The Hero's Journey(s) in Outer Wilds

Reading music: Timber Hearth - Outer Wilds OST

Whenever we think of the Hero’s or Heroine’s Journey, it's usually in the context of literature and film, like Siddhartha and Legally Blonde. However, many video games also tell stories that can be considered Heros’ and Heroines’ Journeys. This fact might seem obvious at first because most games have a main character that follows a linear story, so of course games can tell a Journey, but there are some games where the Journey is directly experienced by the player. Not through the main character, but by the player themselves. Major spoilers follow for Outer Wilds, a game which can only be truly experienced once.

I believe one of these games is Outer Wilds. Outer Wilds takes place in an alien solar system who's only living inhabitants are the Hearthians, or so it would seem. The player character is a young Hearthian, who is about to embark on their first mission to space in the Hearthian space program. The space program is old, and many of its voyagers have set up semi-permanent camps on different planets, but the player soon discovers that the Hearthians have only uncovered a fraction of the star system’s secrets. The gimmick of Outer Wilds is that the sun explodes in a violent supernova twenty-two minutes after the game starts, wiping out every single planet and its inhabitants, including the player. Except that the player wakes up at a campfire with the sun its planets having reset to their pre-supernova state. Every time the player wakes up, they have twenty-two minutes to explore and learn everything they can about the star system before the next supernova. Fortunately, the player's ship log never resets, and always displays already-discovered secrets and hints to the next ones.

Each twenty-two minute loop is a Call to Adventure, kicking off an infinite cycle of miniature Journeys, only ending on the game’s final loop. Every time the player wakes up, they always see a strange structure exploding above a large green planet. This moment is usually every player’s first Call, where they try to find what the cause of that explosion was. Every miniature Journey ends prematurely, as the player will be engulfed in the supernova before they can reach the Return stage of the Journey. However, the player will wake up and consult their ship log for a new Call again and again until they finally have all the knowledge they need to finish their Journey.

Sometimes, the player will be met with a seemingly insurmountable task that causes them to die before the supernova even happens, ending their Journey early and sending them back to the beginning to repeat the process over and over again. There are many examples of these tasks, like trying to land on a rapidly orbiting space station rapidly above a sun which threatens to pull the player to a fiery death if not careful, or desperately trying to navigate the maze-like caves of an Ember Twin as they slowly fill with sand and the space to walk and breathe gets smaller and smaller. These near impossible tasks are the Roads of Trials of Outer Wilds, which after many failed attempts will proceed to the player obtaining their miniature Ultimate Boon. A feeling of great elation and relief follows, just before they realize that they spent too much tim-

There is an Ultimate Ultimate Boon in Outer Wilds, and there is a Return stage for the player’s Journey which they will not experience until the end of the game. The best way to play Outer Wilds is completely blind, without knowledge of supernovae and loops. As said before, Outer Wilds can only be truly experienced once, and many reviewers online state that they wish they could go back without any memory of it to relive it all over again. Despite me spoiling a part of the mystery, there is much more to be discovered, and I believe that everyone should start their own Journey in the Wilds.