The Soroborean clock tower puzzle
I Tested the Harmattan Clock Tower 120 Times — and I Think I Figured Out How the Color "Cycle" Works
I've been experimenting with the Clock Tower puzzle in Outward: The Soroboreans and wanted to test something I couldn't find clearly documented: are the Clock Tower colors actually random, or does killing the corresponding Arcane Elemental remove that color from the available pool?
So I decided to stop guessing and collect some data.
The initial observation
Before I started recording samples, I had already killed the Purple Arcane Elemental.
I then recorded 24 Clock Tower results.
Initial 24-sample baseline
- 🔵 Blue: 7
- 🔴 Red: 6
- 🟡 Yellow: 6
- 🟢 Green: 4
- 🟣 Purple: 0
- Blank: 0
Purple never appeared during those 24 observations.
That gave me the idea to test whether killing an elemental actually removes its corresponding color from the Clock Tower's available results.
Experiment #2 — Yellow
I killed the Yellow Arcane Elemental and then recorded another 24 Clock Tower samples.
Results
- 🔵 Blue: 9
- 🔴 Red: 8
- 🟢 Green: 2
- 🟡 Yellow: 0
- 🟣 Purple: 0
- Blank: 5
Yellow appeared 0 times in 24 samples.
Experiment #3 — Red
Next, I killed the Red Arcane Elemental.
I then recorded another 24 samples.
Results
- 🔵 Blue: 8
- 🟢 Green: 6
- 🔴 Red: 0
- 🟡 Yellow: 0
- 🟣 Purple: 0
- Blank: 10
Again, the color corresponding to the elemental I had killed appeared 0 times in 24 samples.
Experiment #4 — Green
Next, I killed the Green Arcane Elemental and ran another 24 samples.
Results
- 🔵 Blue: 15
- 🟢 Green: 0
- 🔴 Red: 0
- 🟡 Yellow: 0
- 🟣 Purple: 0
- Blank: 9
Once again, the killed color appeared 0/24 times.
At this point, three separately tested colors had produced the same result.
The final test
At this point the only remaining color was Blue.
I killed the Blue Arcane Elemental.
After advancing the world state, the Clock Tower eventually turned white, confirming the completed puzzle state.
The game then crashed when I reached Duvernay Plaza, but fortunately the completed white Clock Tower state survived the reload.
I returned to the plaza and found the five final Arcane Elementals.
They proceeded to absolutely murder me once before I came back and killed them all. 😂
Final loot
The five elementals dropped:
- 🔴 Fire particle: 1
- 🔵 Frost particle: 1
- 🟢 Decay particle: 1
- 🟡 Lightning particle: 1
- 🟣 Ethereal particle: 2
Total: 6 particles, including 2 Ethereal particles.
My current hypothesis
Based on the observations, I don't think the Clock Tower is simply cycling through all five colors in a fixed sequence.
Instead, my working hypothesis is:
«The Clock Tower selects from a pool of available elemental colors, and killing the corresponding Arcane Elemental removes that color from the pool.»
The evidence I collected:
Elemental killed| Subsequent 24 samples 🟣 Purple| 0/24 Purple 🟡 Yellow| 0/24 Yellow 🔴 Red| 0/24 Red 🟢 Green| 0/24 Green
After all five elementals were killed, the Clock Tower became white and spawned the final five elementals at Duvernay Plaza.
One thing I still don't understand
The blank results became increasingly common as more colors were removed:
- Yellow test: 5 blanks
- Red test: 10 blanks
- Green test: 9 blanks
I don't know whether those blanks represent an unavailable/invalid roll, a visual state, or some other part of the Clock Tower's mechanics.
So I'm not claiming the blanks are explained yet.
But the repeated 0/24 result for every color we deliberately removed seems pretty compelling.
And yes, I counted them:
5 × 24 = 120 Clock Tower samples.
I may have spent an unreasonable amount of time staring at that damn tower, but at least I got two Ethereal particles out of it.