Reviews of the game are fantastic (“this is the best game I’ve ever played” - everybody) but trying to fly that damn spaceship is so hard. I also heard there’s tricky platforming later on, and if you mess up you gotta start waaaay back. I did not grow up with video games so I’m terrible at that kind of thing. I should just give up and watch a playthrough but apparently that defeats the whole point of the “incredible” story, which is the only thing I’m here for in the first place.
I guess I’m just holding out for someone to release an assist mode or something.
Agree. I hear that you basically must use controllers, but I HATE those things. So I ditched the game, couldn’t even control the spaceship on the very first planet in the training section.
Always lock on to your target planet. For example, if you’re wanting to fly around Timber Hearth (home planet) instead of jetting off to someplace else, lock on to Timber Hearth first. This lets you use the ‘match velocity’ button to bring yourself to a stop any time you start feeling out of control. Use it a lot.
Until you have a hang of the controls, the landing camera can be helpful for exploring too. It doesn’t tell you this but when you’re in the landing camera, the flying mode changes too: the ship will automatically orient itself so that the feet (and landing camera) are pointing straight down (again, make sure you’re locked on to the planet).
Now you can stop worrying about pitch and roll completely. Don’t touch them. Just use the right trigger gently to hover, go up, or let go to fall a bit. Use the left stick to strafe around the planet. If it’s small like the moon, it can kinda feel like just rotating the ball beneath you to look at the surface.
The landing cam also has a cute little altitude meter that I didn’t notice for the longest time
Edit: feel free to message me in the future if you do give it another go and have any questions, I’d love to help you experience it. I wouldn’t worry about any ‘platforming’ in the game, if something is physically very challenging it’s usually not the intended solution. It is also usually very clever about any long trips to get back to where you were.
Once you’ve selected your target planet on the map (or select the planet by looking at it and pressing L3) you can then autopilot to the planet with up on the d-pad (tells you top left of the screen). Landing is a bit tricky but you can definitely just slam the ship into the ground, as the loops are short it’s not the end of the world if it gets beat up. Pressing square or x to activate the landing camera can help too.
Autopilot will sometimes zoop you into the sun. You have to kinda get into the headspace of orbital mechanics to make it work right. That game is wondrous.
I play a fair amount of games, and picked this one up because of all the hype. I probably played 5-6 hours, but the game just did not grab me. I’ve tried 2-3 times to get into it, but it’s not clicking.
Outer Wilds
Reviews of the game are fantastic (“this is the best game I’ve ever played” - everybody) but trying to fly that damn spaceship is so hard. I also heard there’s tricky platforming later on, and if you mess up you gotta start waaaay back. I did not grow up with video games so I’m terrible at that kind of thing. I should just give up and watch a playthrough but apparently that defeats the whole point of the “incredible” story, which is the only thing I’m here for in the first place.
I guess I’m just holding out for someone to release an assist mode or something.
Same here. I just replied to another comment about it. Outer Wilds was incredibly frustrating for me and I quickly abandoned it.
Yeah, same here. I don’t disbelieve those who love it, but I just couldn’t get into it because it felt so unintuitive.
Agree. I hear that you basically must use controllers, but I HATE those things. So I ditched the game, couldn’t even control the spaceship on the very first planet in the training section.
Flying tips:
Always lock on to your target planet. For example, if you’re wanting to fly around Timber Hearth (home planet) instead of jetting off to someplace else, lock on to Timber Hearth first. This lets you use the ‘match velocity’ button to bring yourself to a stop any time you start feeling out of control. Use it a lot.
Until you have a hang of the controls, the landing camera can be helpful for exploring too. It doesn’t tell you this but when you’re in the landing camera, the flying mode changes too: the ship will automatically orient itself so that the feet (and landing camera) are pointing straight down (again, make sure you’re locked on to the planet).
Now you can stop worrying about pitch and roll completely. Don’t touch them. Just use the right trigger gently to hover, go up, or let go to fall a bit. Use the left stick to strafe around the planet. If it’s small like the moon, it can kinda feel like just rotating the ball beneath you to look at the surface.
The landing cam also has a cute little altitude meter that I didn’t notice for the longest time
Edit: feel free to message me in the future if you do give it another go and have any questions, I’d love to help you experience it. I wouldn’t worry about any ‘platforming’ in the game, if something is physically very challenging it’s usually not the intended solution. It is also usually very clever about any long trips to get back to where you were.
There is an assist mode to go from one planet to another, but I guess you’re having a hard time when navigating around the planet…
Once you’ve selected your target planet on the map (or select the planet by looking at it and pressing L3) you can then autopilot to the planet with up on the d-pad (tells you top left of the screen). Landing is a bit tricky but you can definitely just slam the ship into the ground, as the loops are short it’s not the end of the world if it gets beat up. Pressing square or x to activate the landing camera can help too.
Autopilot will sometimes zoop you into the sun. You have to kinda get into the headspace of orbital mechanics to make it work right. That game is wondrous.
That’s true, fairly easily avoided by holding the up or down trigger until you’ve got a clear line of sight to your target before engaging autopilot.
I play a fair amount of games, and picked this one up because of all the hype. I probably played 5-6 hours, but the game just did not grab me. I’ve tried 2-3 times to get into it, but it’s not clicking.