Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds
Developer(s)	Mobius Digital
Publisher(s)	Annapurna Interactive
Director(s)	Alex Beachum
Producer(s)	Masi Oka Loan Verneau
Designer(s)	Alex Beachum Loan Verneau
Programmer(s)	Logan ver Hoef Jeffrey Yu
Artist(s)	Wesley Martin
Writer(s)	Kelsey Beachum
Composer(s)	Andrew Prahlow
Platform(s)	Windows Xbox One PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X/S Nintendo Switch
Release	May 28, 2019 Windows, Xbox One May 28, 2019 PS4 October 15, 2019 PS5, Xbox Series X/S September 15, 2022 Nintendo Switch December 7, 2023
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Outer Wilds is a 2019 action-adventure video game developed by Mobius Digital and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game follows the player character as they explore a planetary system stuck in a 22-minute time loop that resets after the sun goes supernova and destroys the system. Through repeated attempts they investigate the alien ruins of the Nomai to discover their history and the cause of the time loop.

The game began development in 2012 as director Alex Beachum's master's thesis. He was inspired to create a game focused on exploration in which the player character was not the center of the game world. Beachum led a small team in building the game, first as an independent project, then as a commercial game at Mobius after the project won the Excellence in Design and Seumas McNally Grand Prize awards at the 2015 Independent Games Festival. Annapurna joined the project as the publisher in 2015 and funded its expansion beyond a student project.

Outer Wilds was released for Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 in 2019, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2022, and for Nintendo Switch in 2023. An expansion which explores further themes in a new location in the planetary system, Echoes of the Eye, was begun in 2019 and released for the same platforms in 2021. Outer Wilds was positively received upon release, with most critics acclaiming its design and some criticising the uneven difficulty of gameplay and pursuing the game's mysteries. Echoes of the Eye was also positively received, with some criticism for its introduction of horror elements. Outer Wilds was featured in several game of the year lists for 2019 as well as game of the decade lists, and won in multiple categories at award shows, including the Best Game award at the 16th British Academy Games Awards.