Tl;dr: I played the game three/two weeks away from graduating so Final Voyage and Echoes of the Eye became synonymous with my whole degree and my life, respectively.
Now, I'm 29 years old, so existentialism isn't really a new thing for me, I do actually already see life like that. The ending wasn't much of a shock as it was for a lot of people; it was definitely nice to have a piece of media that resonates so much with my worldview, but my initial reaction was just "oh, that's cool, a new universe!". So then, why do I still think about this game daily?
So, a year ago I was two weeks away from graduating in Civil Engineering, preparing the powerpoint presentation for my masters thesis. I'll spare you the playthrough because the post vas getting very long, so I'll get straight to the point.
When Final Voyage started playing during that last run, I got it. Just like with my degree, everything was ending right now. I was so nervous to not mess this up, but I knew I wouldn't. I'd practiced the route a couple times, I'd already flown the ship tons of times. I just had to do it, yes, I wanted to keep on playing forever, but the game had to end.
The following weekend I couldn't stop listening to Final Voyage, I had the 1hr edit on loop through most of the workday. This song became synonymous with the end of my own journey through my degree, which also had been very long, confusing, but also nice. I thought about all the friends I made, all those exams I failed and tried again, never giving up.
And then I got the DLC, and that one absolutely destroyed me. The hatchling's vision is one of my favourite pieces of media ever. The Nomai theme reprised with guitar, seeing them live and die, damn man I never expected it to tie back everything together like that. So then, along with Final Voyage, I also had Echoes of the Eye on repeat. And imagining my own experiences as a slide reel.
After that there's rarely been a day where I don't think of this game. Be it listening to part of the soundtrack, or thinking about space (which always ends in Outer Wilds), or coming into this subreddit and sorting by new to help new players and discuss silly theories and things about it.
I guess I just needed to vent this out, because this little game has become a very important part of my life, and I wanted to share it with the community, even though probably no one will read this.
If you got here, thanks for reading!!