Outer Wilds — Why do people like this game??
I cannot fathom what this sub likes about this game. Is calling this game a puzzle game some kind of inside joke this community has? Combo that with tell people to go in blind so that they actually fall for it? I'm like 5 hours in and I haven't encountered literally anything that would make me think this is anything else other than an exploration game. I certainly haven't encountered anything that resembles a puzzle or even a clue. The closes thing to a puzzle I've found is a door that required you to move a ball along a totally straight track to open it (okay fine, it the track had one right angle). The game doesn't even seem to have an objective. The only objective I see is 'make sense of all the lore and figure out the story the game is trying to tell you about some dead aliens'. If that's the case, I have found several clues in the form of old alien writing, but nothing interconnected enough that I could even start to mull things over in my head; it all seems like pointless fluff. And that's the real kicker. A puzzle game should provide you things to think about, and the outer wilds just hasn't. Combine that with some ridiculously challenging controls that make the exploration frustrating rather than exciting, and I'm left wondering if I'm playing the same game as everyone else. What am I missing here?
Edit: Checked steam and fixed time played to be more accurate. It certainly felt like a lot longer, probably because of how much of a slog I'm finding this game.
Edit2: thanks everyone. I’ve had so much trouble flying the ship that I’ve just been trying to land in the easiest spots, and on the rare occasions I manage to do so without blowing up I was just exploring whatever was nearby. The advice about really following the ship log helps, but it’s not particularly useful if I can’t land anywhere near where I need to be. I’ll give it another shot and see if my mind changes