DECEMBER 2020 PCWorld 10312.this time loop? These are the mysteries at the
heart of Outer Wilds. To solve them, you’ll
need to uncover the secrets of this
abbreviated solar system—but the catch is
that everything happens on schedule. Visit a
planet early in the cycle for instance and you
might find it covered in sand, but return later
and you’ll find structures have poked above
the surface, and tunnels have appeared
where once there were just dunes.
What I like about Outer Wilds is the
progression is in your hands. Nothing
changes. You don’t upgrade your ship or
your suit or whatever. You could “finish”
Outer Wilds on your first run just as easily as
the last—but you won’t. You’ll likely crash into
the moon, or fall off a cliff and die, or step out
of your ship without your spacesuit and
suffocate. And then you’ll wake up, and you’ll
try again, and each time you’ll learn a little
more about where you should go and what
you should do.
Most open-world games build out
thousands of miles of nothing. Outer Wilds
presents an alternative, a meticulous clockwork
where everything, every structure and every
note and every creature, has a part to play in
the larger mystery. I hope others take note.- DIVINITY:
ORIGINAL SIN 2
The first Divinity: Original Sin was good. Not
set-your-world-on-fire amazing, but with its
flexible character builds and physics system it
was a surprisingly forward-thinking CRPG (go.
pcworld.com/14gm) at a time when others