1/16/2023 0 Comments Outer wilds echoes of the eye![]() ![]() The Sarcophagus was a very early design, I often used it as a reference point when designing everything else It felt very appropriate to fashion them after classical UFOs These were found in the docking bay of the Stranger to help signal to people they can land their ship in there. There was a lot more metal and angular shapes, but this proved to not really work all that practically, nor did it really feel like Outer Wilds, so we took another direction. Random architectural and material exploration. There was also a more visual focus on arcane symbols. General explorations for how in the day vs night could give players different information. ![]() The player would think they are changing the time of day, when in reality they were being moved to the other side The Stranger, like a lot of things in Outer Wilds was secretly a giant puzzle so it went through a ton of iterations throughout development.īefore the stranger became a ring world, it was going to be more flat like a coin, with a day side, and a night side that sort of mirrored each other.Ī cut idea, but partially where the dream world came from, the player would put their lantern in this device, and it would rotate a cover over. It was fun to take a crack at their style. The map satellite was the only Hearthian concept I got to do. I also did in game murals, key art illustrations and I got the opportunity to design some merchandise as well. As the primary concept artist on the expansion, I was tasked designing the general look for the new characters, as well as their props and pieces of architecture. Echoes of the Eye, and recent games like it, remind us that even when things are at their worst, we can still find ways to care for each other.Some work I did for "Echoes of The Eye," the expansion to Outer Wilds. It's been a rough few years, and it can feel like the end is coming in the wake of the still ongoing pandemic and the looming threat of climate change. So many games depict the end of the world as violent and isolating. Not everyone gets to go back and rewrite their stories 26 years later, but Evangelion's surprising shift to optimism mirrors the shift we've seen in recent media, and specifically in games like Kentucky Route Zero (opens in new tab), Umurangi Generation (opens in new tab), and now Echoes of the Eye. Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time transforms a nihilistic series about teens, mechs, and repeated apocalyptic events into a story with a sense of community, hope, and forgiveness. The end of their story exemplifies this by focusing on one of their major, accidental mistakes, and how even that, however tragic, can be forgiven.Įchoes of the Eye came out not long after I saw the final Rebuild of Evangelion film. These short reels depict a group of people that, though steadfast in their decisions, were just as fallible as you. And when you're stuck, it gives you opportunities to reflect on your progress and how to move forward via the slideshows of the race that came before you. Failure is never punished so harshly that you don't want to try again. This kindness throughout the game's design is the root of what makes Outer Wilds work, and it's why Echoes of the Eye does too. One particular animation for a fail state here is exceptionally well done, reinforcing how much the developers care about the player learning their way through the experience-despite this being its most antagonistic segment. ![]() It's scary at first, even difficult, but you quickly find out how soft the threats are-and learn how to plan around them. In Echoes of the Eye's second half, the developers use horror to push you toward progress under duress. While it may seem daunting at first, you eventually understand how the planet's quirk interlocks with what's actually going on inside it. The DLC emphatically starts with one of these disruptions that essentially puts you on another kind of timer, on top of the game's 22-minute, sun-exploding loop. Tucked within that process are moments of discovery in which a new rule for the planet confronts you, complicating how you traverse it and solve its puzzles. You poke around a planet and gather information about a race of people that died long before you get there. The way it wraps up, while brief, is almost as heartbreaking as the original ending, especially if you complete the base game again.Įchoes of the Eye's structure is largely the same as the base game. If the original is about curiosity of the unknown, Echoes of the Eye is about the fear of what you don't understand-and the grip this fear can have on every part of your life. ![]() The DLC, or sequel, or expansion-however you want to call it-repositions the main game's perspective on the ending of the universe. Echoes of the Eye makes that frustration worse. ![]()
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