I probably should have made this way sooner but better late than never. This video is outdated because I do not fully believe in the ideas I presented here, this video was made around a day after I beat the game. This doesn't mean the ideas are invalid though. The ending seems to be made with the intent to get people speculating. I'd also like to address how I called the galaxies universes. At the time I had the idea that the galaxies were universes because of the large glowing light in the center. I realized that just simply wasn't true and intended to refer to them as galaxies but I ended up calling them universes and I honestly can't believe I didn't notice during recording or during editing. So I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
Still a great video. I didn't understand everything because I have almost no clue about quantum physics but with reading comments I understood more. I today finished the game and it was amazing.
But wait!!!! If you watch the 10-Minute speedrun of OuterWilds that IGN did you can hear one of the Devs calling those Universes! You were totally right!
btw where is a cool thing where before you go into the storm if you shot your scout it gets shown as none existing. and then at the part that 14 billions years later your scout flys across the sky.
Haven't I watched this before? Haven't I commented on this before? My brain is like the sun in this game. My head has gone supernova so many times throughout my journey in this game.
Those are galaxies, not whole Universes. It shows the stars going out, and then your home galaxy going out. And then you find yourself back home on Timber Hearth in swarm of galaxies, your home universe. All the galaxies of your home universe, as stated earlier in the game, are going out with the oncoming Heat Death of the Universe. You, within quantum reality, are now the only thing left. Only you are here in this place. The last bonfire in the endless night. The last hope against the timeless nothingness of Heat Death. There is a conjecture that within that timeless nothingness of the far distant future, a random quantum fluctuation could unleash a torrent of energy, effetely a new Big Bang. That is where we are. Except now there is a conscious observer who is able to shape this event into something...into a new Universe that would be seeded with the collapsed possibilities of their interactions, experiences, thoughts, feelings, etc. A very poetic moment. The Universe born in Music.
art imitates life and life imitates art. as above so below. you have to focus, focus to have you. i get by with a little help from my friends who are observing a language beyond words expressing the metapoint of it all you need is love.
No, they're whole universes. Even when you're back at the observatory, and you press the map on the top floor, you zoom out of the Galaxy and out and out until there's a particular shape that explodes, that "particular shape" IS what is riddled throughout the hearthean environment you find yourself falling onto moments after.
The observer was able to shape the universe into one formed from his own memories, which might be the entire reason that specific Hearthean is stuck in an endless loop of dying, drifting through space, and restarting the universe. All of which is technically happening at the same time, but in different possibilities, all of which you get to see before the “big bang” ending. You, the player, are causing your past and future selves to experience the same day, from neither an act of mercy nor cruelty. At that point, after experiencing everything there is to explore in the Outer Wilds, you learn the meaning of life; That everything is finite, and there is an ending for everyone, and everything. When everything ceases to exist, everything starts anew. Galaxies form, stars light up, and planets become hosts to the new generation of sentient beings. And when the worlds have served their true purpose, and the stars start to fade, and galaxies fizzle out, a single being will enter the eye of the universe and cause the creation of the next reality, starting the cycle all over again.
@@8bitbulldog obviously a joke. Non of the things in the game have anything to do with real quantum mechanics and honestly I doubt you really understand it "fully" either. Heck no one does. "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." -- Richard Feyman. The collapse of superposition has actually nothing to do with a conscious observer, this fully pop-science makeup.
PS: But it's just a game, the game universe has it's own laws and it's own quantum physics, that are not like ours as so much as scales don't match or their white hole/black hole pair would be a perpetum mobile too (just place the white hole above the black hole, free infinite energy :-) etc. I guess best don't other think it with real physics or be too arrogant to claim to "fully understand them" when best experts on this topics say, they are in fact so weird...
@@georgelionon9050 yeah it pretty much just extrapolates the rules from the double-slit experiment people learn about during GCSEs. Which I think is the right call tbh, if yoy try and geg any more complicated than that it stops being fun and interesting for all but a very small group of people
You see your home in the Eye because you as the conscious observer have started collapsing the infinite possibilities of quantum reality into an image of your own mind.
One of the only texts in the museum in the Eye that remains unchanged from the original version is the papers that mention a very real world version of the birth of the universe, its expansion and its entropy. This seems very intentional as the overarching theme of the game, you and the other explorers "getting the band back together" represent all energy and matter in the universe that exploded to create it all and drifted apart, but the simple things like camp fire, roasting marshmallows, and music can bring people close together and give birth to another explosion of infinite more possibility.
And as you talk to all of them you realize they make a song as you combine the MUSIC together (I think it the main theme of outer wilds?) And then the big bang and life
I had a dream, years, ago, that was surprisingly similar to the ending of Outer Wilds. It involved being in a space outside of time, where one can play with the stars as if they were bright little marble balls, and interact with multiple timelines of their lives as an observer. Everyone was there to accept death and fade away, but I couldn't take it, so I kept picking random stuff from my past and throwing it around, until eventually I made a melody with it and then everyone was slowly captivated and joined in. We turned the somber death of everything into a moment of hope and our combined thoughts brought a new Universe into being.
My personal interpretation is that the Eye of the Universe is a sentient, cosmic test that rewards whoever is able to reach it with the ability to influence the next version of the universe. It calls out to any intelligent species that has the chance to reach it, and then deliberately makes itself difficult to find to see who is 'worthy' of being involved in the next universe's creation. The fact that the Eye is older than the universe means that this isn't the first time this has happened, and all the weirdness like the physics of Dark Bramble seeds was due to the influence of the previous 'winner'. Everyone who was making music as they built the new universe was summoned because the Eye deemed them worthy of participation, as they were alive and able to reach outer space. Only Hearthians who became astronauts and the last living Nomai on the Quantum Moon were 'invited', after contact with the protagonist, who has a special privilege after entering the Eye.
The eye can generate universe with or without a sentient being, else how was created the first universe ? So, the eye seems transcendant ("older than the universe") but yet accessible with the appropriates coordinates - which are impossible to find without an infinite loop. Thanks to the Nomai, and the fact the eye is intrinsically quantum, and because we tried an infinite times to access it, we finally forced it to exist in a determined place So yeah, it really is a special privilege to see what's behind the scene of the univers
I think the reason the Eye called to the Nomai was so that they could get stranded in system so that they could set up the Hearthians to come to the eye right at the end of the universe
I assumed that the Eye always goes through the process of the universe ending, getting a conscious observer to trigger a big bang, and then going through it again. I get the feeling the MC had no real idea of what was going on.
I just looked it up, the 813/814 is an error message. Apparently the new patch fixes this. I’ll reply to you again if the text is something other than “you are dead”
What's the difference between a galaxy and a universe? One is bigger than the other? My son had a good theory about the anglerfish. It's small in the museum, but huge on dark bramble. He thinks you shrink when you travel inside a dark bramble seed. Going into a seed seems endless. You can shrink down to the atomic level. Is the universe expanding, or are we shrinking? I believe the game is trying to stress how size is relative. We're small and big at the same time. "That's what she said."
Feldspar does stress that he believes that the dark bramble behaves differently then regular space time does. He specifically says that you are technically in 2 places and there is growing and shrinking when entering seeds takes place, it’s unclear what is changing size but it’s happening somewhere
I just wanted to add that the Timber Hearth museum is different when you explore it during the ending sequence, there is a plaque that mentions how a Nomai was never able to reach the Eye of the Universe, but a Hearthian was the first being to reach it. The solar system model mentions how the sun died a natural death by supernova (at least I think it was natural? it didn't mention the ghost matter). There is also an angler fish skeleton in the tank and the plaque mentions that it is one of the only species that we don't mind perishing at the end of the solar system. It seems as if the museum was updated but kind of breaks my understanding of the game timeline lol.
@@8bitbulldog yeah that's the only explanation I can think of as well, when I first encountered it I thought you had somehow saved the universe and are seeing the Timber Hearth reaction to it years later. I didnt quite realize if you died at the end or just became "one with the universe" but your interpretation makes a lot of sense
Perhaps a glimpse into another reality or possibility among endless possibilities. Your 1st play through(1st loop), you accomplish the least. Imagine another parallel galaxy where a Hearthian makes it to the eye and back before the sun explodes. Your character dies, but perhaps a piece of him(and everyone else) carries on into another big bang. Your last play through(last loop) you, a Hearthian, made it to the eye, but didn't make it back before the supernova. But what if you left days, months, or years earlier? Then, the museum would be different. Maybe each loop we played were each in a different galaxy? A very similar possibility, but slightly different. I love talking about this crap.
Mateo Linares the ghost matter incident was what killed the Nomai thousands of years ago right after they launched ash twin but couldn't make the sun go supernova. So basically the time loop of the game is actually the last 22 minutes before the heat death of the universe (chert mentions it if you talk to him at the end of the loop: he watches the stars go supernova one by one), which triggers ash twin and allows the infinite probes to send information to the past and find the Eye. The timeline is Nomai build ash twin > sun station fails > interloper explodes ghost matter killing all nomai (including quantum versions of Solanum who are not at the Eye), but water-dwelling Hearthians survive > 300000 years go by, ash twin receives data from the future triggering the time loop (*) and the probe > probe launches > game starts > in 22 minutes the sun goes supernova by itself and everybody dies, but the probe sends data back in time to point (*) because ash twin has enough energy. That's why if you disable the ash twin and die you get a YOU ARE DEAD message: it's a dead end that's not sending data into the past. Now if you do travel to the Eye you sort of survive the death of the universe and then everything in the video happens.
I think it's interesting to note how quantum mechanics oppose relativity. As in, they're incompatible. Nomai didn't utilize quantum mechanics in their technology, only relativity (black hole, white hole). If Eye was sentient I feel it would want to oppose Nomai for this because Quantum Mechanics stand for uncertainty and possibilities where Relativity stands for fixed determinism. Though I don't think Eye is sentient. I feel Eye is capable of everything but thought. That is why when Eye is combined with a conscious observer maximum potential is reached. Main character's mind is broken down into infinite copies each shown one possibility, and what our character thinks is the best is materialized. Sort of like saying that Eye uses conscious observer to think through it. Eye doesn't know what is good or bad, important or irrelevant. So if you show it, it will act upon it. This is why universe just ends if you don't find the Eye. The reason you meet your friends before end of it all is because quantum reality sort of functions like a dream. If you think of your dreams you can see that anything can happen in them, abd after they're done you forget them, as if reality you were in just faded and never happened. I think eye uses the same mechanism for interfacing with conscious observer that dreams use. Last thing. I dont think your character dies at the end. Though this may be wishful thinking, but given the fact that we see what happens after the big bang, and this is the only time we see something while not being there I think it is possible that part of our Hearthian's consciousness has become a part of the Eye. If true, this would explain why Eye sent a signal to Nomai. The previous lingering consciousness felt that the universe is ending and sent a signal to anyone who can hear. But this consciousness decayed by the time Nomai arrived so signal could no longer be sent.
I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet. I think the eye did not send a signal to the Nomai intentionally. It is orbited by the quantum moon which also orbits dark bramble. There is a version of the quantum moon that has dark bramble growing on it. Therefore the signal from the eye was sent through the the dark bramble on the moon and into the dark bramble planet which was then detected by the Nomai. This could only occur if the moon was being observed while at the same time being struck by a dark bramble seed which is very unlikelly and why it took so long to happen. The signal could not leave the eye directly as it does not have a defined location and hence does not exist until observed. This would explsin why the Vessel followed the signal and warped into dark bramble, because that's where the signal was coming from.
I'm not sure if you've visited the Quantum Moon, but I recommend looking there next for answers. I think the ending is meant to be a lot more thematic than it scientific. If the eye is sentient, and it acts as a sort of creator figure, it has decided to craft a new universe based on the culture that came before it, specifically its music, and the now incredible emotions and memories that the player carries with that music. You can see the theme of culture, of history, of the feelings and works of those that came before you, build and build and build into what becomes your knowledge base throughout the game. It is not your own power that leads you to the eye of the universe, it is the history and knowledge of all those who came before you. You are simply the messenger. This is why the music itself, and not the instruments, craft the object that inevitably is detonated to form the next big bang. A singularity of gravity is replaced with a singularity of culture, of texture, of history, of emotions. The melody that plays as it is crafted, also plays in a powerful, almost ear-splitting ballad as the new universe is created. The reason it is the, quote "good" ending, is because, at the end of it all, your experiences and the experiences of those that came before you matter more than anything else, and the world is readied for another, greater, cycle. Acceptance of death is also an acceptance of your importance in shaping your world, and in shaping the future. It is, in eseence, a rejection of nihilism and an acceptance of the importance of the personal experiences of not only yourself, but all those who built you up before now - It rejects nihilism not only in its ending, but in all of the context that leads up to the ending. The person you are, like the nomai before you, and the astronauts who came after them, will ripple throughout time and create a butterfly effect, enriching the future of this new cycle. this is just one reading, however, and academic readings are highly subjective. This is what I got out of it, anyway. I think its ultimate in-text "message" or "moral" is that the inevitability of change is not one that should be resisted, but embraced, with the tempering of context. The Nomai spent their time trying to resist change, by seeking the eye, a source of power and control, by the Ash Twin Project, a rejection of the inevitability of the future. I think this is ultimately why the eye decided to reject them as they came. They were not yet experienced enough to carry the weight of the future on their shoulders. They needed to fall first and build a new, more humble history before their story could be integrated into the future the eye is planning Ultimately, it is you who must carry and temper their past and integrate it into your own culture in order to move forward into the future. It is you who are the sum experiences of the world you experienced. Not just A Random Hearthian, but the player themselves.
If you don't meet the nomaï at the end you don't see her at the campfire If you disable ash project and go to the quantium moon and getting in eye of the universe you'll get an ending with just numbers
Its hard to come to any conclusions. What i find funny is your friends in the ancient glade seem to know whats going on. "We cant start yet" and so on and so forth. As if the end of the 22 minute cycle always led to the end of the 14.3 million year cycle. As if they had all done it before. So here is my halfbrained theory. "Across old bark In the ancient glade Its always dark" Until you entered. And brought light. Allowing it to "Consciously observe you". Being what it is, and your connection(quantum entanglement?) to your universe, its able to infer the state things should be in. And it reverts the universe back knowing if all life dies, it could never be observed again. Meaning for all intents and purposes, it ceases to exists. For all we know it was created by something smarter than the nomai to do what the nomai did. Have a backup plan in place(masks and time loop) for if all hell breaks loose.(Outer wilds 2 please!) The fact you see yourself can be explained away. For .00001 second every time you go through the black hole or teleport there are two instances of you. In one ending you can destroy the fabric of space by having two personal probes in the same location.(really close) In this quantum mess of a place maybe its possible for them to both exist in the same location. But im just a laymen thinking about things way over my head. Thanks for making this video man. Ive had similar ideas but with the wholes game. Any chance you can share what video editing software youre using?
@@8bitbulldog Thanks for the kind words man. I just spent so much on equipment recently adobes pricetag got me thinking twice. But im thinking ill have to just suck it up. Again man this video was great. well thought out and exactly what i wanted!
When I beat this game I was left in a flabbergasted state, so much happening in such a small window of time. I fell in love with the game and everything it had to offer, I loved the ending although I could not hypothesize or find a satisfactory explanation for it till now. Your analysis of the ending is very well put together and, as is stands, not only gives me a better understanding of the final parts, this game as a whole makes more sense and I love Outer Wilds all the more for it. Whether your speculation comes to be true or false has yet to be determined, but for now this is a fantastic interpretation. Thank you for this original masterpiece.
If Outer Wilds doesn't win a GOTY award, I hope the sun goes supernova and the next universe has good enough artistic taste to recognize a masterpiece. This game is beyond amazing, it's in an entirely different league.
I definitely think you aren't the first living being to visit the Eye of the Universe. If, while on they Eye of the Universe, you fire your probe, you permanently lose access to it, with an error message saying your probe is gone when you go to recall it. Then, during the ending cinematic with the new universe and the new creatures lighting their campfire, you see your probe fly overhead, a distant memory of the universe before theirs. The reason this ties into you not being the first visitor to the Eye is that the same thing happens on Timber's Hearth. You can occasionally see a small white probe orbiting the planet, which I believe is a remnant of the last visitor to the Eye of the Universe from the previous Universe.
@@seantaggart7382 yeah I've seen it. It's a probe that they explained they fired to orbit the planet to test the technology... Its not from the last visitor. Also.. Heartburn camera? Is that the name of a probe?
Do you think your friends are the real ones, or just clones/hallucinations/other quantum stuff? Thats the question that bothered me most Great video for a great game, btw!
Imo, i think they are quantum materializations of the protagonists memories, if you wait long enough at the eye you can see your universe die. Presumably they can’t be alive, unless they are by transcending quantum space time.
The fact that you "wake up" at the very beginning of the game, and that during your second encounter the Nomai statue basically sucks in, or saves, your memories into itself, and that you "wake up" after your first encounter of supernova is strong indication that everything you see, observe, interact with, is already dead and you're already inside the quantum realm, behaving as a quantum particle, and there is another version of you, entangled, therefore doing everything opposite of your actions in terms of movement, whom you meet and converge with during that point where you first see and walk into it. This means the whole game, technically and physically, is a projection, therefore it is a strong possibility that those friends are projections, memories of yourself from 14.3 billion years ago, from the universe before your current and that they will still be present in the universe created by you, some 14.3 billion years later. This is the most fascinating aspect of this game.
Theyre absolutely not real Solanum doesn't speak hearthian In fact im pretty sure nonai dont have any spoken language. Seeing as how mundane things like their flirtations are also written
I think everyone is a projection except solonum this is because she thanks the protagonists for not forgetting her then says she hasn't played this song yet but she'll try her best. She's sentient within the eye, she also has additional things to say after the song, saying she admires our curiosity. Solunums was already quantum entangled so its not a stretch to say solunum was actually there. Because why would the protagonist thank himself for not forgetting solunum or why he admires his own curiosity.
@@Mythos27 I think that in the moment you die to the supernova the ATP uses its energy to go back in time 22 minutes. So the info you gathered is still in your mind, but the last 22 minutes never happened. its like if you throw your probe at the black hole, it went out in the white hole before it entered the black hole, sent you of the white hole station and you stopped the probe from getting in the black hole. So the probe never acctually got in the black hole at all, but you have the info of whats on the other side.
I fell like the campfire and the music section is to show how the eye can create or manipulate objects because you can see the rocks surrounding the tree get closer and closer and the tree itself being split apart to create the logs in the campfire and with the case of the instruments themselves, you see during the drums that the eye creates stars for the drum to orbit and creates an angler fish to scare the player, it also creates the nomai ship that you use to reach the mask. This could be used to prepare the player for the creation of the new universe.
I feel dumb for not thinking about this as I was playing the ending probably because I was so jaw dropped at what was happening but thinking back to it everything your saying makes sense to me
Well, I think that the music in the end is a reference to string theory. Sound produces vibrations...the basis of all fundamental physical particles by string theory. Maybe the instruments are a what the eye is showing us as a "source" for these fundamental vibrations. Because our conscious minds cannot comprehend this, so the eye thoughtfully showed them as instruments. When everyone plays the instruments, new particles are formed out of nothing, leading to huge quantum fluctuations. Each instrument is the source of fundamental vibrations that all connect and join to form the big bang. You, created the spark that csused the big bang and saved your universe from the second law of thermodynamics, heat death.
My personal theory is that the eye is entangled to everything in the universe and everything that was or will be (entanglement IRL is incredible) and that when our player steps into this region that is essentially everything both possible and impossible at once in a super position whatever they can comprehend will be there as it is just as plausible as any other occurrence. at the end out player reaches the center of this area and collapses everything causing them to become a singularity and explode. whatever the player could understand and saw would be the possibility (set of fundamental physics) that would occur in the new existence.
i believe the eye of the universe has some sort of prophetic quality to it. it called out to the nomai, knowing they would get trapped in dark bramble, create the setup for an infinite loop, die by the comet, and allow a hearthian at the last moments of the universe to be looped and find the eye. it called out to the nomai on purpose for the domino effect resulting in the player creating a new universe, or no one would have found it and the cycle would end.
I think this whole ending is a poetic representation of the big bounce theory, with the eye being the "center of the universe" where each new big bang will reoccur as each new universe is created
I think the eye is the universes central quantum computer, and everything within its reach are also quantum to a degree, but the quantum influence is stronger in some places than others, maybe due to proximity. So I think it calculates all possible events of the universe and applies one of them when the object in question is observed. Maybe the quantum moon is use as a quantum signal booster, allowing more objects in a part of the universe where there's is normally little quantum fluctuation, to become quantum entangles, allowing the eye to generate more possibilities for it (so for example, timber hearth in itself isn't noticeably quantum because of its position in the universe, but the shard from the quantum moon reaching it is able to let the quantum eye implement more possibilities, which then collapse on observation
here's my theory the eye as it is described is sentient so if what happens at it end is a new universe, the eye could be the creative 'brain' behind it since it uses the power of quantum physics the song played in the ancient glade is a song that every hearthian knows and the nomai never bothered to listen to the universe bc they didn't have the telescopes the player has, so the song in my mind is the 'soul' of the universe and thats what your friends are around the campfire in the glade.they each play a part of the universes soul bc they themselves are part of the universes soul. the player is the conscious matter in the eye. you are the only thing in the glade that can't be moved around by the eye. your body has been though countless loops of the universe but memories have been through every iteration so it would stand that you have the ability to collapse all those universes into one, but the eye cant make matter from nothing so you as the 'body' of the universe. and with that you throw yourself into the soul the matter ready to collapse into one universe, the eye make a shockwave shooting your atoms across space saving the universe.
I also think the Eye of the Universe is the great blue cloud, not the planet. It is a pocket of quantum reality that was somehow punctured by the sixth planet of the solar system (maybe a quantum fluctuation allowed the intersection of normal matter and quantum reality), the outer fabric of which cracked to form the starburst-like image that the Nomai detected. It was an utter fluke for such an event to occur, a once in a google-year event...in this way, Escall was correct in having the Nomai jump immediately upon detection, and why the survivors never detected the Eye again.
Would this be able to explain why the nomai devices to find the eye just frantically look everywhere for the eye when changed to that setting almost like either the eye is impossible to find or maybe like the eye is everywhere and the eye is all
I’ve been wondering if it’s possible that the Nomai might have survived the end of the universe. From the probe we know things can move from one universe to the next, and the Nomai knew what was happening and had the technology for interstellar survival. I wouldn’t put it past the bounds of possibility that the Nomai survived, and brought the knowledge of the old universe into the new one.
I think you are absolutely correct. All puzzles in the game were all about finding the best outcome of the quantum objects around you. For good or bad we do not have this luxury in real life.
Love the video, explanation and your effort in making some meaning out of the game. This game, for sure, is exploring the birth of a universe, the big bang, and quantum physics. The whole realm is built upon those three phenomenons/subjects of physics. We know the big bang happened, we know time did not start exactly at the moment of big bang, time waited for inflation to kick in, that's why we have T minus 30 seconds or such numbers whenever we discuss big bang. We also know a certain few facts about our universe, one such thing is that the universe is expanding and the farther it is the faster it is getting farther apart, and that at the very basic level everything is governed by laws of quantum physics, like entanglement, uncertainty principal etc. The game is dwelling on these ideas, I say so because we do not know what caused the big bang and what was before the big bang. It could be anything, or nothing at all, but the game is trying to explain one such fantastical possibility incorporating ideas, calculations, observation from science, physics. There are hints of string theory hidden in the script of Nomai (spelling might be wrong), the shape and style of their script looks like strings connecting and extending, expanding but it always looks like something is originating from one point (the scroll or whatever we can take out from the wall and insert into a different slot). Then there is clear indication of quantum tunneling, entanglement, uncertainty principle plays a huge part in the game after you've entered the quantum universe (turning off and on the light gives different results), thus it is 100% clear that you've become a quantum entity, but your purpose is not to save the universe or whatever. Your purpose is to bring together the elements responsible for creating the ideal conditions of big bang, and then you jumping into that singularity to act as the spark, the uncertainty. There are at least three endings of this game, two told by you, one is when you jump into the ghost air, near observatory on hearthian's planet. If you do that, or if you ever encounter ghost thing and interact with it, you die. Game tells you "You are dead" and credits roll. This means that throughout the game your goal is to bring together the necessary conditions for big bang to happen, to recreate a new universe because your universe will die and there is nothing you can do to save it from the death. This is also exemplified by your constant death loop caused by your exploding sun, and it also makes you wonder if your life, your universe itself is a projection? Which is another major and spicy theory in the world of physics, vaguely stating that our universe is a projection inside a black hole. Well, there is a lot in this game than what meets the eyes. I just wanted to add what I made of it. I am still not satisfied with my own theories though, but thank you for sharing the video with us.
What if it's a whole cycle!? What if when we enter the eye, we are the consciousness that this guy was talking about? What if we forced the universe into collapsing and into being? What if we were the consciousness calling out across space and time and the Nomai heard that call somehow? We know that they will never be able to reach the eye but we could: through them. This may all be just in my mind but boy was I blown when it did come to me..
I wonder if the Eye is just another entity like the Nomai, who could make the universe go into an infinite loop, only it isn't limited to 22 minutes but billions of years. That's why you see the cycle repeating at the end.
Or, the fact that we are able to "see" a big bang in the end makes the quantum event a reality, which leads to the development of a new universe, and we could argue that the other endings of not witnessing the big bang removes the event from ever happening in reality. Loved how the game and this video made me think a little deeper on all this. Thank you!
The game teaches a myriad of things including the inevitability of life and death. The Nomai almost made it to the eye of the universe--by arms reach by the looks of it. Is the eye sentient? is it "you" or the one that came before? Interesting thought, but what is important is that the galaxy, universe, multiverse will inevitability die naturally, or from the ghost matter hitting the sun causing a dominoes effect, and spreading it until nothing remains. Perhaps it is inevitable that life will be drawn back to once it came--the point of singularity--the eye. Or, perhaps it was simply the universe crying out to the Nomai for help to save it from its inevitable demise. I also like to think that the multiverse will die and be reborn again with or without intervention. I love how an interactive game like this can draw out thought and provoke conversation of the unknown. Because, I like to think of it all like, The Question of Life--questions drive us, but answers to questions become the end, the end of "things" sucks (like books, movies & games), but it is inevitable.
Just another crazy theory My theory is that our character live in the first universe, and when it should be collapse and end, it needed the observer, so after a plenty of time, it somehow called the Nomai, and luckily we were here being able to reach Eye of the Universe and after all be this observer that make possible the universe die and reborn over and over again. So our character live forever observing the universe with friends and the last Nomai. The ending is about there is not so many things we can control and even the universe can exist just because of fortuity. Sorry my English, i'm not native speaker:)
Does you dieing before you get the launch codes count as an ending? When i started playing outer wilds, i jumped into a hole with a waterfall going down it to see where it led to since i assumed there was water at the bottom. I died the instant i landed in the water. The phrase "You Are Dead" popped up and the credits rolled. I laughed my ass off because of it.
I think those are supposed to be galaxies, not universes. Also, they fizzle out on their own, you do not need to touch any for them to start fizzling out.
When I made this video I knew they’re galaxies. However I saw the possibility that they could be universes. Issue is, I didn’t explain that in the video
I think the Eye is the same eye that every other universe has experienced, theoretically speaking, and the nomai named the Eye so I don’t think there is a heart or brain
@@8bitbulldog The Eye of the universe is not one being, but any being that is able to observe a universe's creation. Just as the Nomai detected a celestial body that was older than the universe itself, we too become this ancient 'observer' that ushers in a new universe. It is our observation of the white cluster of matter atop the blacked out observatory (the poetry of this location alone is particularly beautiful) that sets the creation of a new universe and the big bang seen just before the end credits. The current Eye's signal allows the player to become the Eye for a whole new universe. And the cycle repeats.
While getting the beginner's luck achievement (finishing the game in one loop) I didn't get the exact same ending. First I didn't get to see the nomai who you can talk to (certainly because I hadn't explored on the quantum moon). Second when I got the "14 billion years later" the trees were there but the campfire with the aliens around never came. I wonder what that means and what choices would have lead to it.
Here is my strait forward theory: The universe is at its end. all the stars are dying. When you die for real, the game continues and new universe. When you enter the eye, you are seeing the creation of a new universe. All the trees and hearthian buddies are just quantum shenanigans like a last goodby thing
Well, that’s kinda what we know is canon for the most part. In my opinion, the hearthians and solanum are the hardest part to explain, because they are sentient.
I don't feel like this has any importance but I find it interesting that when you are at the part when you are viewing the eye of the universe as a whole, your visor on the space suit is cracked, creeping out from the center. It's hard notice unless you look down and use the light from the storm . Again, I don't think this has any importance in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like if the devs went out of their way to do this, there must be reason. Which leads me to question why and for what purpose is this here. I think I just overthinking it and I personally think any your died and the following is purgatory or your dying dreams are just lazy and unoriginal. Thank for this making this video, it was very interesting. For reference visually for when 3:10-4:28, You can make out the cracks if you are looking for them.
I think the cracking is just a minor visual indication that this is the end, and that it should be clear that the Hearthian isn't going to survive this. It marks a transition out of the interpretive headspace he's been in while collecting instruments/influencing the form of this new universe and back into "reality" where he's a flesh & blood being dying in space, possibly in a violent big bang event. Also cool: if you fire your scout into the eye before jumping into the vortex, you can't get it back, and it will appear in the final scene 14 billion years later flying over the heads of the bug people sitting around the campfire.
@@dirtypisspinko for me if I was that hearthian seeing the big bang i would smile and feel peace knowing life is back and the heat death of the universe is no more As the big bang reached me I would close my eyes and say WAIT I FORGOT MY MARSHMALLOWS! *INCINERATED*
A bit late but, that isn’t your visor I think. If you look at the nomai interpretation of the eye, it has those cracks and streaks. I believe it’s the quantum storm
I have some questions in my head, what would happen if we didn't reach the eye? Would the universe restart? Or would it just be forever dead as no living being reached the eye to continue the cycle? The campfire scene was really great and touching but it's probably just an illusion from us, in reality our friends died from the supernova when we reached the eye, though I wish that's not what happens as it kinda ruins the "happy and together" atmosphere of that campfire scene. Anyway wow, this game is a masterpiece
The universe dies in every ending but the main one, and I believe that the illusion is from the Eye itself, it’s just using the characters friends to make this whole thing comprehensible for the character
As mentioned in the video if you disable the ash twin project then start running away from the sun fast as possible you get an ending where you see the universe die because all stars burn out
I am not at all skilled with explanations of physics or would-bes... But I can shape my thought in a sentence which gives an exact idea of what my line of logic is : *"At one point, there will be so much nothingness never happening that something will have to happen."*
i was of the opinion that the eye of the universe is essentially not sentient but is infinitely malleable and does exist for a purpose. a purpose it carries out because that's what it does, rather than out of any sentience. it doesn't "want" to be found by the nomai for two possible reasons. 1. it's not supposed to be found "yet", the nomai existed hundreds of thousands of years before the hearthians. it's designed to appear when the end comes. 2. it's supposed to be found by an intelligence that would be capable of at least loosely understanding it, so it calls, the ability to hear it indicating basic intelligence but requires ingenuity to find, if you can find it, you can help it fulfil whatever purpose required of it the reason why i think it shows up the way it does is the same as why the ending of 2001 a space odyssey looks the way it does, the bedroom dave bowman ends up in. watch it again and realize how uncomfortably bizarre that room looks. even better the description in the novel. in essence all the pieces are there, a bed, a bathroom, but...who lights their room from the floor? what's with the artwork? it's like someone saw hazy photos of human bedrooms but had no concept of what they were looking at, hence all the stuff is right but it's all "wrong". the eye of the universe is the same. all the pieces are there but since the eye of the universe exists outside linear space time it's simply incapable of providing a linear space for a hearthian. so it does what it can to provide what the hearthian needs for the eye to fulfill its purpose
I think that the reason that you see the museum when entering the eye, along with the other people around you, is that entering the eye is different for every person based on what they have observed. Like, there are so many things in Outer Wilds that is based on the idea that something either doesn't exist or exists all at once if it is not being observed, but once it's actually being observed it settles into a "proper reality". So, what can exist in the eye is entirely based on what the conscious observer has actually been able to observe. This feels especially true when Solamum won't appear in the ending unless you observe her alive. She doesn't exist as a living entity in the eye unless you have observed her as such through your own four eyes. And the eye of the universe needs a conscious observer to help it create the next universe. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a big bang goes off in space, does it truly exist if no one is there to see it? And in order for there to be other intelligent life besides your own, the main character needs to observe an intelligent life besides their own (thus the bug creatures that are alive after the recreation of the universe). So, if you (you, not the main character) were to jump into the eye of the universe, you may not see the Timber Hearth observatory. You may see your grandmother's house with a cozy fire, your high school prom where you had your first kiss, your first apartment where you learnt responsibility for the first time... The place that feels most like home to you. That's just my thought, anyway. xD
i was thinking about how they use the music as signal inside the game, and the music also was part of the creation of a new universe and a new cicle, the thing is: what if the signal of the eye of universe found by the nomai was just the music that created their universe ? maybe im tripping
The loop last 22 min because it was made to do that and it's doing it because of the sun exploding no supernova no loop It's marked somewhere you need the power of a supernova to enable ash project
wow get me a game that I need an understanding in freaking quantum physics to understand. Take that Bioshock Infinite this game had a less understood ending than you!!
Great video! I ve just finished the game i m super emotionate and i m going on here looking for answers; i ve discovered that there was also the nomai guy playing music, i ve played music without him and after 14 bilion years i didnt see the light of the flame in the forest ( i think it was dark but maybe i was too conxentrate looking at the planets ahah ) great video man that game is awesome so much old game vibes really good adventure
I can’t make it past the stupid fuckin angler fish. I was able to make it to the camp where I think chert is. Without even knowing These things exist but now I know they are there I cannot make it anywhere in the dark bramble without getting eaten
Wait The Eye of Universe is God? Like, It's kind of everywhere at the same time, It knows everything, It probably started the universe and keeps the cycle going. To me It is clearly a tipe of God of the Universes of Outer Wilds.
I forgot to mention that in the video, I did want to in the voiceover but I forgot to, I speculated that they are universes In my review video of the game (which I’m still working on) I will mention this
Hi there, I finished the game earlier today and after thinking about the ending for a bit started looking around the net for other people's interpretations. I'm not the kind of person trying to find concrete meaning in things like these. One thing that struck me though, and one point you're mentioning here is, that our player character dies in every ending there is in the game, and we end up searching for the best possible outcome anyway. Now I haven't tried every way to die in game, but I did fall to my death before meeting the statue, and also died after removing the thing from the Ash Twin Project. Both gave me an ending that said "you're dead" or "you died". The "proper" ending doesn't though. Any thoughts on why that is, other than "because it's the proper ending"? Kind regards
As far as i understand it, the Eye is a cosmic entity that once was the most evolved of any species, but reached a point of evolution/technological scale where the next step was becoming a god-like entity, doing whatever the hell it pleases, such as having Nomai try find it, making them theoretically extinct, then having the Hearthians later on to find it, toying with its strange rules and at one point even trying to scare the player, afterwards rewarding them with a sighting of the birth of a new universe while becoming the Eye for the new universe
No damn clue. Though I will say, I do some equalizing to improve how my voice sounds, this includes removing a lot of bass tones, so I actually sound a little older in person.
The eye is not in a physical location and I don't think the probe actually needed to go anywhere. It just needed to exert that force that blew up the orbiter. "The Eye" is a symbol for the collapse function holding reality in place. I was curious what triggers the end of the cosmos. Perhaps because the last remaining Nomai - who's tracks we've been following - have finally "found the eyes location". We see the probe launch at the beginning of every loop. My guess is that the "discovery" (observing) of the eye is what is killing the current cosmos and triggering the loop. The teleporter in the ship takes you to a dimension between dimensions where such an "eye" SHOULD be, if you ask me. Why it's calling the nomai may have something to do with the Eye wanting a new universe and wanting a curious, passionate and music loving society to be the model for the new Cosmos - such as the heartheans. This is emphasized in the scene at the end when the planets are all spawned, but they look different! And there was a heartheans campfire on the one closest! And why have the whole scene where you're collecting everyone's instruments at all? Something is clearly being emphasized. And it wasn't just any old heartheans, it was the most musical and adventurous and curious. It needed the heartheans and it had to wait until the perfect time to "reveal itself" and it triggered the loop at that time because it knew YOU could do it! maybe?! Lol The Nomai could never get there because the Eye did not want their manners to be the new model. I didn't know about all these endings, so I'll be playing again, but I hope my thoughts help.
I much prefer it to interstellar, though, and I think there are bigger thematic differences. I'm not huge fan of interstellar. I think Outer Wilds is a lot more down to earth.
What ? There's literally zero indication our character dies. Maybe in the end it makes one with the eye of the universe, maybe not. But we don't know, we just know it's the end of our character as we used to know him/her. Also, don't you think there is some similarity between this eye of the universe and a creator ? We often imagine God as a dude (thanks christians), but I tend to see the concept of God more vastly. There's a lot in this whole game that is about observation. Remember Nietzche ? "when you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes back". It's really clear with that. Quantic rocks who move when we don't look. The EYE of the universe, so it does see. People near the fire at the end aren't the ones we met during our travel. Solanum confirms this, because she does speak while she didn't when we met her before. Also, I think the music instruments we collect are here to at least symbolize the importance of memories, and how our past can impact our future. This is even shown again at the end (if you launched your probe in the eye) when you see your probe travelling in the new universe. So it shows how things tend to repeat, this idea of cycle is something that is a part of the core of the game. The creatures around the fire in the end image support this idea of a cyclical time. If you think of it, Outer Wilds tends to make us question about this idea of cyclical time, about the importance of the past, and about observation. Three things that are really put in evidence through the entire game. Now, these subjects are all adressed, without even talking directly about it. Outer Wilds wants to us to think about these subjects and question ourselves about it. And I deeply think they're not talking about some supposed universe in a game. They're talking about our own universe, the one we live in. Indirectly, but still they do.
This is a great explanation, also I am pretty sure that the character dies, because the ending sequence is just a glorified super nova by the way the game works
@@8bitbulldog Thanks ! I suppose what you talk about when saying "glorified supernova" is the white screen that happens just before the credits. Well... it could be our character dying. But then, there's a question. What's this "white supernova" (if I can call it that way) ? One supposition I have is that this white light is the core of the eye. And you end becoming one with it. But honestly, at this level it's really just a supposition. I don't think the character dies. I think it becomes something else. But well, I can't say I'm right or wrong. I think I'm gonna go play. I'm sure there's hidden stuff that could be really meaningful. I saw someone on another video telling there was a hidden graveyard on Timber Hearth. Anyway, it's nice of you to have read and answered my comment ! I hope we'll find further elements who could answer what's still unclear ! I wish you a nice day !
@@grungeblight After this game's ending, I had to just sit and feel it for a bit. It reminded me so strongly of the message of The Fountain, and its core themes, that really all I could put down was the most important line from that movie. If anyone reading this hasn't seen The Fountain, I wholeheartedly recommend it. It's so powerful and beautiful.
@@8bitbulldog Oh really. It was an interessting video though. I've looked through alot of the games' wiki page but haven't found a full explanation of everything. Do you know where I can find it?
I was a little disapointed of the ending i was expecting like The nomaï kill your sun gotta fix dat because we learn that they try blowing up the sun for power And i think some nomaï didn't wanted the sun to blow up because there was life in our planet (Probably us) But still great
Not necessarily, context was given in game for these explanations. A lot of my ideas here are obsolete anyway. I have a big video coming up that will have a better explanation
Dude... Why did you put a background music to all of the quiet moments from the game? Why are you ruining those beautiful moments with such terribly tasteless and pointless background music?It's definitely not going to be enough to safeguard you from automated copyright claims, if that's what you were shooting for. Edit: oh, it's even worse! the music is still there, playing alongside the actual game's beautiful soundtrack when it finally kicks in. The hell is wrong with you, boy?
It was a simple oversight, no need to make a big deal over it. Even then if you really want to hear the silence and experience it the atmosphere you can play the game yourself
I probably should have made this way sooner but better late than never.
This video is outdated because I do not fully believe in the ideas I presented here, this video was made around a day after I beat the game.
This doesn't mean the ideas are invalid though. The ending seems to be made with the intent to get people speculating.
I'd also like to address how I called the galaxies universes. At the time I had the idea that the galaxies were universes because of the large glowing light in the center. I realized that just simply wasn't true and intended to refer to them as galaxies but I ended up calling them universes and I honestly can't believe I didn't notice during recording or during editing. So I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.
Still a great video. I didn't understand everything because I have almost no clue about quantum physics but with reading comments I understood more. I today finished the game and it was amazing.
But wait!!!! If you watch the 10-Minute speedrun of OuterWilds that IGN did you can hear one of the Devs calling those Universes! You were totally right!
I did watch that video but I don’t recall them saying it, I may have to rewatch it
this video could be used as a clock while actually playing the outer wilds
And the weirdest part is it’s a coincidence
or a regular stopwatch
btw where is a cool thing where before you go into the storm if you shot your scout it gets shown as none existing. and then at the part that 14 billions years later your scout flys across the sky.
Yeah, that happened on my first play through. Thought it was funny
Exactly what happened to me!
Yeah I did it on my first playthrough accidentally and it made me chuckle pretty good.
Wow that's amazing
No wonder why I couldn't get back my scout
Anyone noticed that the video is 22 minutes just like how the loop last
I actually did that by accident, let’s not tell anyone though
That means you have to watch it forever
Haven't I watched this before? Haven't I commented on this before? My brain is like the sun in this game. My head has gone supernova so many times throughout my journey in this game.
@@michaelscott7890 *TIME REVERT* Woah did i die?
Those are galaxies, not whole Universes. It shows the stars going out, and then your home galaxy going out. And then you find yourself back home on Timber Hearth in swarm of galaxies, your home universe. All the galaxies of your home universe, as stated earlier in the game, are going out with the oncoming Heat Death of the Universe. You, within quantum reality, are now the only thing left. Only you are here in this place. The last bonfire in the endless night. The last hope against the timeless nothingness of Heat Death. There is a conjecture that within that timeless nothingness of the far distant future, a random quantum fluctuation could unleash a torrent of energy, effetely a new Big Bang. That is where we are. Except now there is a conscious observer who is able to shape this event into something...into a new Universe that would be seeded with the collapsed possibilities of their interactions, experiences, thoughts, feelings, etc. A very poetic moment. The Universe born in Music.
art imitates life and life imitates art. as above so below. you have to focus, focus to have you. i get by with a little help from my friends who are observing a language beyond words expressing the metapoint of it all you need is love.
No, they're whole universes.
Even when you're back at the observatory, and you press the map on the top floor, you zoom out of the Galaxy and out and out until there's a particular shape that explodes, that "particular shape" IS what is riddled throughout the hearthean environment you find yourself falling onto moments after.
The observer was able to shape the universe into one formed from his own memories, which might be the entire reason that specific Hearthean is stuck in an endless loop of dying, drifting through space, and restarting the universe. All of which is technically happening at the same time, but in different possibilities, all of which you get to see before the “big bang” ending. You, the player, are causing your past and future selves to experience the same day, from neither an act of mercy nor cruelty. At that point, after experiencing everything there is to explore in the Outer Wilds, you learn the meaning of life;
That everything is finite, and there is an ending for everyone, and everything. When everything ceases to exist, everything starts anew. Galaxies form, stars light up, and planets become hosts to the new generation of sentient beings. And when the worlds have served their true purpose, and the stars start to fade, and galaxies fizzle out, a single being will enter the eye of the universe and cause the creation of the next reality, starting the cycle all over again.
@@lucashuskey2828 did you even play the game, it was explained that the ash twin project is sending your memories back in time.
I believe it would be solar systems...unless every sun was going nova in every solar system at the same time...
I just went and got my Doctorate in Quantum Mechanics before watching this 20 min video. Thank god now i fully understand it.
I can’t tell if this is a joke or not, frankly
@@8bitbulldog it's a super position
@@8bitbulldog obviously a joke. Non of the things in the game have anything to do with real quantum mechanics and honestly I doubt you really understand it "fully" either. Heck no one does. "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." -- Richard Feyman. The collapse of superposition has actually nothing to do with a conscious observer, this fully pop-science makeup.
PS: But it's just a game, the game universe has it's own laws and it's own quantum physics, that are not like ours as so much as scales don't match or their white hole/black hole pair would be a perpetum mobile too (just place the white hole above the black hole, free infinite energy :-) etc. I guess best don't other think it with real physics or be too arrogant to claim to "fully understand them" when best experts on this topics say, they are in fact so weird...
@@georgelionon9050 yeah it pretty much just extrapolates the rules from the double-slit experiment people learn about during GCSEs. Which I think is the right call tbh, if yoy try and geg any more complicated than that it stops being fun and interesting for all but a very small group of people
You see your home in the Eye because you as the conscious observer have started collapsing the infinite possibilities of quantum reality into an image of your own mind.
One of the only texts in the museum in the Eye that remains unchanged from the original version is the papers that mention a very real world version of the birth of the universe, its expansion and its entropy. This seems very intentional as the overarching theme of the game, you and the other explorers "getting the band back together" represent all energy and matter in the universe that exploded to create it all and drifted apart, but the simple things like camp fire, roasting marshmallows, and music can bring people close together and give birth to another explosion of infinite more possibility.
And as you talk to all of them you realize they make a song as you combine the MUSIC together (I think it the main theme of outer wilds?) And then the big bang and life
I had a dream, years, ago, that was surprisingly similar to the ending of Outer Wilds. It involved being in a space outside of time, where one can play with the stars as if they were bright little marble balls, and interact with multiple timelines of their lives as an observer. Everyone was there to accept death and fade away, but I couldn't take it, so I kept picking random stuff from my past and throwing it around, until eventually I made a melody with it and then everyone was slowly captivated and joined in. We turned the somber death of everything into a moment of hope and our combined thoughts brought a new Universe into being.
Who do you buy your weed off?
Dude
My personal interpretation is that the Eye of the Universe is a sentient, cosmic test that rewards whoever is able to reach it with the ability to influence the next version of the universe. It calls out to any intelligent species that has the chance to reach it, and then deliberately makes itself difficult to find to see who is 'worthy' of being involved in the next universe's creation. The fact that the Eye is older than the universe means that this isn't the first time this has happened, and all the weirdness like the physics of Dark Bramble seeds was due to the influence of the previous 'winner'. Everyone who was making music as they built the new universe was summoned because the Eye deemed them worthy of participation, as they were alive and able to reach outer space. Only Hearthians who became astronauts and the last living Nomai on the Quantum Moon were 'invited', after contact with the protagonist, who has a special privilege after entering the Eye.
I love this explanation
The eye of the universe is not important, whats important is the friends we made along the way XD
This is my favorite explanation of the eye of the universe. And what's better is it makes total sense.
The eye can generate universe with or without a sentient being, else how was created the first universe ?
So, the eye seems transcendant ("older than the universe") but yet accessible with the appropriates coordinates - which are impossible to find without an infinite loop.
Thanks to the Nomai, and the fact the eye is intrinsically quantum, and because we tried an infinite times to access it, we finally forced it to exist in a determined place
So yeah, it really is a special privilege to see what's behind the scene of the univers
All I want to know is who in their right mind would make a planet like the dark bramble?
I think the reason the Eye called to the Nomai was so that they could get stranded in system so that they could set up the Hearthians to come to the eye right at the end of the universe
I disagree with your opinion that all the other universe are other possibilities. They seem more like other galaxies
And your character does not die in the 813 ending. Or 814.
I assumed that the Eye always goes through the process of the universe ending, getting a conscious observer to trigger a big bang, and then going through it again. I get the feeling the MC had no real idea of what was going on.
I had that 813 ending, too. I still don't know what happened
I just looked it up, the 813/814 is an error message. Apparently the new patch fixes this. I’ll reply to you again if the text is something other than “you are dead”
What's the difference between a galaxy and a universe? One is bigger than the other? My son had a good theory about the anglerfish. It's small in the museum, but huge on dark bramble. He thinks you shrink when you travel inside a dark bramble seed. Going into a seed seems endless. You can shrink down to the atomic level. Is the universe expanding, or are we shrinking? I believe the game is trying to stress how size is relative. We're small and big at the same time. "That's what she said."
Feldspar does stress that he believes that the dark bramble behaves differently then regular space time does. He specifically says that you are technically in 2 places and there is growing and shrinking when entering seeds takes place, it’s unclear what is changing size but it’s happening somewhere
@@8bitbulldog But on the Ash twin there is a skeleton of a larger angler fish, no?
You see an anglerfish fossil, so i don’t think you shrink.
I just wanted to add that the Timber Hearth museum is different when you explore it during the ending sequence, there is a plaque that mentions how a Nomai was never able to reach the Eye of the Universe, but a Hearthian was the first being to reach it. The solar system model mentions how the sun died a natural death by supernova (at least I think it was natural? it didn't mention the ghost matter). There is also an angler fish skeleton in the tank and the plaque mentions that it is one of the only species that we don't mind perishing at the end of the solar system. It seems as if the museum was updated but kind of breaks my understanding of the game timeline lol.
I’m aware of this, I thought it was the characters thoughts brought to life via quantum physics
@@8bitbulldog yeah that's the only explanation I can think of as well, when I first encountered it I thought you had somehow saved the universe and are seeing the Timber Hearth reaction to it years later. I didnt quite realize if you died at the end or just became "one with the universe" but your interpretation makes a lot of sense
it does mention the ghost matter and that it was inevitable, theres nothing that anyone could do to stop it
Perhaps a glimpse into another reality or possibility among endless possibilities. Your 1st play through(1st loop), you accomplish the least. Imagine another parallel galaxy where a Hearthian makes it to the eye and back before the sun explodes. Your character dies, but perhaps a piece of him(and everyone else) carries on into another big bang. Your last play through(last loop) you, a Hearthian, made it to the eye, but didn't make it back before the supernova. But what if you left days, months, or years earlier? Then, the museum would be different. Maybe each loop we played were each in a different galaxy? A very similar possibility, but slightly different. I love talking about this crap.
Mateo Linares the ghost matter incident was what killed the Nomai thousands of years ago right after they launched ash twin but couldn't make the sun go supernova. So basically the time loop of the game is actually the last 22 minutes before the heat death of the universe (chert mentions it if you talk to him at the end of the loop: he watches the stars go supernova one by one), which triggers ash twin and allows the infinite probes to send information to the past and find the Eye. The timeline is Nomai build ash twin > sun station fails > interloper explodes ghost matter killing all nomai (including quantum versions of Solanum who are not at the Eye), but water-dwelling Hearthians survive > 300000 years go by, ash twin receives data from the future triggering the time loop (*) and the probe > probe launches > game starts > in 22 minutes the sun goes supernova by itself and everybody dies, but the probe sends data back in time to point (*) because ash twin has enough energy. That's why if you disable the ash twin and die you get a YOU ARE DEAD message: it's a dead end that's not sending data into the past. Now if you do travel to the Eye you sort of survive the death of the universe and then everything in the video happens.
I think it's interesting to note how quantum mechanics oppose relativity. As in, they're incompatible. Nomai didn't utilize quantum mechanics in their technology, only relativity (black hole, white hole). If Eye was sentient I feel it would want to oppose Nomai for this because Quantum Mechanics stand for uncertainty and possibilities where Relativity stands for fixed determinism.
Though I don't think Eye is sentient. I feel Eye is capable of everything but thought. That is why when Eye is combined with a conscious observer maximum potential is reached. Main character's mind is broken down into infinite copies each shown one possibility, and what our character thinks is the best is materialized. Sort of like saying that Eye uses conscious observer to think through it. Eye doesn't know what is good or bad, important or irrelevant. So if you show it, it will act upon it. This is why universe just ends if you don't find the Eye.
The reason you meet your friends before end of it all is because quantum reality sort of functions like a dream. If you think of your dreams you can see that anything can happen in them, abd after they're done you forget them, as if reality you were in just faded and never happened. I think eye uses the same mechanism for interfacing with conscious observer that dreams use.
Last thing. I dont think your character dies at the end. Though this may be wishful thinking, but given the fact that we see what happens after the big bang, and this is the only time we see something while not being there I think it is possible that part of our Hearthian's consciousness has become a part of the Eye. If true, this would explain why Eye sent a signal to Nomai. The previous lingering consciousness felt that the universe is ending and sent a signal to anyone who can hear. But this consciousness decayed by the time Nomai arrived so signal could no longer be sent.
This has been the best explanation I’ve seen on here yet
I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet. I think the eye did not send a signal to the Nomai intentionally. It is orbited by the quantum moon which also orbits dark bramble. There is a version of the quantum moon that has dark bramble growing on it. Therefore the signal from the eye was sent through the the dark bramble on the moon and into the dark bramble planet which was then detected by the Nomai. This could only occur if the moon was being observed while at the same time being struck by a dark bramble seed which is very unlikelly and why it took so long to happen. The signal could not leave the eye directly as it does not have a defined location and hence does not exist until observed. This would explsin why the Vessel followed the signal and warped into dark bramble, because that's where the signal was coming from.
I'm not sure if you've visited the Quantum Moon, but I recommend looking there next for answers.
I think the ending is meant to be a lot more thematic than it scientific. If the eye is sentient, and it acts as a sort of creator figure, it has decided to craft a new universe based on the culture that came before it, specifically its music, and the now incredible emotions and memories that the player carries with that music. You can see the theme of culture, of history, of the feelings and works of those that came before you, build and build and build into what becomes your knowledge base throughout the game. It is not your own power that leads you to the eye of the universe, it is the history and knowledge of all those who came before you. You are simply the messenger.
This is why the music itself, and not the instruments, craft the object that inevitably is detonated to form the next big bang. A singularity of gravity is replaced with a singularity of culture, of texture, of history, of emotions. The melody that plays as it is crafted, also plays in a powerful, almost ear-splitting ballad as the new universe is created. The reason it is the, quote "good" ending, is because, at the end of it all, your experiences and the experiences of those that came before you matter more than anything else, and the world is readied for another, greater, cycle. Acceptance of death is also an acceptance of your importance in shaping your world, and in shaping the future.
It is, in eseence, a rejection of nihilism and an acceptance of the importance of the personal experiences of not only yourself, but all those who built you up before now - It rejects nihilism not only in its ending, but in all of the context that leads up to the ending. The person you are, like the nomai before you, and the astronauts who came after them, will ripple throughout time and create a butterfly effect, enriching the future of this new cycle.
this is just one reading, however, and academic readings are highly subjective. This is what I got out of it, anyway. I think its ultimate in-text "message" or "moral" is that the inevitability of change is not one that should be resisted, but embraced, with the tempering of context. The Nomai spent their time trying to resist change, by seeking the eye, a source of power and control, by the Ash Twin Project, a rejection of the inevitability of the future. I think this is ultimately why the eye decided to reject them as they came. They were not yet experienced enough to carry the weight of the future on their shoulders. They needed to fall first and build a new, more humble history before their story could be integrated into the future the eye is planning
Ultimately, it is you who must carry and temper their past and integrate it into your own culture in order to move forward into the future. It is you who are the sum experiences of the world you experienced. Not just A Random Hearthian, but the player themselves.
I have been to the quantum moon, and I really like the idea that the explosion was of music and culture rather then just a Big Bang
Also I have been to the quantum moon, I based most of my speculation off of what solanum has said
The very faint background music really ruined the ominous dead silence of the observatory
Good point, I probably should have keyframed the music down during the clips. I’ll remember for the future
This video shouldn't be to experience the ending but to offer some ideas on it.
Just noticed, from looking out in the galaxy durning another play through right after beating the game, of many stars exploding in the night sky.
If you don't meet the nomaï at the end you don't see her at the campfire
If you disable ash project and go to the quantium moon and getting in eye of the universe you'll get an ending with just numbers
I’m aware of these things, the 813 ending was updated and now has actual text. I’m pretty sure it was just a syntax error
Its hard to come to any conclusions. What i find funny is your friends in the ancient glade seem to know whats going on. "We cant start yet" and so on and so forth. As if the end of the 22 minute cycle always led to the end of the 14.3 million year cycle. As if they had all done it before. So here is my halfbrained theory.
"Across old bark
In the ancient glade
Its always dark"
Until you entered. And brought light. Allowing it to "Consciously observe you". Being what it is, and your connection(quantum entanglement?) to your universe, its able to infer the state things should be in. And it reverts the universe back knowing if all life dies, it could never be observed again. Meaning for all intents and purposes, it ceases to exists. For all we know it was created by something smarter than the nomai to do what the nomai did. Have a backup plan in place(masks and time loop) for if all hell breaks loose.(Outer wilds 2 please!)
The fact you see yourself can be explained away. For .00001 second every time you go through the black hole or teleport there are two instances of you. In one ending you can destroy the fabric of space by having two personal probes in the same location.(really close) In this quantum mess of a place maybe its possible for them to both exist in the same location. But im just a laymen thinking about things way over my head. Thanks for making this video man. Ive had similar ideas but with the wholes game. Any chance you can share what video editing software youre using?
I like where you’re going with this
I use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit my videos
@@8bitbulldog Thanks for the kind words man. I just spent so much on equipment recently adobes pricetag got me thinking twice. But im thinking ill have to just suck it up. Again man this video was great. well thought out and exactly what i wanted!
I’d recommend the all apps subscriptions, as they are the lowest price compared to all the other available subscriptions
7:00 I never thought i'd manage to jumpscare myself
When I beat this game I was left in a flabbergasted state, so much happening in such a small window of time. I fell in love with the game and everything it had to offer, I loved the ending although I could not hypothesize or find a satisfactory explanation for it till now. Your analysis of the ending is very well put together and, as is stands, not only gives me a better understanding of the final parts, this game as a whole makes more sense and I love Outer Wilds all the more for it. Whether your speculation comes to be true or false has yet to be determined, but for now this is a fantastic interpretation. Thank you for this original masterpiece.
And thanks for appreciating it
>Call for nomai but don't want to be found
Quantum tsundere.
If Outer Wilds doesn't win a GOTY award, I hope the sun goes supernova and the next universe has good enough artistic taste to recognize a masterpiece. This game is beyond amazing, it's in an entirely different league.
I definitely think you aren't the first living being to visit the Eye of the Universe. If, while on they Eye of the Universe, you fire your probe, you permanently lose access to it, with an error message saying your probe is gone when you go to recall it. Then, during the ending cinematic with the new universe and the new creatures lighting their campfire, you see your probe fly overhead, a distant memory of the universe before theirs.
The reason this ties into you not being the first visitor to the Eye is that the same thing happens on Timber's Hearth. You can occasionally see a small white probe orbiting the planet, which I believe is a remnant of the last visitor to the Eye of the Universe from the previous Universe.
That would be cool, but that’s a heartburn camera...
The camera you’re talking about is the tutorial satellite I thunk
@@8bitbulldog heartburn camera? please explain
@@HotdogSosage yeah look around while in the starting area
@@seantaggart7382 yeah I've seen it. It's a probe that they explained they fired to orbit the planet to test the technology... Its not from the last visitor.
Also.. Heartburn camera? Is that the name of a probe?
Do you think your friends are the real ones, or just clones/hallucinations/other quantum stuff? Thats the question that bothered me most
Great video for a great game, btw!
Imo, i think they are quantum materializations of the protagonists memories, if you wait long enough at the eye you can see your universe die. Presumably they can’t be alive, unless they are by transcending quantum space time.
The fact that you "wake up" at the very beginning of the game, and that during your second encounter the Nomai statue basically sucks in, or saves, your memories into itself, and that you "wake up" after your first encounter of supernova is strong indication that everything you see, observe, interact with, is already dead and you're already inside the quantum realm, behaving as a quantum particle, and there is another version of you, entangled, therefore doing everything opposite of your actions in terms of movement, whom you meet and converge with during that point where you first see and walk into it. This means the whole game, technically and physically, is a projection, therefore it is a strong possibility that those friends are projections, memories of yourself from 14.3 billion years ago, from the universe before your current and that they will still be present in the universe created by you, some 14.3 billion years later.
This is the most fascinating aspect of this game.
Theyre absolutely not real
Solanum doesn't speak hearthian
In fact im pretty sure nonai dont have any spoken language. Seeing as how mundane things like their flirtations are also written
I think everyone is a projection except solonum this is because she thanks the protagonists for not forgetting her then says she hasn't played this song yet but she'll try her best. She's sentient within the eye, she also has additional things to say after the song, saying she admires our curiosity. Solunums was already quantum entangled so its not a stretch to say solunum was actually there. Because why would the protagonist thank himself for not forgetting solunum or why he admires his own curiosity.
@@Mythos27 I think that in the moment you die to the supernova the ATP uses its energy to go back in time 22 minutes. So the info you gathered is still in your mind, but the last 22 minutes never happened. its like if you throw your probe at the black hole, it went out in the white hole before it entered the black hole, sent you of the white hole station and you stopped the probe from getting in the black hole. So the probe never acctually got in the black hole at all, but you have the info of whats on the other side.
I fell like the campfire and the music section is to show how the eye can create or manipulate objects because you can see the rocks surrounding the tree get closer and closer and the tree itself being split apart to create the logs in the campfire and with the case of the instruments themselves, you see during the drums that the eye creates stars for the drum to orbit and creates an angler fish to scare the player, it also creates the nomai ship that you use to reach the mask. This could be used to prepare the player for the creation of the new universe.
I feel dumb for not thinking about this as I was playing the ending probably because I was so jaw dropped at what was happening but thinking back to it everything your saying makes sense to me
Well, I think that the music in the end is a reference to string theory. Sound produces vibrations...the basis of all fundamental physical particles by string theory.
Maybe the instruments are a what the eye is showing us as a "source" for these fundamental vibrations. Because our conscious minds cannot comprehend this, so the eye thoughtfully showed them as instruments. When everyone plays the instruments, new particles are formed out of nothing, leading to huge quantum fluctuations. Each instrument is the source of fundamental vibrations that all connect and join to form the big bang. You, created the spark that csused the big bang and saved your universe from the second law of thermodynamics, heat death.
My personal theory is that the eye is entangled to everything in the universe and everything that was or will be (entanglement IRL is incredible) and that when our player steps into this region that is essentially everything both possible and impossible at once in a super position whatever they can comprehend will be there as it is just as plausible as any other occurrence. at the end out player reaches the center of this area and collapses everything causing them to become a singularity and explode. whatever the player could understand and saw would be the possibility (set of fundamental physics) that would occur in the new existence.
The Vortex didnt sucked me in properly so i felt down and died.....biggest ooof moment
i believe the eye of the universe has some sort of prophetic quality to it. it called out to the nomai, knowing they would get trapped in dark bramble, create the setup for an infinite loop, die by the comet, and allow a hearthian at the last moments of the universe to be looped and find the eye. it called out to the nomai on purpose for the domino effect resulting in the player creating a new universe, or no one would have found it and the cycle would end.
All I know about the ending of Outer Wilds is that it hit me....
IT. HIT. ME. RIGHT. WHERE. I. LIVE.
HAAAAAAARD.
*sniffles*
I think this whole ending is a poetic representation of the big bounce theory, with the eye being the "center of the universe" where each new big bang will reoccur as each new universe is created
I think the eye is the universes central quantum computer, and everything within its reach are also quantum to a degree, but the quantum influence is stronger in some places than others, maybe due to proximity. So I think it calculates all possible events of the universe and applies one of them when the object in question is observed. Maybe the quantum moon is use as a quantum signal booster, allowing more objects in a part of the universe where there's is normally little quantum fluctuation, to become quantum entangles, allowing the eye to generate more possibilities for it (so for example, timber hearth in itself isn't noticeably quantum because of its position in the universe, but the shard from the quantum moon reaching it is able to let the quantum eye implement more possibilities, which then collapse on observation
here's my theory
the eye as it is described is sentient so if what happens at it end is a new universe, the eye could be the creative 'brain' behind it since it uses the power of quantum physics
the song played in the ancient glade is a song that every hearthian knows and the nomai never bothered to listen to the universe bc they didn't have the telescopes the player has, so the song in my mind is the 'soul' of the universe and thats what your friends are around the campfire in the glade.they each play a part of the universes soul bc they themselves are part of the universes soul.
the player is the conscious matter in the eye. you are the only thing in the glade that can't be moved around by the eye. your body has been though countless loops of the universe but memories have been through every iteration so it would stand that you have the ability to collapse all those universes into one, but the eye cant make matter from nothing so you as the 'body' of the universe.
and with that you throw yourself into the soul the matter ready to collapse into one universe, the eye make a shockwave shooting your atoms across space saving the universe.
I also think the Eye of the Universe is the great blue cloud, not the planet. It is a pocket of quantum reality that was somehow punctured by the sixth planet of the solar system (maybe a quantum fluctuation allowed the intersection of normal matter and quantum reality), the outer fabric of which cracked to form the starburst-like image that the Nomai detected. It was an utter fluke for such an event to occur, a once in a google-year event...in this way, Escall was correct in having the Nomai jump immediately upon detection, and why the survivors never detected the Eye again.
Would this be able to explain why the nomai devices to find the eye just frantically look everywhere for the eye when changed to that setting almost like either the eye is impossible to find or maybe like the eye is everywhere and the eye is all
I’ve been wondering if it’s possible that the Nomai might have survived the end of the universe. From the probe we know things can move from one universe to the next, and the Nomai knew what was happening and had the technology for interstellar survival. I wouldn’t put it past the bounds of possibility that the Nomai survived, and brought the knowledge of the old universe into the new one.
I think you are absolutely correct. All puzzles in the game were all about finding the best outcome of the quantum objects around you. For good or bad we do not have this luxury in real life.
Love the video, explanation and your effort in making some meaning out of the game. This game, for sure, is exploring the birth of a universe, the big bang, and quantum physics. The whole realm is built upon those three phenomenons/subjects of physics.
We know the big bang happened, we know time did not start exactly at the moment of big bang, time waited for inflation to kick in, that's why we have T minus 30 seconds or such numbers whenever we discuss big bang. We also know a certain few facts about our universe, one such thing is that the universe is expanding and the farther it is the faster it is getting farther apart, and that at the very basic level everything is governed by laws of quantum physics, like entanglement, uncertainty principal etc.
The game is dwelling on these ideas, I say so because we do not know what caused the big bang and what was before the big bang. It could be anything, or nothing at all, but the game is trying to explain one such fantastical possibility incorporating ideas, calculations, observation from science, physics.
There are hints of string theory hidden in the script of Nomai (spelling might be wrong), the shape and style of their script looks like strings connecting and extending, expanding but it always looks like something is originating from one point (the scroll or whatever we can take out from the wall and insert into a different slot). Then there is clear indication of quantum tunneling, entanglement, uncertainty principle plays a huge part in the game after you've entered the quantum universe (turning off and on the light gives different results), thus it is 100% clear that you've become a quantum entity, but your purpose is not to save the universe or whatever. Your purpose is to bring together the elements responsible for creating the ideal conditions of big bang, and then you jumping into that singularity to act as the spark, the uncertainty.
There are at least three endings of this game, two told by you, one is when you jump into the ghost air, near observatory on hearthian's planet. If you do that, or if you ever encounter ghost thing and interact with it, you die. Game tells you "You are dead" and credits roll. This means that throughout the game your goal is to bring together the necessary conditions for big bang to happen, to recreate a new universe because your universe will die and there is nothing you can do to save it from the death. This is also exemplified by your constant death loop caused by your exploding sun, and it also makes you wonder if your life, your universe itself is a projection? Which is another major and spicy theory in the world of physics, vaguely stating that our universe is a projection inside a black hole.
Well, there is a lot in this game than what meets the eyes. I just wanted to add what I made of it. I am still not satisfied with my own theories though, but thank you for sharing the video with us.
This is probably one of the best comments on this vid so far, I’d also like to mention there are 6 endings
Oh thank you, and I didn't know about the other two endings. Just the one actual, one death by ghost thingy and the one you've told.
I can’t believe I didn’t know about this game until now but as soon as I started playing it I beat it in 2 days
Low key kinda figured that some of this was the case
What if it's a whole cycle!? What if when we enter the eye, we are the consciousness that this guy was talking about? What if we forced the universe into collapsing and into being? What if we were the consciousness calling out across space and time and the Nomai heard that call somehow? We know that they will never be able to reach the eye but we could: through them. This may all be just in my mind but boy was I blown when it did come to me..
That’s some wacky shit to think about
I wonder if the Eye is just another entity like the Nomai, who could make the universe go into an infinite loop, only it isn't limited to 22 minutes but billions of years. That's why you see the cycle repeating at the end.
Or, the fact that we are able to "see" a big bang in the end makes the quantum event a reality, which leads to the development of a new universe, and we could argue that the other endings of not witnessing the big bang removes the event from ever happening in reality. Loved how the game and this video made me think a little deeper on all this. Thank you!
The game teaches a myriad of things including the inevitability of life and death. The Nomai almost made it to the eye of the universe--by arms reach by the looks of it. Is the eye sentient? is it "you" or the one that came before? Interesting thought, but what is important is that the galaxy, universe, multiverse will inevitability die naturally, or from the ghost matter hitting the sun causing a dominoes effect, and spreading it until nothing remains. Perhaps it is inevitable that life will be drawn back to once it came--the point of singularity--the eye. Or, perhaps it was simply the universe crying out to the Nomai for help to save it from its inevitable demise.
I also like to think that the multiverse will die and be reborn again with or without intervention. I love how an interactive game like this can draw out thought and provoke conversation of the unknown. Because, I like to think of it all like, The Question of Life--questions drive us, but answers to questions become the end, the end of "things" sucks (like books, movies & games), but it is inevitable.
Just another crazy theory
My theory is that our character live in the first universe, and when it should be collapse and end, it needed the observer, so after a plenty of time, it somehow called the Nomai, and luckily we were here being able to reach Eye of the Universe and after all be this observer that make possible the universe die and reborn over and over again. So our character live forever observing the universe with friends and the last Nomai.
The ending is about there is not so many things we can control and even the universe can exist just because of fortuity.
Sorry my English, i'm not native speaker:)
Does you dieing before you get the launch codes count as an ending? When i started playing outer wilds, i jumped into a hole with a waterfall going down it to see where it led to since i assumed there was water at the bottom.
I died the instant i landed in the water. The phrase "You Are Dead" popped up and the credits rolled. I laughed my ass off because of it.
It is technically an ending, the “you are dead” ending only triggers before and after the cycle
I think those are supposed to be galaxies, not universes. Also, they fizzle out on their own, you do not need to touch any for them to start fizzling out.
When I made this video I knew they’re galaxies. However I saw the possibility that they could be universes. Issue is, I didn’t explain that in the video
@@8bitbulldog yeah I completely understand, due to how the game's story is found people are bound to come up with different ideas
If their universe has the eye maybe another universe has another eye or maybe a heart or brain
I think the Eye is the same eye that every other universe has experienced, theoretically speaking, and the nomai named the Eye so I don’t think there is a heart or brain
@@8bitbulldog The Eye of the universe is not one being, but any being that is able to observe a universe's creation. Just as the Nomai detected a celestial body that was older than the universe itself, we too become this ancient 'observer' that ushers in a new universe.
It is our observation of the white cluster of matter atop the blacked out observatory (the poetry of this location alone is particularly beautiful) that sets the creation of a new universe and the big bang seen just before the end credits.
The current Eye's signal allows the player to become the Eye for a whole new universe.
And the cycle repeats.
While getting the beginner's luck achievement (finishing the game in one loop) I didn't get the exact same ending. First I didn't get to see the nomai who you can talk to (certainly because I hadn't explored on the quantum moon). Second when I got the "14 billion years later" the trees were there but the campfire with the aliens around never came.
I wonder what that means and what choices would have lead to it.
You do have to talk to solanum to get that ending
Here is my strait forward theory:
The universe is at its end. all the stars are dying. When you die for real, the game continues and new universe. When you enter the eye, you are seeing the creation of a new universe. All the trees and hearthian buddies are just quantum shenanigans like a last goodby thing
Well, that’s kinda what we know is canon for the most part. In my opinion, the hearthians and solanum are the hardest part to explain, because they are sentient.
I don't feel like this has any importance but I find it interesting that when you are at the part when you are viewing the eye of the universe as a whole, your visor on the space suit is cracked, creeping out from the center. It's hard notice unless you look down and use the light from the storm . Again, I don't think this has any importance in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like if the devs went out of their way to do this, there must be reason. Which leads me to question why and for what purpose is this here. I think I just overthinking it and I personally think any your died and the following is purgatory or your dying dreams are just lazy and unoriginal. Thank for this making this video, it was very interesting.
For reference visually for when 3:10-4:28, You can make out the cracks if you are looking for them.
I think the cracking is just a minor visual indication that this is the end, and that it should be clear that the Hearthian isn't going to survive this. It marks a transition out of the interpretive headspace he's been in while collecting instruments/influencing the form of this new universe and back into "reality" where he's a flesh & blood being dying in space, possibly in a violent big bang event.
Also cool: if you fire your scout into the eye before jumping into the vortex, you can't get it back, and it will appear in the final scene 14 billion years later flying over the heads of the bug people sitting around the campfire.
@@dirtypisspinko for me if I was that hearthian seeing the big bang i would smile and feel peace knowing life is back and the heat death of the universe is no more
As the big bang reached me I would close my eyes and say WAIT I FORGOT MY MARSHMALLOWS! *INCINERATED*
A bit late but, that isn’t your visor I think. If you look at the nomai interpretation of the eye, it has those cracks and streaks. I believe it’s the quantum storm
I have some questions in my head, what would happen if we didn't reach the eye? Would the universe restart? Or would it just be forever dead as no living being reached the eye to continue the cycle?
The campfire scene was really great and touching but it's probably just an illusion from us, in reality our friends died from the supernova when we reached the eye, though I wish that's not what happens as it kinda ruins the "happy and together" atmosphere of that campfire scene.
Anyway wow, this game is a masterpiece
The universe dies in every ending but the main one, and I believe that the illusion is from the Eye itself, it’s just using the characters friends to make this whole thing comprehensible for the character
As mentioned in the video if you disable the ash twin project then start running away from the sun fast as possible you get an ending where you see the universe die because all stars burn out
I am not at all skilled with explanations of physics or would-bes... But I can shape my thought in a sentence which gives an exact idea of what my line of logic is :
*"At one point, there will be so much nothingness never happening that something will have to happen."*
But will it have life?...
@@8bitbulldog it may have life if you will it
i was of the opinion that the eye of the universe is essentially not sentient but is infinitely malleable and does exist for a purpose. a purpose it carries out because that's what it does, rather than out of any sentience.
it doesn't "want" to be found by the nomai for two possible reasons.
1. it's not supposed to be found "yet", the nomai existed hundreds of thousands of years before the hearthians. it's designed to appear when the end comes.
2. it's supposed to be found by an intelligence that would be capable of at least loosely understanding it, so it calls, the ability to hear it indicating basic intelligence but requires ingenuity to find, if you can find it, you can help it fulfil whatever purpose required of it
the reason why i think it shows up the way it does is the same as why the ending of 2001 a space odyssey looks the way it does, the bedroom dave bowman ends up in. watch it again and realize how uncomfortably bizarre that room looks. even better the description in the novel.
in essence all the pieces are there, a bed, a bathroom, but...who lights their room from the floor? what's with the artwork? it's like someone saw hazy photos of human bedrooms but had no concept of what they were looking at, hence all the stuff is right but it's all "wrong". the eye of the universe is the same. all the pieces are there but since the eye of the universe exists outside linear space time it's simply incapable of providing a linear space for a hearthian. so it does what it can to provide what the hearthian needs for the eye to fulfill its purpose
For some reason, this video is the only one I've found about this game, other that Jacksepticeye, that has commentary. It's weird.
The game has a rather small community, mostly due to the epic games store exclusivity
Oh, it was made by them? I didn't know that, I assumed it was on the Steam store or something.
The Kingdom go check out WanderBots playthrough of it.
Good video, personally I think the eye waited until the time was right to be found by the probe and entered.
What if we make OUR universe, then it completely loops in a cycle.
The curse of all curses
I think that the reason that you see the museum when entering the eye, along with the other people around you, is that entering the eye is different for every person based on what they have observed. Like, there are so many things in Outer Wilds that is based on the idea that something either doesn't exist or exists all at once if it is not being observed, but once it's actually being observed it settles into a "proper reality". So, what can exist in the eye is entirely based on what the conscious observer has actually been able to observe. This feels especially true when Solamum won't appear in the ending unless you observe her alive. She doesn't exist as a living entity in the eye unless you have observed her as such through your own four eyes. And the eye of the universe needs a conscious observer to help it create the next universe. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a big bang goes off in space, does it truly exist if no one is there to see it? And in order for there to be other intelligent life besides your own, the main character needs to observe an intelligent life besides their own (thus the bug creatures that are alive after the recreation of the universe). So, if you (you, not the main character) were to jump into the eye of the universe, you may not see the Timber Hearth observatory. You may see your grandmother's house with a cozy fire, your high school prom where you had your first kiss, your first apartment where you learnt responsibility for the first time... The place that feels most like home to you.
That's just my thought, anyway. xD
i was thinking about how they use the music as signal inside the game, and the music also was part of the creation of a new universe and a new cicle, the thing is: what if the signal of the eye of universe found by the nomai was just the music that created their universe ?
maybe im tripping
You aren’t far off from my ideas
5:30 I'm pretty sure this represents the heat death of the universe.
The loop last 22 min because it was made to do that and it's doing it because of the sun exploding no supernova no loop
It's marked somewhere you need the power of a supernova to enable ash project
I think it’s in the sun station that says this
Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought.
From a scientific standpoint I think that you're absolutely correct and I love this explanation
Thanks, I had more ideas then what I listed but I gave the one I believed to be the most correct
love how the video is 22 minutes
And that was coincidental too
Legend
wow get me a game that I need an understanding in freaking quantum physics to understand. Take that Bioshock Infinite this game had a less understood ending than you!!
Good video
you deserve way more subscribers
That was an awesome interpretation.
Thank
Very good explanation. I don't have any knowledge on Quantum Physics, but I understood enough to be satisfied with the video.
Very good video!
Thank
Great video! I ve just finished the game i m super emotionate and i m going on here looking for answers; i ve discovered that there was also the nomai guy playing music, i ve played music without him and after 14 bilion years i didnt see the light of the flame in the forest ( i think it was dark but maybe i was too conxentrate looking at the planets ahah ) great video man that game is awesome so much old game vibes really good adventure
Awesome!
I can’t make it past the stupid fuckin angler fish. I was able to make it to the camp where I think chert is. Without even knowing These things exist but now I know they are there I cannot make it anywhere in the dark bramble without getting eaten
Wait
The Eye of Universe is God?
Like, It's kind of everywhere at the same time, It knows everything, It probably started the universe and keeps the cycle going.
To me It is clearly a tipe of God of the Universes of Outer Wilds.
I had that idea for a while, it can appear to be a godlike entity depending on your perception of it
Big brain time
Those universes are actually galaxy’s
I’m aware, I address this on the pinned comment, but it’s also confusing as the devs themselves refer to them as universes.
Ok thanks
I thought those were galaxies not universes
I forgot to mention that in the video, I did want to in the voiceover but I forgot to, I speculated that they are universes
In my review video of the game (which I’m still working on) I will mention this
Hi there, I finished the game earlier today and after thinking about the ending for a bit started looking around the net for other people's interpretations. I'm not the kind of person trying to find concrete meaning in things like these. One thing that struck me though, and one point you're mentioning here is, that our player character dies in every ending there is in the game, and we end up searching for the best possible outcome anyway.
Now I haven't tried every way to die in game, but I did fall to my death before meeting the statue, and also died after removing the thing from the Ash Twin Project. Both gave me an ending that said "you're dead" or "you died". The "proper" ending doesn't though. Any thoughts on why that is, other than "because it's the proper ending"?
Kind regards
Well, there is text after the main ending, just not immediately afterwards
I’m a little confused sorry. Why did the nomad create the time loop? Why did they try to destroy the sun?
They tried to destroy the sun to power the ATP. The idea is the time loop would give them knowledge of the eye from the future to help them locate it.
Ok thanks. Great video by the way.
Thanks! It’s outdated now and a little poorly worded but I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I got the ending and the nomani person wasnt there?
You have to visit the quantum moon
No you have to get to it when the shrine is at the eye
And then do a thing
I had no campfire at end can someone explain
Did u go to the eye?
I wish i was a nerd so i could understand what you are saying
As far as i understand it, the Eye is a cosmic entity that once was the most evolved of any species, but reached a point of evolution/technological scale where the next step was becoming a god-like entity, doing whatever the hell it pleases, such as having Nomai try find it, making them theoretically extinct, then having the Hearthians later on to find it, toying with its strange rules and at one point even trying to scare the player, afterwards rewarding them with a sighting of the birth of a new universe while becoming the Eye for the new universe
Just finished this game...
Wow just wow
Me too, it's half 2 in the morning, my brain is on fire and I feel like a kid again. So thought provoking
Ok how tf do you sound EXACTLY like my twin brother??
No damn clue. Though I will say, I do some equalizing to improve how my voice sounds, this includes removing a lot of bass tones, so I actually sound a little older in person.
So your the next person who restarted the universe
Yes
The eye is not in a physical location and I don't think the probe actually needed to go anywhere. It just needed to exert that force that blew up the orbiter. "The Eye" is a symbol for the collapse function holding reality in place.
I was curious what triggers the end of the cosmos. Perhaps because the last remaining Nomai - who's tracks we've been following - have finally "found the eyes location". We see the probe launch at the beginning of every loop. My guess is that the "discovery" (observing) of the eye is what is killing the current cosmos and triggering the loop. The teleporter in the ship takes you to a dimension between dimensions where such an "eye" SHOULD be, if you ask me.
Why it's calling the nomai may have something to do with the Eye wanting a new universe and wanting a curious, passionate and music loving society to be the model for the new Cosmos - such as the heartheans. This is emphasized in the scene at the end when the planets are all spawned, but they look different! And there was a heartheans campfire on the one closest! And why have the whole scene where you're collecting everyone's instruments at all? Something is clearly being emphasized. And it wasn't just any old heartheans, it was the most musical and adventurous and curious.
It needed the heartheans and it had to wait until the perfect time to "reveal itself" and it triggered the loop at that time because it knew YOU could do it! maybe?! Lol
The Nomai could never get there because the Eye did not want their manners to be the new model.
I didn't know about all these endings, so I'll be playing again, but I hope my thoughts help.
This is a pretty good clarification of what I had in mind, at the time of this video I thought differently
@@8bitbulldog I have a lot more I want to say, i'm just gunna play through a couple alternate endings first before I flesh it all out here..
You do realise than more than one ending
I’m very much aware of that. This video was made when I first did the main ending and it’s fairly outdated now
This game is basically Interstellar.
I much prefer it to interstellar, though, and I think there are bigger thematic differences. I'm not huge fan of interstellar. I think Outer Wilds is a lot more down to earth.
What’s sad about these types of games is you can’t play them again with the same experience. This is one or if not my favourite game ever made.
Can’t agree more
What ?
There's literally zero indication our character dies. Maybe in the end it makes one with the eye of the universe, maybe not. But we don't know, we just know it's the end of our character as we used to know him/her.
Also, don't you think there is some similarity between this eye of the universe and a creator ? We often imagine God as a dude (thanks christians), but I tend to see the concept of God more vastly.
There's a lot in this whole game that is about observation.
Remember Nietzche ? "when you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes back".
It's really clear with that. Quantic rocks who move when we don't look. The EYE of the universe, so it does see.
People near the fire at the end aren't the ones we met during our travel. Solanum confirms this, because she does speak while she didn't when we met her before.
Also, I think the music instruments we collect are here to at least symbolize the importance of memories, and how our past can impact our future. This is even shown again at the end (if you launched your probe in the eye) when you see your probe travelling in the new universe.
So it shows how things tend to repeat, this idea of cycle is something that is a part of the core of the game.
The creatures around the fire in the end image support this idea of a cyclical time.
If you think of it, Outer Wilds tends to make us question about this idea of cyclical time, about the importance of the past, and about observation.
Three things that are really put in evidence through the entire game.
Now, these subjects are all adressed, without even talking directly about it.
Outer Wilds wants to us to think about these subjects and question ourselves about it.
And I deeply think they're not talking about some supposed universe in a game. They're talking about our own universe, the one we live in. Indirectly, but still they do.
This is a great explanation, also I am pretty sure that the character dies, because the ending sequence is just a glorified super nova by the way the game works
@@8bitbulldog Thanks !
I suppose what you talk about when saying "glorified supernova" is the white screen that happens just before the credits.
Well... it could be our character dying.
But then, there's a question. What's this "white supernova" (if I can call it that way) ?
One supposition I have is that this white light is the core of the eye. And you end becoming one with it.
But honestly, at this level it's really just a supposition.
I don't think the character dies. I think it becomes something else.
But well, I can't say I'm right or wrong. I think I'm gonna go play.
I'm sure there's hidden stuff that could be really meaningful. I saw someone on another video telling there was a hidden graveyard on Timber Hearth.
Anyway, it's nice of you to have read and answered my comment ! I hope we'll find further elements who could answer what's still unclear ! I wish you a nice day !
You can look around at that “white screen”, it’s a Big Bang. The literal creation of a new universe
@@8bitbulldog Didn't even thought of looking around ! I'm gonna do it next time I play !
Well They did Get INCINERATED BY THE FREAKING BIG BANG!
Cool
Death is the Road to Awe.
Indeed it is my friend.
@@grungeblight After this game's ending, I had to just sit and feel it for a bit. It reminded me so strongly of the message of The Fountain, and its core themes, that really all I could put down was the most important line from that movie. If anyone reading this hasn't seen The Fountain, I wholeheartedly recommend it. It's so powerful and beautiful.
2.9k views. 😶
Honestly, I’m just as shocked
8-bit bulldog what the actual hell. Fckn congrats 👀
How is this video outdated?
It’s because my ideas and beliefs don’t match up now, when I made this it was when I had first completed the game and I was simply speculating.
@@8bitbulldog Oh really.
It was an interessting video though. I've looked through alot of the games' wiki page but haven't found a full explanation of everything. Do you know where I can find it?
I was a little disapointed of the ending i was expecting like
The nomaï kill your sun gotta fix dat
because we learn that they try blowing up the sun for power
And i think some nomaï didn't wanted the sun to blow up because there was life in our planet (Probably us)
But still great
Bibi lunic et le seul But they didn't blow up the sun. The Sun Station failed, the the Nomai were killed.
@@Yggdrasil42 yeah i know old univers supernova
Theory: the eye of the universe is...
... Your mom
Its just weird game.. Dont over think everything 🤣
Not necessarily, context was given in game for these explanations. A lot of my ideas here are obsolete anyway. I have a big video coming up that will have a better explanation
your music in this video is really distracting unfitting and annoying
Dude... Why did you put a background music to all of the quiet moments from the game? Why are you ruining those beautiful moments with such terribly tasteless and pointless background music?It's definitely not going to be enough to safeguard you from automated copyright claims, if that's what you were shooting for.
Edit: oh, it's even worse! the music is still there, playing alongside the actual game's beautiful soundtrack when it finally kicks in. The hell is wrong with you, boy?
It was a simple oversight, no need to make a big deal over it. Even then if you really want to hear the silence and experience it the atmosphere you can play the game yourself