The world is full of mystery: everything we think we know about the universe is only ever consistent within the small frame of reference we appear to inhabit. Our understanding of physics is a great example of this, the smaller or larger we go, the more our understanding of the world as we know it begins to make less and less sense; To understand subatomic particles we invented quantum physics under very reluctant admission of the uncertainty principle. Furthermore, our relative understanding of reality fails to comprehend the very real concepts of infinity, or anything unimaginably massive in general. We still don't have a complete understanding of black holes, for example. The more you learn about the sciences, the more you realize the idea that we will ever truly know anything in its entirety dissolves into a laughable romance.
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And yet, none of this has ever stopped us from trying. Since our very inception humanity has always fought fiercely to conquer the challenges it is faced with. Initially this was predators, then it was the elements, then it was ourselves. Even now as times in the west have become increasingly peaceful, threats have not subsided, instead they have evolved alongside us and become increasingly immaterial, untouchable. The question of what reality exactly is has always and will always haunt us. Even the most religious among society are plagued by questions about their creators and personal lives. Even they inevitably face the primal, existential anxiety that underlies our attempt to make sense of our consciousness.
Outer Wilds is a space exploration video game released in 2020. Unlike the vast, vast majority of other video games, especially of the spacefaring variety, it has no "real" gameplay loop. That is to say there isn't exactly a core objective in the way that chess has checkmate, or Super Mario has the flagpole. You do not have to fight for your survival, there are no space pirates, no lightsaber battles and no gorgeous women to chase after. The world of Outer Wilds is completely static and deterministic, and after exactly twenty two minutes of exploring it, the sun will explode, consuming the entire galaxy in a bright blue deafening supernova. Despite this you wake up, only to realize that you are trapped in a time loop with no understanding of why. You are forced to see that the world is doomed to end at the beginning of your life, and worse yet, not even death is an escape from this reality for you.
You are made to understand that everything you thought you might accomplish within your lifespan has been stripped away from you. You only have twenty two minutes, and yet, you have all the time in the world. Of course, Outer Wilds does have an objective, for us anyway. The universe of Outer Wilds was inhabited by an alien race known as the Nomai some two-hundred-million years ago, and lucky for the protagonist, they have a spaceship, and a handy device that allows them to translate their language instantaneously. With this, the player sets out on a journey to learn as much as they can about them, and slowly they start piecing together what they can about the endeavors of the Nomai, and their relation to the time loop conundrum.
(This is the point in this article in which I would encourage you to play the game for yourself if any of this interests you. It's a wonderful experience.)
The Nomai were a highly technologically advanced species devoted to the pursuit of knowledge. Anything they could learn, they eventually would. This led them to developing all kinds of marvelous technology. After receiving an unknown signal from a far away galaxy, they warped to the Hearthian solar system, its presumed origin point, and began searching for the source, which they called "the Eye of the Universe." From that point onward, all of their efforts would be directed towards reaching this point in space, but despite their technology, they never managed to do so.
Or did they? The question of what the Nomai were up to, and subsequently what this "Eye of the Universe" is, paired with an apocalyptic time loop is what drives the protagonist and the player to keep playing the game. As you explore more and more of the universe, you understand more and more of what transpired all those years ago, and get a clearer picture of where you stand in the matter, and eventually, (spoilers) you find the answers that they were unable to.
There are many wonderful video essays and articles on the subject of Outer Wilds, it's a beloved title for a reason, but the primary subject I want to tackle in this one is the subject of knowledge and its relationship to enlightenment. In game, the Eye of the Universe (which from now on I will be referring to as just "the Eye" for convenience) and its cultural significance to the Nomai has a lot of symbolism behind it. As with all fiction, this symbolism is inseparable from our own culture. The Nomai are an analogy for humanity, the protagonist and their species are also an analogy for humanity, differing only in direction and capacity. So what is the Eye?
I would argue that the Eye is an analogy (more functional than intentional) for enlightenment. In less vague and weighty words, it is the unsurpassed complete perfection of wisdom and understanding. This is on the surface a little strange, since the vast majority of humanity recognizes this to be literally impossible, and the Eye (spoilers) is a real visitable location in game. Yet, when you examine the Nomai literature presented to the player over the course of Outer Wilds, the Eye is far more significant to the Nomai than just a place you can visit. Shrines devoted to worshipping the Eye are present, as are engravings and pilgrimages to sites that bear some level of relationship to it. In this sense, to the Nomai and by proxy the player, the Eye is not a place but a goal; its nature is so incomprehensible and counter to the rest of reality that the default assumption even the most intelligent and advanced of civilizations turn to is that it bears massive significance to the very nature of existence itself, and is therefore a profound object of worship.
The pursuit of absolute esoteric knowledge and the final answer to our questions, the pursuit of enlightenment, is an ambition that has been a vital part of society for at least as long as religion has existed, which is to say a very damn long time! Every religion is centered in some way or another around comprehending the incomprehensible, or at least muddying its incomprehensibility. Promises of eternal life and absolute good have done a great deal to soothe anxious society, and ease our suffering. They have allowed us to recenter our focus onto more immediate questions, like how we should feed our children or how we need to go about curing contemporary diseases. But they haven't really answered the fundamental question: "Why are we here?"
It always intrigued me that a civilization as intelligent and advanced as the Nomai would worship something that they know nothing about. What makes one signal so significant as to blindly warp your entire civilization into an unknown star system, risking devastation? A third of the Vessel's (the ship the Nomai used to travel to the Hearthian system) died on arrival due to insufficient oxygen. What about this question was so valuable? In our society phenomena like the Eye signal would far more likely be brushed off as random, incomprehensible deep space anomalies that we can't yet understand. But perhaps that's the difference between humans and the Nomai.
The interpretation that I like to run with is that the Nomai were able to discern almost literally everything about the universe. They'd survived for a frankly ridiculously long amount of time with science fiction technology, so it's not an entirely alien idea that a human-like civilization, given hundreds of thousands of years of research, without hunger or war or discord, might be able to attain such a near-perfection of knowledge. Even still, they clearly knew that on some level they were missing something, and perhaps that's why something as random and unfamiliar as the signal was able to become such an object of worship. Even when we think we know everything, there's always something that will pop up to keep us guessing.
I think there's something to be said about the fact that the Eye was only ever reached at the very end of the universe's lifespan, and once it finally is reached, we realize that it is actually the end itself, both to the game, and the universe it takes part in. Once you finally reach it, beyond storms and constant quantum fluctuations, your character enters a dream-like state where they witness the universe collapse, star by star. You sit there in the ancient glade, watching the supernovas embracing the end. Not because you want to die, but because that's just how it is, and it's beautiful. The beauty is one with the end- the two are not separate, and I think that's a large part of what we take away from the game.
Outer Wilds is an incredibly emotional experience, not because you're attached to any particular character or the events that unfold, but because over the course of your time playing it, you cultivate a meaningful appreciation for every little detail of the universe you've spent your twenty something hours exploring. Even the hostile and chaotic planets of Giant's Deep or Dark Bramble have a pervading sense of awe and mystery about them: there's more to explore here. Eventually though, the game comes to an end, and you reach the eye of the universe. The world ends, and you watch the credits roll. It's over, and that's okay.
There's something to be said about the meaning each player derives from the game. Across everyone I've talked to about it and the essays I've read on it, the consensus is pretty clear; everyone's experience is different, but it's always beautiful. The game only lasts twenty two minutes at maximum. Your final loop may actually be closer to ten or fifteen minutes of playtime, and you never really did any of the cool space stuff like racing spaceships or having epic laser duels or leading a revolution, you just were; you were there and engaged in the wonder of the universe and its history. That, more than anything, is the core of Outer Wilds. As a great video essay by the YouTuber HeavyEyed put it: "The universe is a beautiful place, and I am no longer afraid to die."
I think there's poetry in that the end of the game, the Eye and the attainment of enlightenment are intertwined with the awe of the end and the beauty contained within it. The most wonderful and meaningful moments in our lives usually aren't when we're having sex, fulfilling some great desire, or eating nice food. Those things are pretty great, but we often mistake the forest for the trees. The times I've felt truly satisfied with my life never involved any resolution of longing. Instead they're always comprised of the seconds, minutes, or hours of appreciation I wordlessly spared for the sunsets, the nighttime cityscapes, and the grass of the world I inhabit. I feel like we're happiest when we just see the world as it is, and allow ourselves to be immersed in its unending appeal.
