mod: SBtT.TheOutsider

[giscus[bot]]

mod: SBtT.TheOutsider

A quite large story and puzzle mod that takes place on Dark Bramble. (by @StreetlightsBehindTheTrees)

https://outerwildsmods.com/mods/theoutsider/

[xen-42]

Good mod! Highly recommended

[knusperbacke]

Extremely creative to use Dark Bramble that way. And every puzzle felt very logical and solvable too!

[yodaxy]

Very cool mod, and great story !

[illogicalbrit]

some clever puzzles, worth your time.
got chills from the realization in the observatory.
like the study tower puzzle
needed more to lead me to the secret door puzzle solution though its a very cool concept.
loved the solution to the observatory and projection room, felt earned and on par with some puzzles in the main game.
sweet ending

highly recommend.

[BURG3R5]

Amazing mod with a good story and great puzzles. Personally I'm not that great at flying, so one section was difficult and could've been made simpler, but overall awesome. You can really see the effort put into this.

[LautaroPRZ]

i don´t have words, this mod, is incredible, i tell you with four words, it made me cry, when i found Datura, it was incredible the feelings that this mod made me go throug, thank you so much for doing this.

[Terokon1]

I like music and non standard game mechanics in this mod. Graphics part is more or less ok. Story, imho, is bad, illogical and poorly correlated with original OW lore.

[DarnBrim]

Agreed, I also had grips with some character choices, but gameplay and music was nice.

[GreatGoldenchip]

This was the first mod I ever played and it was so perfect. The story was everything I could have asked for. The music was amazing and I loved all of the puzzles. Dark Bramble is really scary for me, but everything being mostly outside of it really made it special. This mod made me cry and I think everyone should play it.

[LegendaryBigsy]

Probably the best 'fanfic' mod out there. It checks all the boxes on what an expansion to the story should be:

1. Large, spanning over multiple planets and drastically changing the surface of dark bramble
2. Lore-friendly, even if it may be lore-inaccurate
3. Tying up a loose end with an unexplained phenomena in the base game (Not going to spoil it)
4. The puzzles are in the spirit of Outer Wilds, using what is available to you as the key to a puzzle
5. SPOILERS, DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE THE MOD

   I can't believe making your ship a timed explosive is the solution to a locked door

10/10 Would purchase as DLC

[TheBeanPolice]

I do feel somewhat bad leaving a negative comment amidst all these, but I want to be fair where I feel it necessary since this was highly recommended to me going into it. I mean no disrespect to the creator's efforts, modding is very respectable on its own, my issues are solely with the lore content rather than the playable/visual content, which cannot be realistically expected to stand up to the base game. Even then, the custom models/textures are good where they do show up. Tried my best to dodge spoilers for both the base game and the mod, but I'd still proceed with caution (Do play the mod first, I'd rather not potentially sour the experience for those that would enjoy it as-is).

• The dialogue felt out of place. It's very accessible and spoils numerous important events in a rather blunt fashion, so it isn't the cleanest content expansion (Though that is just a nitpick on my part). Characters were also a bit difficult to differentiate personality-wise, which made the large amounts of text blend together over the course of the mod, and the overall style clashes a bit with the base game.
• The focal character is very jarring, in terms of how much they end up knowing/experiencing, how they relate to the rest of their kind, and their direct relationship with a named character who - based on where they grew up (And I do mean their literal in-game home) - would have been quite devoted to something.
• The presence of the friend is also a bit boggling timeline-wise since a certain signal wouldn't have traveled instantly. Even handwaving that, the focal character couldn't have encountered a certain location. I'm already pushing it here, but it has to do with the available means of transport and how they can't line up.
• The added lore around the [rock of infinite sadness] was a bit out of left field for my tastes. The description of its physical properties were nice, but the end result of the other information drastically changes the tone. I think corny is the right way to put how it came off, but that feels harsh.
• I'm unsure of how to feel about the end of the mod, almost like more was taken away than added. I was very impressed with the artistic side of things which does a great job of emulating the base game's style, but I was left feeling unsatisfied by having things cut short like that. This is definitely more of a personal issue, even compared to my other points.
• A certain named character's added dialogue just comes off as overly rude and annoying in a way that felt very forced. This I am less forgiving about.

I can't fault the mod too much for having bits of inaccuracy here and there, everyone will experience and internalize the events of the game differently and there was still a lot of effort behind this. I hope you continue to make mods and improve, the puzzles and overall playable content were good, so building up more strength in your narratives will make for an excellent experience in whatever you set out for in the future.

[fed4justice]

If you loved the original game, i really advice this mod, pretty short (1-2 game sessions to complete it)!

[Epinator88]

the story of this mod is the most gut wrenching thing on earth. some of the lines in this mod made me tear up, and turning the corner at the northern observatory and seeing what happened was absolutely jarring, without even going up close. my one complaint is that the new eye ending of the mod could have some gameplay in it, but apart from that, beautiful story. please make full games.

[BlepBlep]

Very cool mod.

Cons:

• For some reason the translator tool does not pause the game when viewing text from this mod, despite it being on in the settings.
• The dialogue feels extremely out of place. The Nomai didn't really talk or act like the Nomai.
• Some grammar mistakes that stood out sometimes.
• Some of the "surprises" are very obvious if you've played the original game and DLC already, tho I'm not sure if that's intended or not.

Pros:

• Dark Bramble as a setting was done very well, when I heard it took place there I was a bit concerned that it'd just be more "shooting probes into seeds and blindly flying around" but am pleasantly surprised it wasn't that.
• The interaction with Giant's Deep is very cool, loved that.
• Music choices/changes were good, idk if I've even heard some of these songs before.
• The puzzles are extremely well done, some of these are really cool, like getting into the observatory.
• The ending was really well done (would say a bit more of why, but spoilers)

8/10 really well done.

[TheVolya]

First story mod i play after playing the base game and DLC. There was a lot of good ideas and it was satisfying to see the outerpart of dark bramble being used. Most of the "puzzles" really felt in line with the base game.
However in my opinion the biggest and unfortunate flaw was the writing that clearly felt amateur and not in the same vibe as the real game. Some of the word choices or the rhythm of dialogues felt unbalanced or totally out of place , and the way the solution of some puzzles were delivered felt not subtle at all, which is unfortunate because it would've been more satisfying otherwise.

[Lowengeist]

Thank you for sharing, it was a wonderful little adventure...

[PelouxL]

Wow awesome mod, I love how you use the lore of the dlc and base game and add your. good writing sometimes i was very attached with characters, maybe a little trouble with french trad bu that still undertsanding. that was a beautifull experience thank you ( the mixed music was insane i loved it !)

[Pyma21]

This mod is really really good

I finished Outer Wilds two years ago. During these two years, I listened the music a LOT. These music and the memory of OW have grow in my mind all this time. It's now bind to a lot of memories, and especially important healing memories.

When I played The Outsider, all the feeling of OW came back. Except I knew how grandiose OW is, so I was able to comtemplate more the game and all the changes.

If you miss OW, you should play The Outsider ✨

[Pyma21]

NB : I think their is a mistake in the french translation. Autotraductor like google translate "they" by "ils" (masculine plural) while our neutral usual pronom is "iel" (doesn't "officialy" exist yet). I believe the Friend is suppose to be neutral gender, not masculine plural ^^

[Kaebiii]

Bawled my eyes out at the ending. This was extremly good. Thank you for this mod!

[JustinDemolition]

SPOILERS

i did too. thinking about how solanum would be the only being from the previous universe to exist was sad but so good. the scene with the vessel above the campfire at the end - cinema

[gGordey]

it is such an amazing mod! enjoyed it so much!

[DarnBrim]

Gripes*

[boonemclendon-create]

the music is awesome! where can i find it?

[loicHusson]

Mod was nice to do. Story maybe sounded a bit too much like teen fanfiction but pretty cool overall

[Hamstryk]

Maybe I'm stupid, but I'm not sure where to say this (cause pull requests are for other languages), but I've found a mistake in the english ship log:
In the Observatory log "Datura discovered something that disturbed him, but he had to go his Observatory to confirm it", but i think it should be "Datura discovered something that disturbed him, but he had to go to his Observatory to confirm it" ::)

[archergarrkelvin-byte]

mechanically, it's the most impressive OW mod I've played. the interaction with giant's deep, in particular, was very cool.

The puzzles are a little whatever. There's one very ambitious one that is both interesting and also something I could see being a totally annoying nightmare to execute for some people. It is what it is.

The writing, though, really falls flat and drags this whole mod down to the point where I question if it's worth playing. A lot of it conflicts with the established lore, which can be pretty difficult to swallow, but beside that, it ranges from amateurish to completely inappropriate for the game. The characters have voices that seem very much not-at-home in the game, but also, they don't really seem like... people. More like just entities casually listing off every fact they know about the game's universe like they read it from a wikipedia page. The 'main' character you follow, in particular, is just bizarre in terms of how much they seem to know, and if I had to characterize the tone of the writing overall, I would say it's pretty cheesy.

I don't think the way in which you encounter all this writing is good either. You are constantly hopping from easily-accessible location to easily-accessible location, picking up scrolls and being bombarded with these characters' lore documents at a rapid pace. It's clumsy and exhausting.

[Casalbe]

Even if it was for just a couple hours, this made me feel a little bit of the Outer Wilds experience again, and if that's not the sign of a good mod then i don't know what is.

[jcblot77]

Very cool mod! I like the way that it fills in a part of the game that feels empty. I did notice some grammar mistakes, especially in the ship logs. The puzzles were great and very creative.

Spoilers for the ending of the mod

The ending cutscene after entering the Eye is very cool and well made, but I do wish that it didn't entirely replace the gameplay at the Eye. The campfire at the Eye scene is the peak of the game for me, and it being removed felt like a huge letdown.

I assume that the mod removes it because of possible confusion between the Solanum we see entering the new universe and the Quantum Echo Solanum we usually meet at the campfire. I'd suggest just adding some dialogue to the Quantum Echo Solanum specifying that she is not the actual Solanum and that the real one is still on the Quantum Moon. I also think it would be cool to have Friend appear at the Eye and reunite with the Prisoner.

[milkyyy]

充実した数時間でした。

[Emprinu]

Me encanta! Apenas he explorado un poco, pero ya siento que este mod es un DLC oficial.

Muchas gracias por este mod.

[ekkkkkknoes]

I liked this mod a lot. The weakest part is, by far, the writing, and aside from a few things being placed slightly awkwardly (it's hard to satisfyingly place a building with a flat floor onto the pre-existing geometry of dark bramble of all places), there's not really anything else I can criticize.

Writing wise, I feel like this mod's writing mischaracterizes at least one existing character, and the way the nomai write/speak feels very unlike the way they do in the base game. I have to agree with another comment here, that it's hard to tell apart characters just by how they write. Some of the lore additions also feel... Incomplete, (Why is the character from this mod the only one who knows about the origins of The Small Big Bad?) and the timeline set up in this mod does not feel compatible with the base game.

That said however, I feel it's important to point out that these points of tension only stick out this much to me because this mod is in the context of Outer Wilds. I don't know how big the team behind this mod is, from what I can tell only a single person really wrote the story here, a single person who created a mod out of love for a game, who didn't have literal years and wasn't being paid full time to create a fully fleshed out masterpiece on the same level as the base game, and with that in mind, I think that the issues I have with the writing are more than fine.

Now, onto things that I love in this mod.

First, the puzzles. There's a good number of puzzles in this mod, some longer than others, and I feel like none of them relied on trial an error, which I love. Whenever I got stuck on one puzzle, the solution was to explore elsewhere, find some more information, or think back on what else I've learned, and try to apply that. At least one puzzle even requires you to use specific knowledge you've learned from the vanilla game, which I liked a lot.

Then, the custom assets. This is technically a spoiler, though it is one you will notice immediately after landing anywhere in this mod. All the common things you've gotten used to in the base game, like scrolls and text walls and the like, have been re-textured to look like they are made of Dark Bramble wood, since the characters on Dark Bramble didn't have access to the same sandstone as the other nomai. This is such a small detail that did not have to be done, but you see it on every inch of this mod, and it shows how much love and care was put into this mod. It's probably one of my favorite things this mod does.

There's more things I could talk about, but this isn't an hour long youtube video essay, so I feel like these are the most important thoughts put to text.

The ending made me cry (positive)

[Zenithtech35]

This was such a cool experience. First time modding Outer Wilds, and gosh was it worth it.