Outer Wilds is an exploration adventure/camping trip across strange worlds orbiting a star that goes supernova every 20 minutes. It's weird, yes, but it's also very good: "Charming and inventive," Phil said in his 89/100 review, and hiding "a cleverly unfolding mystery." It launched as a timed exclusive on the Epic Games Store in May 2019 with a promise of "additional platforms coming later," and now it's official: Outer Wilds will go live on Steam on June 18.
The Steam listing makes no mention of any notable upgrades or additions to the original release, but the Steam version will support achievements, which is nice, and also supports Remote Play on TVs, which means it should work well through Steam's streaming service.
Multiple backers of the crowdfunding campaign on Fig expressed disappointment (or worse) last year when developer Mobius Digital announced that Outer Wilds would launch as an Epic Games Store exclusive. Shortly after that, however, Mobius said that everyone who backed the game on PC would be given both an Epic key and a Steam key when the game became available on each platform. The year-long wait may have been frustrating for die-hard storefront supporters, but it's still a generous move on the part of the developer.
In case the accolades trailer above wasn't sufficiently clear, or the fact that we selected it as the Best Adventure of 2019, Outer Wilds is pretty great. As the newest member of the strangely slapdash Outer Wilds Ventures, you'll pilot a rickety spaceship to explore a variety of tiny planets in a very small solar system that also happens to be trapped in a time loop. The loop changes the system a little bit each time it resets, but there's no pressure—you can poke around, see what's what, enjoy the scenery, solve some puzzles, listen to some music, and maybe unwrap the mystery of the infinite loop if you feel like it.
Outer Wilds on Steam is currently available for wishlisting. There's no pricing information as of yet, but it's reasonable to assume that, allowing for a launch sale, the $25 cost on the Epic Store will hold.
