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Outer Wilds explores release date, arrives next week

After years in development, Outer Wilds is set to arrive next week, though backers hoping for a Steam key may be disappointed.

Ozzie Mejia

May 20, 2019 1:20 PM

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Developer Mobius Digital has been hard at work on intergalactic exploration game Outer Wilds for several years, but a release date for the game finally appears to be in sight. More than that, it looks to be much closer than anyone expected, with publisher Annapurna Interactive coming out on Monday and saying that the game will arrive next week. To celebrate, a new launch trailer was posted just a short time ago.

Outer Wilds is confirmed to arrive on Thursday, May 30 on PC and Xbox One, with the former revealed last week as an Epic Games Store timed exclusive. However, that move is presenting some controversy. Prior to the game being picked up by Annapurna Interactive, Outer Wilds was a crowdfunded effort, having raised its $125,000 goal on Fig. Backers donated with the impression that they would receive a Steam key at the time of release. Understandably, some of those backers are a little miffed, which is currently being reflected in the launch trailer's like/dislike ratio. In an effort to make good with those people, Mobius announced in a blog post that all backers would receive Epic keys on day one and still receive their Steam keys whenever Outer Wilds reaches that platform. Whether that's enough to quell the anger from that portion of consumers remains to be seen, but that may prove unlikely.

For those unaware of what Outer Wilds is about, this is the game that sees players exploring a hand-crafted solar system. However, there's a mysterious force at work that is causing time to operate on a loop. The solar system's sun goes supernova after a short period of time, causing players to return to where they started. The object is to explore as much of the solar system as possible while also getting to the bottom of the why time is behaving in this manner.

For those interested in Outer Wilds, Shacknews got a chance to explore the cosmos back in 2018. Be sure to revisit our hands-on preview.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?