Like Night and Day – ‘Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye’ and its Frightening Disparity
I reviewed the base Outer Wilds game a little over a year ago when it came out on Steam, and I found the process of solving the riddles of the solar system to be absolutely fantastic despite its clunky mechanics. With Echoes of the Eye on the horizon, I was excited to step back into the Outer Wilds’ worlds and see what more could be added, both in terms of gameplay and narrative. Now that I’m on the other side, I’m left with a conflicted opinion. The separation between the good and bad parts of Echoes of the Eye is like night and day, leaving me with a feeling of dissatisfaction.
Awe-Inspiring Landscapes
Upon reaching the new area proper, I was greeted by a bright and colorful landscape as I rode down a flowing river. Looking up and around me, I saw that I was on the inside of a large ring, with multiple huts scattered throughout as points of interest. This scene instantly reminded me of a smaller-scaled Halo ring, albeit fully explorable.
Every world in the base Outer Wilds does something special with its central time loop, whether it’s the tornadoes of Giant’s Deep or the sandy nature of the Ash Twins. The gimmick of Echoes of the Eye’s new area involves the flowing water being held back by a dam. After enough time has passed, the dam breaks, flooding most of the ring while destroying many of the buildings. It looks neat visually to see this all happen in real time and has a neat gameplay effect of changing which areas are accessible.
Throughout the ring are projector slides detailing the tribulations of an ancient alien race that found the eye of the universe, the primary objective of the base game. This provides some great narrative worldbuilding, adding yet another solar system and some backstory into the history of the eye itself. I enjoyed discovering how these slides fit into the bigger picture of why this world exists and how the information on these slides could help me solve the mysteries hidden deeper within.
Fumbling in the Dark
A lot of the minor puzzles in Echoes of the Eye rely on the usage of light, including opening doors and operating rafts. This reliance can become a slight nuisance when holding a lantern, but otherwise felt like a neat addition to everything that came before in Outer Wilds. Unfortunately, those hidden mysteries I mentioned were covered in a literal shroud of darkness, and light was a point of misery.
The latter half of Echoes of the Eye takes place within a dark dreamscape. Most of the usual mechanics are gone, such as the ever-useful jetpack, replaced only with a strange lantern that can be concealed or focused into a beam. Throughout this alternate reality are members of the alien race, who upon finding me would wake me from the dream in a sort of jumpscare moment. I personally don’t do well with horror (the anglerfish from Dark Bramble were bad enough) and was glad to have an accessibility option of turning down the horror elements of these sections, but this setting didn’t have as much of an impact as I would have liked.
Light, being a neat mechanic towards solving puzzles in the ring world, is turned against me in the darkness. I need light to see where I’m going, but using light at all makes it easier for someone to notice me. With the light having been turned against me, I decided to take my time, bringing Outer Wilds to an unfun slog. My first time in the darkness, I slowly crept my way around for a good 15 minutes before the time loop suddenly hit me. I died in this sequence because, by nature of being in a dream, there’s no longer any indication of the loop actually occurring – none of the usual music and no sun in the sky to look towards. Thus these dreamscapes are not just stealth sections without much light, but simultaneously on an invisible timer.
These dark areas are a large blemish on what would have otherwise been a fantastic DLC addition to Outer Wilds. I could maybe forgive it if these parts were a small part of the overall experience, but they make up a huge chunk and are vital to understanding the core puzzles present throughout Echoes of the Eye. I wish I didn’t feel this way considering how fondly I think back on Outer Wilds; it’s just unfortunate that such a large focus was put on a miserable part of the experience.
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