Outer Wilds, the game of cosmic exploration and campfires, is delayed into 2019

Outer Wilds—not to be confused with The Outer Worlds—is a sci-fi exploration game "about curiosity, roasting marshmallows, and unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos." It won the IGF Grand Prize in 2015, raised a bunch of money, released a playable alpha, and then sort of fell off the map until earlier this year, when developer Mobius Digital announced that it had done a deal with Annapurna Interactive, the publisher of games including What Remains of Edith Finch, Gorogoa, and Donut County, and that it would be out later this year

With just 12 days left in the year, however, Mobius acknowledged today that it's not going to happen. "In order to bring you the most polished and stable version of the game possible, we will be releasing Outer Wilds in 2019," it wrote. "The next public update will be on February 1st, and we will have a lot more to share. In the meantime, we will be hard at work getting ready to launch the game." 

The developers said that they had just finished "a final internal playthrough of the entire game" and expressed eagerness to share it with the world, but unfortunately that excitement did not translate into an updated release date: The update says only that Outer Wilds will be out sometime next year. 

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.