Outer Wilds - Echoes of the Eye

Echoes of the Eye is very different from Outer Wilds in it's gameplay, it's less about exploration and more about stealth and puzzle solving. It's more on rails than the base game but this serves as a nice breather to the sometimes overwhelming scale of outer wilds. At first, I thought this DLC was very sad and beautiful much like the base game, even long before finishing it. By the time it was near over, I found myself more frustrated with it than I'd like to admit. I don't do well with horror games and to me, this was a really frightening game. It was only after finishing the DLC that I could appreciate it's beauty. We as the player character have to endure many scary sections to reveal the truth and to solve all the mysteries. But I found myself wanting to just put the game down, live in the dreamland where this DLC never existed and I didn't have to do these horror parts. When I finally pushed myself to finish it, I realized that facing my fears was exactly what the DLC was all about. Without spoiling too much, the species you investigate in Echoes of the Eye is also crippled by fear, it's their desire to live in blissful ignorance that almost has dire consequences, luckily, one among them was brave enough to face the fears of his species. And when thinking back on my playthrough, I realized my journey mirrored that story, I wanted to pretend these scary parts didn't exist and just leave the DLC alone forever. But it's facing my fears that brought me to my eventual enjoyment of this beautiful addition to Outer Wilds. The epiphany of the gameplay mirroring the story brought me to tears and made me truly see that this was not a tasteless genre shift to a horror game, this was a story told through your own emotions and experience. The game uses you as a vessel to tell it's story and empathize you with the species you research, and its heartbreakingly poignant. The "slideshows" at the end are some of my favorite pieces of storytelling in the game and put the whole base game into perspective without feeling cheap. How they managed to sneak in such an amazing story in a world I deemed perfect is truly a miracle. Matches the enjoyment of the base game and then some if you ask me, perfection.

I have a love-hate relationship with this DLC. It’s a very different experience from the base gameplay of Outer Wilds, but that doesn’t mean it’s *bad*, per se. It all depends on what you’re looking for. Overall, I would recommend Echoes of the Eye, but with some reservations. [spoiler] The stealth sections in the game, while cool in theory and fun/stressful at first, get very tedious and very annoying. One of the drawbacks of this being an E10+ game is that they have to do “horror” in a very weird way that is unique, but once you realize that there really aren’t any jumpscares, it quickly doesn’t become scary. Instead, you end up just wasting a lot of time trying to get through the darkness sections. [/spoiler] This is more just due to the nature of it being a DLC, but (especially for people who have completed the base game) everything you’re going to be doing takes place in one location, which having to reset the loop and constantly fly back can get annoying (Thankfully, they don’t make the location super far away from Timber Hearth though). The story is very self contained,[spoiler](with some broader repercussions for the seemingly disappearing nature of the Eye of the Universe that the Nomai noted)[/spoiler] which isn’t necessarily a complaint, as it is told very well and with some new mechanics that are very unique, but it does mean that it’s pretty much silo-d into its own thing, except for some slight effects on the ending of the game. Taking it for what it is, I think the devs did a good job with Echoes, but there were some points where I had to seek external help (as the gameplay/story are very linear, and if you get stuck at one spot there isn’t really anywhere else to explore until you come back later). I would recommend using the “reduced frights” setting, but ONLY after [spoiler] you make it through one of the darkness sections fully[/spoiler] as to get the full, intended dev experience. Final rating: 7.5-8/10. A good dlc, but overshadowed by HOW FREAKING GOOD the base game is. For players who just want more Outer Wilds, but I wouldn’t say you miss anything critical here.

The DLC is a fun addition to the game, but I was personally put off by some of the horror/stealth elements. Thankfully majority of these sections could be SKIPPED with clever puzzle solving, and if too frustrating there is a "Reduced Frights" option for those who dread that kind of thing. I know I did, and doing so allowed me to finish the game (no shame in that). In addition, a lot of the "secret gimmicks" within the DLC I was able to stumble upon by accident, but I don't think doing such really detracted from the experience. Overall, Outer Wilds is still a wonderful game. The DLC was a bit iffy on execution, but it is still the same familiar "explore - solve - apply - explore" gameplay loop that I loved the base game for. Do give it a try.