Outer Wilds: The Transformative Power of Uncertainty and Faith
Part 4: An Illuminated Faith
In 1915, Albert Einstein dared to challenge the very foundations of science with his revolutionary theory of general relativity. At a time when Isaac Newton’s laws of gravity reigned supreme, Einstein proposed a radical new framework that overturned centuries of scientific consensus. His theory posited that gravity wasn’t simply a force acting at a distance, but rather the result of mass bending the fabric of spacetime around it.
With little empirical evidence to support his theory, his ideas were largely rejected and met with skepticism.
Despite the lack of validation, Einstein persisted, laboring tirelessly to refine his equations and flesh out the implications of his theory. Einstein demonstrated faith in the fundamental principles of physics and his intuition about the nature of the cosmos. He believed that general relativity offered a more comprehensive and elegant explanation of gravity than Isaac Newton’s classical theory.
In 1919 the universe offered Einstein a chance to prove his theory when the shadow of a solar eclipse would provide a chance to prove or debunk his theory. Observations of the deflection of starlight as it passed near the sun provided validated general relativity, launching Einstein to international fame and forever altering our understanding of the universe. Then, in 2015, exactly a century after Einstein wrote the theory, the first evidence of gravitational waves from two distant colliding black-holes were observed thus proving the final piece of relativity that had not been directly observed until then.
I’ve always found this anecdote to be a powerful example of the role of faith in science. Although faith and science might seem like opposing ideas, science has always been a balance of empirical evidence and speculation. Observations alone don’t often transform into understanding. This understanding comes from the scientific method and its careful application. A question naturally arises, an educated guess (the hypothesis) is made, and then evidence is gathered to either support or debunk the initial hypothesis. A new, more informed hypothesis is made, and the process repeats until a satisfying understanding arises that anyone can obtain when following the same procedures.
Our greatest leaps in science have gone hand-in-hand with great leaps in imagination. Deviation from the scientific consensus is often met with hostility and even loss of credibility. If the greatest minds of history had bowed their heads to the dogma of scientific understanding of their time instead of challenging it despite the risks, it would have halted if not ground the pace of our scientific evolution to a snail’s pace.
But Einstein’s “faith” in the existence of his theory of general relativity wasn’t simply an act of blind belief. Instead, it was a belief in something unproven yet implied by rigorous science and observation. Einstein built upon the discoveries of the greatest minds of history who had all in turn put down their own pieces of the puzzle. What Einstein did was contribute his own pieces to the puzzle, then was able to look at the missing chunk of the puzzle and take an educated guess of what pieces might fit there. This belief was cultivated and guided by the rigorous discipline of science and discovery and without this leap of faith and imagination, the scientific community would have lacked a idea to test and experiment upon.
I’d like to refer to this kind of belief guided by scientific rigor as illuminated faith.
A large reason why Outer Wilds connects to so many people who find spiritual value in its experience while struggling to find the same spiritual value on traditional faith-based practices is because the importance of illuminated faith in its themes and journey.
It’s important here to acknowledge a distinction between illuminated faith and traditional faith.
Traditionally, faith has been understood as a belief in something without any evidence, or at times, contrary to existing evidence.
Traditional faith has always played an important role in many spiritual beliefs and practices, as it can be a foundation for belief, trust, and devotion to something beyond the tangible. It can provide individuals with a sense of connection with the unseen divine. Faith can also offer solace from uncertainty, as it gives believer in the comfort of certainty without the material assurance of it.
But this kind of faith and scientific reason have often been at odds.
A 2009 Pew Research survey found that scientists were far less likely to believe in God than the general population.
One of the largest reasons why scientists and people who are atheists, agnostics, or otherwise non-religious (sometimes referred to as “nones”) don’t believe in a higher power can be chalked up to the lack of scientific evidence to support spiritual claims.
According to the 2022 General Social Survey less than 50% of Americans held unwavering belief of God’s existence. Compare that to 60% in 2008 and about 66% of American adults in 1993. There is an unmistakable trend of eroding religious beliefs not just among scientists, but in the general population all over the world.
Faith cannot survive if it is only understood and defined as an opposing force to reason.
A young man growing up in a fundamental evangelical household may feel this conflict firsthand when being taught at school that the earth is 4.5 billion years old while at the same time, being told by his family and religious leaders that the earth is actually 6,000 years old based on genealogical estimations of the generations descended from Adam and Eve.
In many ways, Outer Wilds is an homage to scientific exploration. While it isn’t (and never claimed to be) an educational game, its inclusion of quantum physics, realistic zero-gravity propulsion mechanics, wormhole travel, and the ability to send information back in time immerses the player in recent and speculative scientific technologies. The first objective in the game is to reach Timber Hearth’s observatory and museum where all the most important discoveries of the Hearthians are proudly displayed.
The museum serves a dual purpose. Functionally, it’s an optional tutorial for new players, previewing important encounters and giving curious players more information about the worlds they will explore. But from a storytelling perspective, the museum and observatory tells us players that science and discovery are essential to Hearthians. It shows us the value that Hearthians place on the chain of innovation and knowledge built up each generation, and then need to understand and preserve it for future generations.
This is not where the real power of the game lies, however. Outer Wilds shines brightest when it demonstrates the power of illuminated faith, a similar one to the beliefs that helped Einstein imagine his unifying theory of relativity. It can only do this by first establishing the importance of scientific discipline and curiosity, before making a leap into the realm of possibilities.
As stated before: illuminated faith is similar to a hypothesis in the scientific method. It requires a question or problem and an understanding of current scientific principles to properly develop. So what separates this idea of illuminated faith from a regular hypothesis? The answer to that question will hopefully become more clear throughout this section.
Outer Wilds is ambitious when it comes to the problem at hand: the heat death of the entire universe.
Stopping one star from prematurely exploding requires a hypothesis. The players eventually understand that the Nomai had built a sun station that would cause the sun to produce the runaway nuclear fusion needed to create a supernova. With this information, it’s reasonable to form the following hypothesis: “If I can find a way to get inside the sun station in time, I can stop it from destroying the sun prematurely.”
Stopping all stars in the universe from dying, however, requires some illuminated faith.
So perhaps perhaps what separates illuminated faith from an ordinary hypothesis is in its scale or improbability? That’s certainly a piece of it, but not the whole puzzle.
In order to get at the heart of this question we have to step back and take a look at the scope of Outer Wilds. Even though almost the entirety of the gameplay is contained in a brief 22 minute time loop, there are eons between the first inciting events that we see, and the natural conclusion of the story in a place where time has no meaning. If we link up the major players we see some interesting patterns.
When the Owlks discover the signal from the Eye of the Universe, they become consumed by their desire to reach it. Their motivations aren’t clear, but the sacrifices they make to reach the eye are apparent: they destroy their own homeworld to build a colony-ship to reach the Eye.
Not only do they risk everything in their pursuit of this mystery, but they also build a temple to the Eye of the Universe on their colony ship. These clues suggest that the eye has become a spiritual symbol for them, something to be revered and sought-out, if not worshiped. The Owlks had illuminated faith when they abandoned their home in search of the eye. This faith was fueled by both the evidence of the Eye’s signal (credible proof of a cosmic mystery great enough to pursue) and the curiosity and courage to do so at any cost.
When disillusioned by the promise of death and rebirth obtained from the Eye, the Owlks vehemently renounce the very thing they used to yearn for. The anger caused by their perceived betrayal causes them to burn their temple to the Eye and and seal away its signal, rendering it untraceable.
With no guiding purpose left, the Owlks abandoned their illuminated faith and replaced it for nostalgia of what they had lost to it. They designed a comfortable prison and willingly went into their last, eternal dream of home. This would have been the end of the story of the Eye of the Universe had it not been for the actions of the prisoner. By defying his own people, the prisoner unblocked the signal for a few moments. The prisoner suffered for his actions, locked away in body and mind for all eternity.
But it was not in vain.
Another advanced civilization, the Nomai, picked up the brief signal and were able to warp to the signal’s rough coordinates. The prisoner had unknowingly passed on the torch to the Nomai who found themselves marooned in the vicinity of the Eye due to a warp error. The Nomai were now stranded in the Hearthan system at a time when the Hearthian civilization did not exist. When the Nomai arrived, the evolutionary ancestors of the Hearthians were just beginning to crawl out of the flooded caves of Timber Hearth. If you explore the underground hot-springs of Timber Hearth you’ll find Nomai records and paintings including this one, depicting their encounter with these tadpoles.
While its a cool Easter egg for players, the Nomai weren’t there to record new alien species, they were on a mission to find the Eye of the Universe.
Similar to the Owlks, the Nomai had very little information about the Eye. The signal told them two things:
- The location of the eye
- The signal of the Eye appeared to be older than the Universe
Unfortunately for the Nomai, the Owlks had quickly caught the prisoner and had re-activated their probe that sealed the Eye’s signal. All they would get was a brief glimpse of the Eye before it vanished, and now, like the Owlks, they had abandoned their home and found themselves in a strange system with no way of going back. Their main Vessel was damaged beyond repair when it became entangled in the thorns of the Dark Bramble and the only thing they could do was launch their escape pods and survive the unknown wilds.
This is where illuminated faith comes into play again. The Nomai, even when faced with the challenge of survival, never give up their primary objective of discovering the secrets of the Eye. The Nomai’s dedication to this quest is always apparent in the clues left behind by their records and ruins. Like the Owlks, they also built shrines and temples to the Eye, leaving records musing about the nature of the Eye of the Universe.
The Nomai are puzzled as to how anything could be older than the universe. They wonder if the Eye somehow exists outside or beyond the limits of the observable universe: if true, this would make the Eye something of a higher power. Interestingly, for all their questions and musings, the Nomai never replace those questions with easy answers in the form of scripture or mythology.
It would be understandable, even expected, for the Nomai to develop religious texts that ascribe meaning to the Eye beyond what they can prove with science. After all, for us humans, its second nature to explain the mysterious forces of the world around us with stories about gods and monsters. Stories like these have always helped us shrink the magnitude of the unknown into a more familiar shape to us, something we can wrap our minds around.
Somehow the Nomai resist such answers. They adhere to the discipline of science to answer their big questions and concentrate their efforts towards locating the eye as their flourish in this new system. Each time one effort fails, they move on to the next effort, using what they’ve learned in the process to refine their methods and technology.
The Nomai’s resistance to answering difficult questions with easy answers along with their dogged pursuit of the Eye is what allow them to establish flourishing settlements, reconnect with the other lost Nomai survivors on other planets, and continue to adapt and develop their science. All of these projects and communities were driven by a primary objective, one that is equally as spiritual as it is scientific. Their pursuit of the Eye and its secrets is no different than humanity’s constant search for something greater than us. The biggest difference is that humans tend to invent their own answers to these questions and stick to those answers even when science disproves them. In contrast, the Nomai process of spiritual and scientific evolution are one and the same.
Unfortunately for the Nomai, a blast of cosmic radiation kills all Nomai in the solar system before they can complete their final and most promising time loop experiment for finding the eye. Their cities and experiments are abandoned for possibly millions of years. The search for the Eye was over for them, and all their progress was seemingly futile.
Many years later, the Hearthians would evolve from those tadpoles the Nomai saw on Timer Hearth. Eventually this species also allowed their spirit of discovery guide them to achieve space flight. These curious amphibians learned what they could of their solar system, including what the Nomai had done. They found a way to translate Nomai writing, and in this way, the playable character (known only as the Hatchling) picks up the torch the Nomai left behind. You learn what they had learned of the Eye, you uncover their research, their hopes, and dreams.
In the Echoes of the Eye expansion you also learn of the fate of the inhabitants of the Stranger, learn of their fears, their sealing off of the Eye. The narrative rewards you for overcoming the strangling fear of death of the inhabitants in doing so, rewards you by freeing the prisoner and hearing their story.
Doing so allows you to exchange the following visions with the prisoner and understand the events that led up to this moment.
The core of Outer Wilds comes from discovering the stories of those that came before, their triumphs and ultimately their failure to reach and understand the Eye of the Universe. The death and absence of those that came before is ever-present, ever-haunting. They memories, hopes, and faith live on in what they left behind.
There is a continuity here. Three different species separated by eons and lightyears, all brought together by their search for the Eye. In the case of the Hearthians, it was by chance that they happened to live in the star system closest to the Eye of the Universe.
Many have pointed to the game’s use of eyes in the game as a clue to show this direct progression. It starts with the Eye of the Universe, a single eye, older than the universe and potentially the first thing to exist in it. Each race in the timeline has one more eye than the last, starting with the two-eyed Owlks, who are followed by the three-eyed Nomai, and the story ends with the four-eyed Hearthians.
This reveals another core element of illuminated faith.
Unlike regular faith, illuminated faith cannot exist or flourish in the heart or mind of a single individual. It requires a chain of continuity, a community of explorers to carry and nourish its flames.
An individual can believe what they want, but illuminated faith relies on the monumental weight of scientific discovery to support it. Science relies on an rigorous unbroken chain of discovery, community consensus, sharing of information, and improvement on the ideas of those that came before.
This is what the game is asking you to do. To continue this chain of discovery and add the next important links to it. The issue here is that it seems too late to do anything meaningful in 22 minutes. If the Nomai couldn’t figure it out in thousands of years, what could a Hearthian do in 22 minutes before the sun explodes and wipes this all away?
The Eye seems to hold the answer. Perhaps an object made up of pure uncertainty can provide the unlikely solution. The many clues players can uncover all seem to point to the Eye and the Nomai’s various attempts to locate it.
Mercifully, the solar system of this game is conveniently small, and 22 minutes is long enough to reach any location inside of it. The power of repetition becomes obvious the more you play. Information is your weapon in Outer Wilds. There are no weapons, no pick-ups, no upgrades, no power-ups. Each loop offers a chance to gain more information, and each clue allows the player to navigate the solar system more confidently, armed with the weapon of certainty.
Exploring a planet for the first time usually results in disaster. You might be eaten by a cosmic angler-fish, sucked into space by a twister, crushed by a fireball, or sucked into a black-hole at the center of a crumbling planet. But as you play, information and practice turns into the ultimate ward from disaster. When you learn that the angler-fish hunt only by sound and cannot see, you learn to avoid them by switching your engines off and using your ship’s momentum to propel you safely and silently past their jaws.
Information is the antidote to uncertainty.
What once was frightening and dangerous, becomes understood and mundane.
Similarly, lighting and thunder can be dangerous and frightening. It is difficult to not fear lighting when you believe that it is the wrath of an angry god, and you may one day be a target of this wrath. However, once you understand why and how lighting happens, once you understand that it looks for the easiest path toward the ground it now becomes possible to avoid it, it is possible to not be afraid of it anymore.
This principle applies even to the most extreme example: the Eye of the Universe. An object made up of pure uncertainty that seems to defy all attempts to understand it.
But there comes a time when the pieces come together, an players realize they have all the pieces of information needed to reach the eye. The final challenge of the game requires players to put together all the information they’ve learned in order to perform a chain of difficult actions all under 22 minutes to input the coordinates of the Eye, found by the probe after 9,318,054 time loops. These coordinates need to be punched into the navigational computer on the Nomai vessel since it has a warp engine. The only issue is, the only working warp core that could power the vessel is currently powering the 22 minute loop. Once the warp core is removed from the Ash Twin Project that sends you memories back in time, the next death will be final.
This is the risk in what is needed to reach the Eye. Players must abandon the safety of revival to reach the Eye. Throughout the whole game, death was powerless because of the Ash Twin project that always sent your memories back in time to the moment you woke up by the campfire at the beginning of the story. Each death was a new start with new information gained. Removing the warp core would mean abandoning this cycle of resurrection and accepting that failure could result in permanent death.
I wondered, the first time I removed the warp core if the game developers would be evil enough to permanently end the game for players who failed to reach the eye that loop. Could a misstep wipe my save file and force me to start the game over from the start? I paused the game, uncertain if I should break the mystery of the game and look this question up online. Surely it wouldn’t make me start over, would it?
Then I realized something ingenious about the game’s mechanics. Even if the game erased my progress and forced me to start over from the beginning, I would still be able to reach the Eye of the Universe within the first loop. There is nothing stopping the player from using what they’ve learned to take the steps to reach the eye. The first loop is the same as any other loop.
I made sure to take a picture of the three symbols that made up the coordinates for the Eye (I wasn’t going to trust my memory to remember the glyphs), but otherwise I was ready.
When you remove the Warp Core from the Ash Twin Project and effectively destroy the protection of the time-loop, there is a fascinating shift in the game’s music. The End Times theme that always plays right before the sun explodes at the end of every loop begins to play.
At this point players have been conditioned to associate that sound with time running out. It can be incredibly frustrating or anxiety inducing to hear that song play just before you reach an important area, unsure if you’ll have enough time to learn what you need before the supernova blast reaches you.
It would be an understatement to say this was the worst possible time to hear this song, especially because I knew that it wasn’t even close to the end of the 22 minutes of the loop.
But then I realized the music was different. Instead of an ominous drone in the background, there was a repeating synthesizer melody that was as urgent as it was hopeful. The End Times melody was there, but its quieter than usual; subdued. The game is reminding us that the end is near, but unlike the foreboding usual reminder, this one tells us this ending will be special, definitive. The pulsing rhythm of the background melody urges players onward, assuring them that they’re on the right path – that the true ending is at hand.
There is a bittersweet feeling that came with this realization. Excitement to finally reach the long awaited Eye of the Universe tinged with a disappointment that this would all be over, that this would be the last time I’d enter the ship and set off to solve another piece of the puzzle.
Dying in this loop doesn’t wipe out your progress, instead you only lose the progress of that current loop. I didn’t know this, so my palms were sweating as I slowly drifted past the jaws of the anglerfish, afraid that I’d be eaten if I activated my thrusters too soon or too late.
But I reached the Eye of the Universe on my first attempt without dying and was able to warp to its strange environs. As you approach the south pole of a strange and opalescent landmass you notice the Eye thundering above like a cosmic maelstrom, and the closer you get, the more reality seems to fall apart at the seams.
Trees and landmarks appear and vanish in flashes of lighting in an ever-changing landscape.
This is the moment where a truth about uncertainty becomes incredibly clear. 100% uncertainty also means 100% possibility.
Certainty can be comfortable, but it is unyielding. The universe is powerless against certainty. But uncertainty allows the universe to change.
The ending makes you dive headfirst into uncertainty, into the yawning black void of the Eye of the Universe. By taking this leap of faith, you are rewarded by the power of possibility.
Entering the Eye triggers a series of trippy scenes, all of which seem to be pulled out of the Hatchling’s mind like a dream sequence. You revisit familiar locations like the museum and the woods of Timber Hearth, all of them materializing out of darkness and starlight, all of them seemingly familiar but unnervingly changed at the same time.
This is the moment where the alchemy of hearth, faith, and uncertainty is complete. There, swallowed by a storm of absolute uncertainty and the unknown, driven by illuminated faith, you recreate your hearth. Out of the darkness of the farthest possible destination away from home, the flame of the hearth can still be found.
In a simulacrum of the woods of Timber Hearth, you wander around, finding the other Outer Wilds explorers you have met along the way by the sound of their instruments. Each time another is found, they take their place at the edge of a cozy campfire, ready to sing together once everyone is present.
It’s not just your Outer Wilds Ventures companions you can summon to the fire. If you encountered Solanum the Nomai on the quantum moon, you can summon him to join you around the campfire. The same is true for the Prisoner, although he is initially hesitant to join the community of musicians because of what his people have done. He is afraid of tainting the song by bringing the flaws and fears of his community into the circle. You have the ability to welcome him regardless, and if you do, he joins the others around the crackling campfire.
It is a interesting variation of the long-used convention of the heroes’ journey that calls for the story to end where it began, usually the protagonist’s home they left behind to start their journey, with the character having undergone a transformation. Classics like Lord of the Rings have the heroes return home to the Shire after the perils of their quest to Mordor, but the protagonist in Outer Wilds never gets to go home. His journey end with the acceptance that there is no going back, entering the Eye is as final as it gets.
Refusing to accept this calling would lead to the imminent death of his world, along with the eventual death of all worlds as the universe slides into total darkness.
But in the end, the hatchling brings home with him. The quantum nature of the Eye allows the hatchling to take his idea of hearth and home, of friends and music around a campfire, and materializes these ideas into a sanctuary in the darkness. Instead of coming back home, he transforms his incomprehensible destination by lighting a campfire, much in the same way an explorer might when travelling though a frightening and dangerous wilderness.
The circle of musicians comment about their situation, and what is to come. It’s unclear if they’re actually there with the Hatchling, but the implication is that these are constructs from the Hatchling’s imagination, speaking as he imagines they would at this moment. Below are some of my favorite quotes from them before the final song begins:
- The stars were beautiful, weren’t they? Even if our star is what ultimately killed us. I’ll wait here and remember them while you gather everybody.
- Come, sit with me, my fellow traveler. Let’s sit and watch the stars die.
- The past is past, now, but that’s… you know, that’s okay! It’s never really gone completely. The future is always built on the past, even if we won’t get to see it.
Once the final song begins and all the gathered lend their instrument or voice to it, a pulsing sphere of materializes from the smoke of the campfire. It hangs over the group motionless except for occasional flashes of light inside similar to the bursts of lightning near the Eye of the Universe. Whatever is inside is made of the same chaotic power of uncertainty, and yes, possibility.
Once the song is over and the sphere awaits, talking to the gathered prompts some of these responses.
- How beautiful. It’s different than I’d envisioned. What ever happens next, I do not think is to be feared.
- I believe we’ve reached the end of our journey. All that remains is to collapse the innumerable possibilities before us. Are you ready to learn what comes next?
- Then it is time! Time to send our spark into the darkness!
Entering this sphere leads to a sequence where all space seems to contract to a singular point before expanding in a blinding explosion prompting a triumphant version of the game’s main theme to ring out before the screen fades to black and the credits roll. After the credits, however, you’re greeted with this final scene.
We see what appears to be a strange new universe with a touch of the familiar. In the dark bottom right corner, a fire is lit, and we can see a group of roach-like creatures gathering around it, one of them is even roasting a marshmallow.
The hearth survives.
This brief little scene tells us the fate of the universe after reaching the Eye. Although the Hatchling is unable to stop the end of his universe, by entering the Eye as a conscious observer, he collapses all possibilities into one and is able to trigger the creation of a new universe. This new universe is not one that he or his friends will ever see, regardless it is a universe that still holds flickers of the past, but also new uncertainties and mysteries to for its inhabitants to discover.
I’ve mentioned that Illuminated Faith requires important questions, difficult answers, and community, but we’re arriving now at the final tenant.
I want to highlight a quote from the ending, just before you enter the singularity and trigger the next universe’s creation.
- How beautiful. It’s different than I’d envisioned. What ever happens next, I do not think is to be feared.
This quote demonstrates a crucial aspect of Illuminated Faith, which is coming to terms with the unknown in a way that does not seek to dismiss it, but rather, imbues that unknown with a sense of hope.
None of the characters understand what will happen if they enter that pulsing sphere of possibility, but it is the chain of a shared Illuminated Faith that binds them and gives them the knowledge, courage, and hope to enter that unknown.
It’s a leap of faith, but this faith isn’t blind. This faith was forged by three civilizations, tempered by their dreams and ambitions, and driven by the need to address the critical problem of a dying universe.
This is what informs the final comments of the singers. They can look upon total uncertainty and instead of turning away in terror as the Owlks once did, they can now see the beauty in it. This transfiguration of uncertainty into faith is demonstrated wonderfully by the words of Solanum after observing the effects of the Eye’s uncertainty after landing on the Quantum Moon:
As a child, I considered such unknowns sinister. Now, though, I understand they bear no ill will. The universe is, and we are… I am ready.