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this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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I've been hesitant to play it because I heard it's existentially depressing and I don't think my mental state is in a good place to deal with that. Otherwise I'd probably give it a go. I loved Return of the Obra Dinn and many people who love one of those games seem to also love the other.
I don't know, slight spoilers for the general mood, but, outer wilds is that, but it's more like.. wistful, or melancholic, or bittersweet. It's sad, but it's a good sad. It's emotional, and emotions feel good.
I feel like, if I were in a bad place when playing that, I don't think it would have made it worse. It might have made it more meaningful, and be kinda.. nice, in a sense. But I also feel like art like that help me a lot when I am in bad places. It's kinda like seeing beauty in sadness, right?
But I am not you so, y'know, YMMV
It's hard because it depends on the type of melancholy. I get what you mean about wistful melancholy and "good sad" if the stories are on the smaller scale. Human tragedy, personal failure, doomed relationships, lost love, that sort of stuff.
I have a harder time dealing with elaborations on an existential level: the ultimate end of all things, the futility of existence, the meaninglessness of life etc. I'm hesitant because I've gotten the impression this is the sphere Outer Wilds operates in.
It is some of the things you've mentioned. But it is not nihilistic.
It's a kind of hopeful nihilism, a sort of sense that no matter how far apart you are in space or time, everyone and everything is ultimately connected, and looking up at the same stars.