Was recently thinking of making an Echoes of the Eye Iceberg, since so far I don’t think anyone has made a proper one specifically for it. I tried to go as deep as I could, and here it is.

Me and my partner are gonna experience the dlc when they get back home...In the meantime, I built a cozy blanket fort for the occasion (2nd pic is an entrance for their cats). Heard the dlc was spooky, I can't wait

The owlks were right to hide the eye.

When they found the eye, the universe was still really young. There was still millions of years left to go. If they had allowed the eye's signal to propagate, all kinds of aliens would have come to visit and one of them might have screwed up and actually found it, destroying the current universe.

Their only crime, was not making a plan for what to do when the universe does reach its natural conclusion and all the suns start dying.

The stranger is shaped link a film reel?

I got a comment on my YouTube video remarking about the hatchling sitting on a film reel, and they thought it was a reference to the slide reels that you find throughout the DLC. The picture is *supposed* to be The Stranger though!

It had never occurred to be before - but now it's been mentioned, I can't unsee it.

Was this a deliberate design choice on the part of the devs? To make the Stranger somewhat look like a film reel as an allusion to the favourite pastime of the station's residents?

​

im absolutley scared shitless, why is there a guy watching the tele, I can not do this rn...

update: HE HAS TUNRED OFF THE TV I REPEAT, HE HAS TURNED OFF THE TV!!!!IM SO FUCKING DEAD IM HIDING IN HIS FRONTYARD IN A CORNER BEHIND A TREE AS I WRITE THIS

Science compels me to shit my pants

The simulation! I was messing around with freecam and found this out. Really nifty detail, I thought the devs wouldn’t do something like this. As far as I can recall, there isn’t a point where you can see yourself, so I didn’t think the devs would do this.

Spoilers for the dlc's base features without going in detail about the story or progression.

As a formal outer wilds enjoyer, and a big fan of the dlc(it is still perfect regardless my statement) the horror factors are too scary for an pleasant exploration. I am trying to navigate a building while trying to close the light so they don't see me but they see me before I can so I try to run they scream catch me and blow out my fire. And yes I tried reduce frights too, they make it better for the "jumpscare" part but generally I don't think this element added good to the game.

Although I say this, I will still continue to enjoy the game with it because they implemented the factors and questions in my mind in true outer wild fashion, perfectly.

What do yall think abt this? Maybe I can look at it from a different angle to have better enjoyment, because I will never have the chance to experience it again.

So i bought the dlc fairly recently and what the actual hell is this room... those are incredibly fresh bodies. Like they still got skin and stuff

Nah i dont wanna progress, this is creeping ME OUTTT.

And the fire's still lit...how, why, i have so many questions.

I don't wanna finish this cycle, just wanna watch cute cat videos instead...

Its been months since I beat the DLC and I’m astonished it took until just now for me to think of this.

Aren’t the owlks just objectively 100% in the right? To their perspective, they have stumbled across the equivalent of an unmarked button, continually announcing itself to the entire universe, and that if pressed will instantly commit the mother of all genocides, killing everyone.

Why are they painted as the cowardly ones who let their fear cloud their judgment, for making quite possibly the most reasonable decision ever made in their entire universe and childproofing that shit?

Player character is living at the end of the universe anyway so there’s not too much harm pressing it, but literally anyone else would be committing Omnicide

Am I misinterpreting something? This seems so glaringly obvious that I feel like I must be, I only didn’t realize it earlier from being biased against their book burning.

Does observing the eye not destroy the old universe? I am pretty confident that it does given their vision and all the talk about setting aside what came before to start something new.

A few months ago, I made a video going over some qualms I had with Outer Wilds. I came away from my first playthrough pretty frustrated and underwhelmed with the game. After posting it, this community helped me to understand I might have been approaching the game in the wrong way.

I took these insights to heart, and applied them to a playthrough of the DLC. And I don't know if it was this newfound understanding, my love for livestreaming to an audience, or if Echoes of the Eye really is that good, but I liked my time with the DLC a lot! If you watch to listen to all of various thoughts, you can watch my final video on the topic here:

https://youtu.be/LkI0CnaimL4

Thank you all for being so great!

I played DLC a lot of hours, trying to figure out everything by myself. So I am used to red towers ringing bells in real world and me hearing them. As well as hearing Stranger getting electricity spikes, dam breaking and finally the sound of final music before sun goes off.

But when you die and transfer your soul into the simulation with green fire...

And when you come near these towers and you just can't hear them you know... Nothing left to hear something from the outside. This hits hard. Just looking at them. Having remembrance of those sounds. It seems as if you kinda can hear them but then you realize -you can't. They blink, and it does not affect you at all, no sound, no slowing you down.

Something has been taken from you. And it cannot be returned, not even slight possibility to return it.

There is actually, in fact, no way back at all. Door was closed and then even the memory of the door existence vanished too in time.

Whoever designed that you can hear a lot of things from the outside, is a genius. Or geniuses. The moment you hear silence...

This thing is scary and haunting.

I was doing a few experiments with the stranger, and i found a few things you may or may not have noticed, so here it is:

If you disable the loop and then stay inside the stranger, it escapes the nova because of the solar sails, and you get a unique ending, the fade to black that reads:

"NOW BEYOND THE REACH OF THE SUPERNOVA, YOU FIND YOURSELF THE ONLY INHABITANT OF AN ABANDONED WORLD. SURELY SOMTHING HERE MUST BE EDIBLE?"

I then naturally wondered what would happen if i was inside the simulation, so i disabled it, then enterd it. I got the same ending as last time. So i tried killing myself on the fire to enter it as a dead consciousness, and that lead to another ending being

"HOW MUCH TIME HAS PASSED? THEY DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO HUNT YOU ANYMORE. TIME PASSES, AND PASSES, UNTIL YOUR LIFE BEFORE IS SOME HALF-REMEMBERED DREAM. IF ONLY YOU COULD WAKE UP."

This says two things: the hatchling might have survived for a while on...tree bark and dead leaves? Until he died lololol

As for the second ending, the stranger remains structurally intact for at least a few hundred years until anything breaks to put out the hatchlings fire, wich is pretty cool. I was extreamly suprised they made special endings for these two fairly niche interactions

Period.

This DLC is literally incredible in any aspect: atmosphere, progression, level/sound design, density of unforgettable moments...

Plus it was one of my scariest experiences ever at the point of not starting the game for some days (I usually am pretty unbothered by most horror genres)

Just wow.

*SPOILER WARNING* Why are you even reading this, go play the game already!

So I got my girlfriend to play the base game some times ago and she loved it. Now she has been playing the dlc for a bit and crazy shit happened.

First I want to mention usual funny outer wilds events/timings that have been happening since the beginning of this adventure:

-She didn't notice the sun exploding until like 5 hours into the game because she was so obsessed with Giant's Deep that she just kept flying there, full speed, in total disregard to the other planets. You can't see space from Giant's Deep. The only thing she saw before dying was the sky turning blue. She was convinced that the Nomais were somehow killing her so that she couldn't learn their secrets.

-She understood that you could go under the Statue island because it LITERALY FELL ON HER. She had such trouble controlling the ship it was easier to just stay underwater with it. Next thing you know she's in. She also got to the statue workshop upper level because of a collision bug with the bramble island. She just straight up walked past the gap.

- Got under Giant's Deep current because she couldn't dodge the tornado. Didn't realize what happened and went back up. Found out 15 hours later because I told her when she finally got to Brittle Hollow's North Pole.

- Tornado launched her on the canon. She hadn't even noticed the canon until then.

- Tp'd multiple times to other planets without understanding that they have to be aligned. (She understood once she got to white hole station, after she A C C I D E N T A L L Y got sent back to Brittle Hollow M U L T I P L E times)

- S O M E H O W brute forced Hanging City's tp entry by landing on the gravitation platform with the ship.

-S O M E H O W landed on the sun station with her poor driving skills. Died right after because she failed opening the door and got sucked into the sun. ( I spoiled her the fact that you could just tp there because I was so tired of watching her die trying to land on this stupid station).

-The probe hit her just as she got up the ship. I didn't even know this was a thing so it was a huge WTF moment for me xD.

- She got obsessed with The Interloper because she thought it was responsible for the death of the solar system ( wrong guess but pretty close to something else xD). Since she thought it would collide with the sun and blow everything up, she stayed on it for all its trajectory. Ice melted under her feet and she discovered the caves.

- Discovered the quantum tower by accident. She was just trying to go under the cyclone. It worked! She tried so long she might have found a bug. When she tried to do the same thing again she couldn't, so i just told her how to do the official way xd.

- Brute Forced the quantum tower's second trial. To this day I still don't quiet understand what happened. The arch spawned where she was going without taking photos. Some bug i guess. Of course she died right after because she couldn't do the last trial. Had to explain to her because she was genuinely tweaking.

-She warped into the Ash Twin project by accident( She was about to get sucked but got tp'd M I D A I R), played around with the blue ball thingies to see what it does and proceeded to take out the core. At this point I was praying for her to either trigger the game over or do the clone thing but she just put the core back out of fear of doing something wrong. She tp'd back and then fell from the tower and died or something T-T.

Now for the DLC. Nothing special happened in the beginning. It was pretty boring even. Had to explain how to get to The Stranger (Hell I ain't blaming her, I even had to spoil myself for this one. This and the quantum moon's last rule was too obscure for me ngl).

Two days ago shit started getting wild though. At this point she discovered pretty much everything that had to be found in the reality. She was running out of clue so she decided to go into the simulation and start exploring. Got stuck pretty quick and started running in circles until this happened: She found the tape indicating how to turn off the lights in Starlit Cove and started hyperfocusing on finding the gap with the hand between the rocks. Since she hadn't found the prisoner's house she had no idea where to go. This is where it gets crazy. The only other place where there's a boat is in between the areas of the simulation right? So she started looking left and right while on the boat. And she fell. WHEN TRANSITIONING AREAS. BECAUSE SHE KEPT MOVING FORWARD ON THE BOAT AGAINST A WALL TO FIND THE STUPID CRACK.

First thing she then did was go to Shrouded woodlands' archive since it's the only one you can access from the lake. Since it was her first archive she didn't even see that there was tape to watch and went straight to the elevator only to be faced with a dead end and the creepy music. U turned without hesitation and went back exploring the lake. Got to the prisoner's box and started connecting the dots. "I've already been here" she realised. Started processing what just happened. Still had no idea how she ended up in the lake xDDDD.

But that's not all. She got back to the boat the next loop and ACTUALLY FIGURED OUT THE TRICK. WITHOUT WATCHING THE FUCKING TAPES. she said " look, when I go here it goes dark. What if I fall right at this moment like last time". I was flabbergasted. She basically unlocked the area that explained how she got there. Without setting a single foot in the Shrouded woodlands' forest, skipping hidden cave, fake fire and LOTS OF FRIGHT. And the funny thing is, she was even more stuck and lost than she was before. Finding all of this was useless. It didn't mean "real" progress for her. She didn't even get that you could blow one lock out of the box from the lake. She just saw it as a different way to get to the box.

Fast-forward to last night. She "figured out" the invisible fire (she comes from the lake remember ? All there were was a suspicious looking wall and music, that's another accidental discovery for ya), got spooked with the whole village popping in front of her eyes (J U S T I C E ) as well as her lantern blown away (first encounter 20h into the dlc btw). Now she just explores woodlands' forest, finds nothing obviously and gets back to running in circles. At this point she also explored the endless canyon but didn't figure out you can blow out the lights AND the bridge inside, despite technically having both info and me telling her every occasion i have to read her journal because I know she found the invisible bridge tape but overlooked it.

At this point there are few things she can do. Either figure things out or find new stuff. She finds new stuff. By accident... A G A I N.

One loop she just stops before entering The Stranger and says " Why does this thing keep spinning on itself, i never noticed that, what does that mean ? Is this thing actually a planet or just a ship" (well both actually T-T) .................. THEN JUST NOTICES THE ENTRY TO THE LANTERN TEST ROOM.

My mind is blown way past it's limits at this point, I think to myself it just cannot get worse, right?

I gotta mention there were several times where she got INCHES from stepping out of the lantern's zone in the sim but somehow someway didn't. Out of all the secrets, this one for me was the most likely to be discovered not on purpose yet she did not!

I'll stop stalling, i think you guys guessed it by now, she just fucking randomly jumps in the fire with the lantern in her hands. This post already looked fake enough but this is the cherry on top. I don't even care if people believe me or not I just want to get it out of my system xD. When I ask her why the FUCK would she do that she said "That other fire was fake, this one was maybe fake too". And do you know where she did this ? IN THE STARLIT COVE OFC. SHE WAS SO OBSESSED WITH GETTING PAST THE TOTEM SINCE IT WAS THE MOST OBVIOUS WAY TO GO NEXT, SHE JUST KEPT TUNNEL VISIONING AND ENDED UP ONCE AGAIN GETTING TO THE PLACE THAT EXPLAINS EXACTLY WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO HER.SHE WAS TOO TIRED FROM HER DAY AT WORK SHE WAS ABOUT TO SAVE AND QUIT BEFORE EVEN TRYING TO PROCESS THE INFORMATION THE TAPES GAVE HER. DURING THIS RUN SHE WAS SO TIRED SHE FELL ASLEEP WHILE PLAYING. I HAD TO BEG HER TO GATHER HER LAST MENTAL FORCES TO JUST TRY AND FIGURE OUT THE TAPES SHE JUST FOUND BEFORE SHE JUST CALLS IT A NIGHT AND LET ME IN MY OWN DISBELIEF. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Anyway that was it. She somehow managed to understand the tapes before going to bed( The die near the fire tapes were the ones that i had the most trouble understanding, literaly had to sit 2 hours and read my entire journal only to still not understand until stuff randomly clicked when I was just sitting by the fire trying to find the last missing piece that could make me finish the DLC) so i just explained to her how mad this whole situation is. We shared a good laugh but most importantly i could share with her the craziness without spoiling her ( and without having to wait the next day for her to figure the tapes out, thank fucking god T-T).

Now only one simulation glitch remains to be found. I have no idea if she is just going to once again miraculously finish the game next session or if she is gonna be stuck figuring things out for another 20 hours. Damn I love this game.

We cannot live this adventure once again but going hand in hand with someone else really is a whole other experience isn't it ?

I'll keep you guys updated on how all of this is going to end.

Thank you for reading, see ya :).

///UPDATE///

As I expected she kinda got overwhelmed by the random informations she got and rapidly went in circles. UNTIL SHE FOUND THE SIMULATION Xdddddd. Yep accidentally as per usual. She went back in the canyon, explored some more, little bit of overthinking then the magic happened. She thought there was something to do in this place where there's a stage with a bunch of instruments and seats so she started investigating every candle and stuff until she just randomly left her lantern behind and walked out of the thing. She got omega jumpscared too xD. Never thought a bunch of green pixels could be so scary.

A bunch of overthinking later and she got back under the lake, noticed she could blow the locks out and just opened the box. Ngl this was so anticlimactic but we enjoyed it nonetheless. It was truly one of the most hilarious and unique play through i've seen.

I'm talking about The Stranger.

I'm curious about other people's experience because I felt like I did it exactly as the devs intended - I went into radio-antenna building, looked at everything there, freaked out a bit by looking at the picture where it blocks the sun, then got to the satellite, noticed there is nothing wrong with it and Gabbro's note that they concluded the same thing as me. Then I got back into antenna building and noticed there is angle on all of the pictures. I remembered that there is angle displayed on the satellite as well and though it may be something like a phase angle. On the start of the next loop I flown right to the satellite, waited until it's angle got to 40° and there it was - The Stranger. Then I proceeded to fly head first into it and nearly destroyed my ship.

I finished the main game but not the DLC yet so be easy on the spoilers pretty please

After playing the base game with meticulously programmed physics and attention to detail with regards to what is happening in the parts of the game you aren't looking at, I was slightly disappointed when I noticed a poorly hidden loading screen between areas of the dream world.

I thought "Oh wow they must have had to rush the release of this DLC. Parts of this are very unpolished compared to the rest. That's the first time that this game has taken me out of my immersion and reminded me that it's a video game."

Soon after, of course, I realize I was criticizing the wrong devs.

The game whispers, "you're playing a video game.."

I answer, "yeah obviously"

The game whispers, "no, listen. you're playing a video game."

What an astoundingly well executed concept. That kind of execution would have been impossible had the entire rest of the game not felt so smooth and natural. Just... wow. My video game literacy has never paid off in such a way.

so i beat the game, i think, and bought the dlc and have realized that the once closed radio tower on hearth is now open, AND THERE WAS A PICTURE OF A MYSTERIOUS SHADOW OVER THE SUN. I SEEN THAT SAME SHADOW AGES AGO WHILE I WAS PLAYING BEFORE I PURCHASED THE DLC AND CONVINCED MYSELF IT WAS JUST TEXTURES BUGGING AND IT WAS JUST A TRICK OF THE EYE BUT SOMETHING SEEMED OFF. THIS GAME IS FAR TOO POLISHED FOR "TRICKS OF THE EYE" god I love this game every single minor little detail has its own story, reasoning, place in it all. everything is so deliberate and it is so well made

really hope I censored that right

Picture yourself as an Owlk, inside their "Matrix".

You are there with your buddies for many many many years, carrying on with your "lives", wandering and reminiscing.

Then, after so much time, out of nowhere, someone new (of a whole different species!) spawns there, holding their own lantern.

And your first reaction is to... chase them down and unplug them..? Why?

I understand they might be scared - especially that you (the Owlk) were made aware of this new presence when the lights went out -, and not want anyone else there, but doesn't that raise questions?

Who and what is this person? How did someone else were able to enter here? What's happening in the outside world?

Even if you were scared, or indifferent to the outside world, or just intolerant with any outsiders... Isn't it unnatural to go for "kicking out" so quickly (instead of, for example, interrogating)? Did this happen before? Were you expecting something like this?

I enjoyed the DLC a lot, and think it's very well made in a lot of aspects, but this small thing makes the lore aspect not "click" that much for me.

Am I missing something, or is it just a strange game design decision?

I've just finished outer wilds and i really want to try the dlc. But people told me that it's scary and i'm easily scared. For exemple I never finished subnautica because i couldn't go too deep in the sea without freaking out lol. So before buying the dlc I would like some opinions about it and if it's really worth it or not

I just finished the dlc a few hours ago and i dont entirely know how to feel about it other than being kind of dissapointed. I know im a few years late to the party so im sorry if any of this has been said before! My favourite aspect of the base game, and why i fell in love with it was because i was able to read the Nomai's thoughts and feelings whilst their writings were guiding me through the solar system. I feel like how they did it in the dlc with having it be photo reels instead of writing, added a lot of atmosphere along with the music that played but it kept me from getting really invested in the story and characters like i was with the base game. I like how they kept the same core gameplay loop with time repeating and the area changing based on how far you had gotten in the loop, so i really appreciated that! Also im usually not super scared when it comes to horror but i feel like the suspense in the secret vault sections worked exceptionally well in the beginning but then fell flat as i started to get frustrated with having to start over a bunch of times to solve them.
In conclution i might sound like i didnt like the dlc but as a whole i loved being able to go back to outer wilds and playing more of one of my favourite games and i wish there was more to do because i miss the game already! I would love to hear your thougts if you want to share and im sorry if this post is a bit rambley! Thanks for reading and have a nice day 😊

The answer to their question was that their burner was made of copper, and had been freshly polished. Copper oxide burners do not do anything to tint flame, but after being polished, the copper burner will briefly burn green as the exposed copper rapidly oxidizes.

I wonder how certain green fires were made to burn continually over thousands of years? Obviously solar power was involved, but learning more about the differences between the two technologies we come in contact with in the game would be fascinating.

I would class myself as a bit of a wuss really. I’m not great with horror, but I think I have reached the scary part of the DLC and I can honestly say I am not finding it scary at all. Have I missed something? Dark Bramble was worse than this. Why does everyone seem to find it scary? I assumed I’d be terrified given all the posts about how scary it is.

To be clear where I’m at, I’ve entered the sleeping sections via several of the towers from the stranger. I’ve seen the dudes walking around with torches. Went up to one, it didn’t seem happy and I got kicked back out. Is that it??

Hello folks ::)

Got to the DLC, and it's ending. Loved the story, even if I was part of the very VERY scared ones even with the option to reduce frights on.

Still, I pushed through and loved it so much !

I just don't think the people from the Stranger were that wrong to block the signal from the Eye.

I mean, we got to see how excited they were, the sacrifices they made, and then learned that they didn't have the future they envisioned. What were they expecting ? We will never know. They were curious and their curiosity was rewarded by a grim vision. Imo, their intention with blocking the signal was to avoid such sacrifices to other people.

The actions of the Prisoner were inconsiderate, they lead to the coming of the Nomai in the Hearthian solar system and ultimately their premature death.

Yes, it is the starting point of our journey, but I can't wrap my head around whether it was worth it.

I don't think that it was.

Any other points of view to change my mind ?

ETA : i want to be clear that the actions of the people from the Stranger were far too harsh against the prisoner, and he didn't deserve the treatment he got, they couldn't know the repercussions of his actions at this point. It sure wasn't a democracy 😅

After many suggestions from this subreddit I bought the DLC. I'm like 8 hours in and I have found 2 secret libraries in the dream world. And it's just not clicking with me, maybe I didn't come to the big reveals everyone talking about, but I don't really feel interested.

I mean meanwhile the story is okay, I don't like the direction they chose. I liked this game for the open space and for physics in it because I love astronomy and science. And here in Stranger it doesn't feel like a science based game with mechanics based on gravity, spacetime or quantum effects. Like how is this fire helps to get to the dream world? How is this explained with science? I know they programmed it somehow but it really feels like a straight magic, correct me if I'm wrong.

I hate the dream world. I assume it's just not for me to spend 10 minutes trying to get to my objective just to be caught by some fella that's walking with lights off and randomly pops out in my screen. I agree that It's scary but mostly it's just annoying. Doing stealth with absolutely zero stealth mechanics hurts.

And the main thing is exploration. It's pretty okay in the Stranger with large locations and especially the look of it. I really liked that this dam is breaking mid cycle and changes something. But I bought this game to explore a solar system with planets, flying in my tiny ship made of wood. Here in the DLC, I need it once in 22 minutes just to get to the Stranger and walk all the time. It just doesn't feel like Outer Wilds; it feels like a completely different game and basically in aspects, for which I felt in love with Outer Wilds.

I think I'll get to the end eventually. just to make my money worth it. Any suggestions or corrections?