The Music of The Outer Wilds (Spoiler Free)

One of the things that sticks out the most to me in terms of the timeloop genre is the superimposition of experience. You play through the loop, learn some things, try some things, and then the loop resets and you do it all over again. What separates these from the arcade-y GAME OVER Try Again? screens is the narrative knowledge of the time loop. I’d argue that very few players feel emotional resonance in someone like Mario, who is largely voiceless and functions as an extension of the player’s will. As opposed to characters in time loop games, who are aware of the same cyclical pattern that you are, and derive some sort of goal from it. In many ways, your goal is their goal, and vice versa. They too, have to die and go through the process of replaying the loop again and again.

In The Outer Wilds, your character is a Hearthian (the planet Timber Hearth is the equivalent of Earth) who is about to go on their first journey into space. You are a part of the Outer Wilds Venture Company, with five other members who are scattered about the solar system doing research. Each of them are alone on their planet, alone in their work, but one thing unites them: their music. Each of them plays the Travelers theme with a different instrument. Alone, it is just one instrument playing a few measures over and over, but the superimposition of them creates a beautiful melody. Just as your experience in a timeloop is about stacking your knowledge from different loops, the music within the game is created by stacking these different instruments to make a complete song.

_{Please play The Outer Wilds.}