It’s a surprise for sure, but a welcome one. Annapurna Interactive and Mobius Digital Games’ latest project, Outer Wilds, gets a release date that’s certainly earlier than what anybody who is invested in the game expected.
Outer Wilds is set to be released on the Xbox One and the PC on May 30, which is next week. Publisher Annapurna Interactive has released a launch trailer for the title, which showcases what the game is all about.
It was only a few weeks ago that I found out about this game, which had its first gameplay walkthrough courtesy of IGN. The footage on display was really promising: it’s No Man’s Sky on a smaller scale, and featuring a better premise. You play as an unnamed character stuck in a time loop. Every 20 minutes, the solar system you are in will be destroyed via a supernova from the system’s sun. Your mission is to figure out the mystery behind this, while traversing the planets aboard your small spaceship. Every time you die, or the 20-minute mark is reached, the world resets. However, you get to keep all the previous knowledge you had before the inevitable happens. Think Edge of Tomorrow mechanics, where each encounter is supposed to make you better overall, until finally you can just waltz in and solve the mystery.
Despite the overall feel-good nature of the game, it has recently been embroiled in controversy. Following a previous backer promise for a release on PC through Steam, Annapurna and Mobius backtracked and took the Epic Games Store exclusivity deal. While the terms for this are unknown as of yet, we do know that this means that the game will only be available to purchase and play on the Epic Games launcher for the foreseeable future on the PC.
Naturally, some of the backers on the game's Fig page were angry, with some attributing the changed release plan to publisher greed, taking a title already being advertised on Steam to Epic, which will now get exclusive distribution for a set amount of time. Basically, everyone who wanted to play it on Steam for a myriad of reasons are out of luck, with a release date for them nowhere to be seen.
In any case, it will be interesting to see if this game can live up to its potential. While it could be a great title indeed, it’s hard not to feel for the backers who wanted it on Steam, which in some cases were counting on the launcher’s Linux support, which Epic has yet to provide.
Outer Wilds is set to be release on the Xbox One and PC on May 30.
