Cosmic camping adventure Outer Wilds comes out next week

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Annapurna Interactive dropped a new trailer today to announce that Outer Wilds, the intriguing sci-fi exploration camping trip that won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2015 IGF Awards (in a very early iteration, obviously) will be out on May 30. 

Outer Wilds (not to be confused with Obsidian's sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds, although I often do) strikes me as a mix of Firewatch and No Man's Sky, with elements of Kentucky Route Zero and The Long Journey Home thrown in for flavor. Which is a bit of a sideways admission that I don't know what to make of it, but I think it looks potentially very good and I'm glad that the delay out of 2018 isn't going to be too terribly long. 

One of the things I find most interesting about Outer Wilds is that it trades breadth for depth, taking place within the relatively limited confines of a "handcrafted" single solar system. That will, hopefully, go a long way toward the "places to go, nothing to do" problem that can plague big games that rely on repeating structures or procedural generation to bulk themselves out. As Phil said in his preview earlier this year, "This isn’t some vast, procedurally generated universe. The handful of handcrafted planets ensure that wherever you land, you’re sure to find something, even if it’s just a weird rock." 

Annapurna announced earlier this month that Outer Wilds will be an Epic Store exclusive at launch. 

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.