, just not, like, ones where he’s packing heat?

4. Astro Bot

The game of the year, ladies & gentlemen & enbies! I was stunned when this game caused an honest to god controversy after it won GOTY. How could you hate Astro? Look at his face!!

I think more than anything, Astro failed to find a wide audience. Because the audience who want to play Astro Bot are on PlayStation. They may have been in the 2000s, when the same platformer-adjacent franchises that are littered as collectibles throughout Astro’s game, were given equal footing among Sony’s list of intellectual property. But that audience is long gone, with no intent to buy a PS5 for even the best of platforming in a given year.

What’s disappointing is I feel what Astro is on a surface level overshadows what Astro actually is at a gameplay level. Like, the fact that it is a fun loving platformer that has Crash Bandicoot and Parappa the Rapper as a collectible is kind of all people know about it. And Astro Bot is used as a weapon in a gaming culture war. It’s less expensive than God of War, and takes itself less seriously. So clearly this type of game is the one that Sony should be focusing on! All the while, the actual design of Astro Bot, like what it's actually doing beyond first impressions, gets lost in the shuffle. My theory is these people aren’t even playing Astro Bot. Probably don’t even have PlayStations! And just use it as a battering ram against their perceived plights, all just to have something to get mad about, as if there’s not enough to get mad about already.

So, what is Astro Bot actually doing? Well for starters, its use of haptic feedback is far and away the best use of it in any game I’ve ever played. The Switch has had haptics for a while, and phones have had it for even longer. But never before has it been used to create the best-feeling Gacha Ball crush in history. I use “feel” a lot to describe while I enjoy games, and a lot of that has to do with things that aren’t actually “feel” as much as they are a facsimile. But Astro Bot’s haptics literally do let me feel certain actions in a way that elevates every moment of the game. From the way different materials feel to walk on, to the way the controller rumbles when you blast yourself with the dog power up, to the chaos of punching a bunch of gems out of your way. If this game gets a PC port (which it should), the number one thing it will be missing for most is how the DualSense controller integrates with the game.

Comparisons to Mario Galaxy have already been made before, so I won’t repeat a lot of that here. All I’ll say is that when the director compared one of the final levels to “Grandmaster Galaxy,” I instantly swooned. What keeps Mario special after all these years is that in his games, they never stay on a concept too long. There’s just a constant barrage of ideas that keep the game fresh, and in some ways just barely scratch the surface of what the mechanics are capable of. Astro Bot is designed in a very similar way. There are individual abilities in here that could carry entire games if given the opportunity, and they are just a small fraction of the bigger picture.

I am jealous of the kids that get to grow up with this game as one of their first. But are any kids actually playing this? To be honest, it feels like the only people playing it are 27 year old white guys longing for days gone by. Kids are playing, what, Roblox Obbys? I guess those are platformers at least.

The only thing holding this game back for me is that this game is Mario 3D World wayyy more than it is Mario 64 (Callback!!). It’s more concerned with giving you a bunch of interesting abilities per level than it is giving you a bunch of moves right at the start. As such, the movement feels a little static in a way that, say, Pseudoregalia, does not. I don’t think I’ll be replaying Astro Bot as much as my favorite 3D platformers. But that should not take away from what it is overall, and if you ever find yourself in the position to try it, I would highly recommend. And not because it’s the glorious epic AA masterpiece that Sony should base their whole company around. But because it’s damn good, and that should be enough.

3. Half-Life Alyx

I’ve had VR for a while. About 6 years, to be exact. In that time, I’ve always had obstacles getting in the way of my experience. Underpowered PC hardware, faulty VR headsets, wires. All restricting me from fully enjoying it, beyond some quick Beat Saber sessions. This prevented me from really sinking my teeth into 2020’s Half-Life Alyx when it was released. But a lot has changed. I have a better computer. I have a better headset. And most importantly, I no longer need a wire, as the Steam Link app on Quest allows me to stream PC VR games directly to the headset over Wi-Fi. And it only stutters causing eye-melting visual hallucinations sometimes!

With this setup, I could finally play Half-Life Alyx, which I was able to do right after completing Half-Life 2 and its episodes. In some ways, Alyx is bittersweet. It is Valve punting on the most expensive and the most detailed VR game ever made. Trying to inspire developers to put in as much effort as them, with the design challenges that they were able to solve, to make VR into a viable avenue for gaming going forward. But to this day, there is nothing quite like Half-Life Alyx, and it stands alone as the preeminent VR experience that lives up to most of the medium’s potential.

The highlight, to me and most others, is the Jeff section. It’s everything Alyx does well in a single section. The concept is genius for VR, with the fear of this freakish abomination hearing you and ripping your face off made more tangible when you stand eye to eye with him (or fungus to fungus). Being able to utilize every little object in the environment to trick Jeff into going a certain direction, while also making sure not to throw anything by accident as to not spoil your own location, is made way more immersive when you’re using your actual hand and fingers to pick these objects up. Valve continues to create excellent scenarios of gameplay and in concept, with the moment of having to purposefully let him out of the room you lock him in standing out. The tension, made more real by having your entire eyes and ears surrounded by the game, can only be accomplished with this fusion of design and hardware.

Much like those old source engine games sanded off some of the edges of previous FPS attempts, Alyx is the smoothest playing VR game, with tailored design to hide the medium’s weak points and accentuate its positives. VR still isn’t as accessible as it could be, and Meta’s continued dominance over the platform still irks me. But this experience straight up could not have been done as well without Steam Link, which is a pleasant reminder that VR is still improving. It is my hope that a future game can take what Half-Life Alyx did and surpass it.

Alyx does feel a little off tonally compared to Half-Life 2, but was a pleasant reminder of the same Valve that wrote games like Portal and Team Fortress 2. I like those games, if you couldn’t tell. Jay Pinkerton just eats through quippy humor most writers struggle with. There is still some debate on if Alyx counts as a full Half-Life game, which is a little absurd to me. Not only is this as long as as thorough as Half-Life 2, it feels at home with Valve’s 2000s classics in quality and innovation. There’s a lot of rumblings on if Half-Life 3 is finally at a point where it is a real thing being worked on at Valve. If true, not only am I happy to be caught up (I beat Half-Life 1 also this year, which was fun but shows its age a bit), but I am confident that the same Valve that made Alyx could absolutely pull off a HL3 that lives up to its namesake. Not another Artifact, at least I hope.

2. Rivals of Aether II

Long have I searched for the game to replace Smash. I love Smash, more than most normal people. But I am long past the point of caring about the characters needing to be known from another video game. Or from the Warner Bros extended universe (see LMAO of the year for more info). I’m in this genre for the gameplay, because nothing quite hits the same for me as a quality platform fighter.

Rivals of Aether II has the potential to be the greatest platform fighter in history. So much of the little details in this game are just right. The speed of the characters, the responsiveness of the inputs, the slight leniency in executing advanced techniques. All leading to the game feeling like butter, one where every single character benefits from the overall strength of the mechanics.

And these characters have so much love put into their kit. My main is Orcane (don’t kill me). Just in this one character alone, there are so many techniques that are exclusive to him. His puddle not only assists in recovery, but in the range and efficacy of his kill moves. The puddle can also be turned into a small cluster of bubbles, which can trap opponents with precise timing. His traction is lower than other characters, allowing him to slide onstage with his strong attacks and shields. This even allows for the amazingly named “hydroplaning” technique by spot-dodging in the middle of your turnaround. His Nair is a damn Sonic Adventure 2 Bounce Bracelet, which can be a vicious two-hit move when combined with a technique called “hitfalling,” which lets you fall immediately after hitting your opponent with an aerial.

I could keep going, but the point is that this is all a part of one character’s kit. Every fighter in Rivals has this amount of attention put into their design, and makes learning any one of them into an immensely compelling experience to me. It does seem that this sort of over-design in some places makes Rivals a little controversial in some spaces. Every character kind of has their own sort of bullshit they can pull off, which is fine since every character has something to come back with. But that does make balance a bit of a pain, which we’ve already seen cause issues in the first few balance patches. Also, to this day, this game is not finished. They had to release it in this state because they ran out of money, so I understand why they had to do this. But it does leave issues when the game launches without, say, a proper tutorial mode to learn all the characters' techniques. At the very least, this team has a great reputation from Rivals 1 of listening to the players and making quality changes, and I do believe that in a few years, Rivals 2 will be in a good spot.

What a thing, huh? Listening to player feedback… where have I not seen that before? Smash Bros has this weird thing of being an immensely popular and fun competitive game, despite being primarily designed as a casual-first experience. It leads to a disconnect between devs and players, where balance-changes and mechanical tweaks can happen seemingly at random for no real reason. And, most damaging, an active disdain towards that competitive player base that leads to enormous restrictions and missed potential. More than anything, Rivals 2 succeeds at what it is because it is not made by Nintendo.

And hey! Because it’s not made by Nintendo, a lot of my friends were actually down to play this game with me! Competitive Smash has always been an insular passion of mine, without much room to share with pals, which takes away one of this genre’s greatest strengths - the communal, shared experience. I have had so much fun over the past few months playing this game with friends on Discord, not just as a fun casual game, but in actually seeing both them and myself improving as we continue to match up. It is my hope that, once the new player experience hopefully improves with future updates, that many more people in my life can share this experience with me. And that Workshop support lets me play as Captain Falcon.

1. Outer Wilds

OUTER WILDS SPOILERS. PLEASE GOD PLAY THIS BEFORE READING!!!!

Outer Wilds won my prestigious “GAME I'M MOST MAD AT MYSELF FOR NOT FINISHING” award last year (which has not returned this year due to my aforementioned ascent to gamer godhood). What made me so frustrated at this blunder was that I truly was the ideal candidate. Never having consumed as much as a single trailer, I went into my first playthrough blind as a bat. I explored the town in Timber Hearth for the better part of an hour, acclimating myself with the locals and learning some of the mechanics. I got the launch codes at the top of the observatory, had the wonderful Hearthian within tell me to visit the moon to get my feet wet, had my memories consumed by a strange statue, roasted a marshmallow or two, then prepared myself for takeoff. I don’t remember if I smashed directly into the Attlerock upon landing but it wouldn’t surprise me. I explored just about as much of that rock as there even was, before my screen was enveloped in a blue haze. The music should have been a dead giveaway, as the color of the sun beforehand. But those clues did not prepare me for a front row view of a frighteningly beautiful supernova.

Upon viewing the last twenty two minutes of my life back and waking up exactly where I started, gazing up at the Orbital Probe bursting in a random direction in the orbit of Giant’s Deep, I started wrapping my head around the game’s hook. You’re only given until the sun’s explosion to explore any of the planets, moons, comets, or space stations. All in search of some way to prevent the inevitable destruction of the solar system and life as you know it. And I was all in. My favorite Zelda game to this day is Majora’s Mask, and the time loop is such a significant part of the reason why. It allowed for the sequence of every day to be plotted in advance by the creators, allowing for an always-moving game world that you have infinite chances to figure out and explore. A time loop game in space, one of my earliest childhood interests, seemed like a home run.

So why did I drop it? Simple - I’m bad at reading text. In the vast majority of games that I play, reading is mostly optional. While I enjoy reading, I need to be in a certain mood to mix it with my gaming. It’s why I appreciate Metroid Prime and FromSoft’s output so much. There is plenty of context to every area, item, and enemy you come across. And there is so much more to be gained when you fully take all of that context in. But if you want to focus just on the game, you can still enjoy so much of what their worlds have to offer.

Going into Outer Wilds, I assumed much of the same. That the lines of Nomai text were window dressing. Nice to know if you want to understand the world around you, but not essential to understanding the game. That is wrong. VERY wrong. Understanding the world around you is the game. You aren’t getting much of anywhere until you start taking in the text you read, putting it into the context of the area you’re in and the greater universe in which you reside. And by the time I realized this, I felt taken off-guard, and put the game down until I was in the mood for a game like this.

It took a year and a half to get to the point where I wanted to keep playing. Until just this past December, this game remained in my head, but not top of mind. Just a persisting feeling of unease knowing that this was still in my backlog. After hearing so much positivity, and being so enamored by the premise, there was no way I could keep it there forever. And much like the Souls series, it took the shared interest of one of my friends to push me over the finish line and strike this off my list. So right before the end of the year, meters away from the finish line, Outer Wilds gets onto the list, and is here at number one.

What pushed Outer Wilds to the top of my list so suddenly was in thinking about the game’s themes. You are burdened with knowledge that seemingly nobody else in your solar system has - that this world is doomed and we’re all going to be eaten by the sun. Naturally, you start to think that the objective of Outer Wilds is to save the world. Maybe the sun station, constantly in orbit and hilariously difficult to land on, holds the keys to your salvation. You start reading about this station and how the Nomai wanted to use it to blow up the sun on purpose? Well that must be it then, that must be the answer! Getting to that station involves deep understanding of the game’s mechanics, likely first understood by falling into the black hole within Brittle Hollow, teleporting back at the White Hole Station, then using that same teleporting mechanic when realizing that those teleportation stations exist on the border of Ash Twin. Or you somehow land on it, you little goober.

But finally, you’ve made it to the station, and turning it off can hopefully stop this unforgiving cycle. Unfortunately, things aren’t so simple. This station has been off the whole time, it isn’t even doing anything up here. All it can confirm to you is that this supernova is irreversible. The sun is at the natural end of its life cycle. It seems like the universe itself is at its end. Chert on Ember Twin starts noticing that stars all throughout the system are suffering the same fate as our own. They get terrified when they realize that this is the end. I was too when I came to the same conclusion. There’s no easy way out.

All I can do is appreciate what I see in front of me. I’m in a time loop, I have as many chances to explore every inch of the Outer Wilds as I want. During my most recent playthrough, I made sure to read as much as I could find to make sense of it all. And during the process, you learn a lot about the Nomai, which lived and died far before our time. It’s bittersweet to comb through their history, often seeing their remains next to the towns they lived in and the text they wrote about them. And in so many ways, this species is more advanced than you. What they were able to observe about our universe, and what they were able to build in the place you call home. Very literal, sometimes a bit stubborn, and with passions that often went out of control. But also very caring to this solar system, one that they very much are not there on their own accord. Without their special care when mining the ore within Timber Hearth, the progenitor species of the Hearthians would not have been able to evolve, and you would not be able to follow in their footsteps that are in every part of the system.

For the record, the Hearthians that are actually alive have their own charm as well. What I most appreciate about the main group of Astronauts you find all over the Outer Wilds is that they all have their own flaws. I’ve already discussed Chert, who in addition to having an amazing name, is constantly researching about the end of the universe so much that it drives them mad. Rybieck sits strumming away on a perch of Brittle Hollow, utterly mortified to take a step out of their hidey hole. Gabbro has ended up in the same time loop as you, but feels kind of jaded about it and would rather just waste the day away. Feldspar is someone you hear about very early, and is presumed dead. But in fact, they stranded themselves deep within Dark Bramble, enjoying the peril of the area so much that they seem to care nothing about how worried they have made those around them. These flaws are very relatable, but this level of personality makes each Hearthian extremely charming, and I would often go out of my way to speak to them after finding new info about the planets.

Speaking of, the planets themselves even have a ton of personality. The Hourglass Twins can be frustrating to explore depending on the time of day, but allow for the most intricate scheduling of certain tasks of any of the planets, and the Sunless City is fascinating to explore with the sand rising below your feet. Timber Hearth, your humble home planet, has plenty to discover of its own, mostly in giving you little threads of elsewhere in the system, like the piece of Dark Bramble and your first look at the Ash Twin Project. Brittle Hollow features the most visually striking city in the game, as well as interesting platforming challenges with the falling debris and lower gravity. Giant’s Deep is intimidating to explore, with islands rising into the sky while you’re still on them. But as you learn more about the planet, it becomes extremely rewarding to go deeper into the planet’s core. And Dark Bramble, a planet that defies space and logic, littered with confusion and assholes.

Then there’s the Quantum Moon. From the start of the game, you start noticing a lavender moon that appears to be at different places depending on where you are. Soon, you realize that it’s moving every time you look. Once you learn more about the Quantum presence all throughout the Outer Wilds and the rules that govern it, it brings you closer to figuring out how to step foot on this moon. No joke, I had my “eureka” moment of how to get onto the Quantum Moon while in the shower. Where to put my camera to always have an eye on the moon, before entering in through the south pole. Of course, something that you only know about through the findings of the Nomai. So how appropriate that in this location, riding the line of reality, that you finally meet one.

After seeing the remains of the Nomai so often, and at times seeing their floating spacesuits surround an area that would become their resting place, it is surreal seeing Sollana, an actual moving Nomai within the Quantum moon. Even more so given that you’ve just seen five of her corpses elsewhere on the moon. Being able to communicate with her in real time, rather than static text, strengthened my connection with the Nomai. Which sets the scene for your ultimate objective in Outer Wilds - to fulfill their desire to reach the eye of the universe.

Upon viewing the last twenty two minutes of my life back and waking up exactly where I started, gazing up at the Orbital Probe bursting in a random direction in the orbit of Giant’s Deep, I knew what I had to do. The pieces were all in place from prior sessions. I had finally made my way into the Ash Twin Project, and promptly removed the warp core within it to accidentally kill myself and get the bad ending. I had silently floated past the dickhead Anglerfish to reach the Vessel, the ship that the Nomai crashed here on that has the ability to travel to a set of coordinates. And I had finally figured out with some guidance (thanks @skulfsvyrn) that you can actually enter in the Jellyfish surrounding the core of Giant’s Deep to get past the electric barrier, being able to visit the third module of the Orbital Probe Cannon that lay inside.

The Nomai, ever the forward-thinkers, had figured out a way to go twenty-two minutes back into the past. It’s what’s keeping you here, as well as what has allowed a single probe to be blasted in a random direction over 9 million times in search of the eye of the universe. And it found it, thousands of years after the Nomai were inexplicably killed off by a meteor strike and just in time for you to finally see it. Something about this whole idea truly delights me, that this species left this little nugget here, that they would never possibly be able to take advantage of, so inefficient that it took millions of attempts to solve. But that blunt experimentation is exactly what we need to get out of here.

With all the pieces in place, the route is clear. Blast to Ash Twin, wait for the sand to lower enough to teleport to the Ash Twin Project, remove the warp core that is in-universe responsible for the in-game time loop mechanic, and risk your life traveling within Dark Bramble and hope to God that the dipshits within don’t eat you en route to the Vessel. The song that plays during this section of the game, a beautiful leitmotif of the same song that has played before every supernova, truly makes it shine. Usually, those notes would strike fear and tension. Those feelings are still there, but infused with passion and intent. We may not be able to save this universe from its end, but we can at least do something that our forefathers would move heaven and earth to do. Visit the eye of the universe.

I won’t talk too much about the specifics of the ending from there, but I will dance around it with flowery language.

It’s hard not to think of the end of the world. Everyone deals with it in different ways. Some are too scared to leave the safety of their home. Others try to learn as much about what could kill us as possible, and often those findings just make them more anxious. More yet are just numb to it all, taking everything at its face and stare unmoving at the end. Some go very far away, finding their own little corner of the world to live their own life, leaving their communities behind. Despite these flaws, we all are forever connected with our shared existence. Our environment bonds us in that way, in how it affects our feelings and behavior. Just as the environment of the past shaped our ancestor’s behavior, and their motivations to keep on. Ultimately, we try to live through our history, fulfilling the desires of those who came before us and building upon their learnings. But more than anything, they would want us to keep living. To continue the dance of stars and planets orbiting each other, and for those living among them to persist. The ending of Outer Wilds is a reminder that we can individually play our songs within our own circumstances. But upon dire straits, we always can join our music together and harmonize. And even if it is the end for us, we can create a melody that exists for generations after, and that life goes on with our music as the backing track.

Wait fuck the autopilot is driving me right into the sun agai-

#game of the year #goty 2024 #gaming #outer wilds #rivals of aether #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #half life

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