Outer Wilds is about backpacking in outer space

When you stick with making a game for six years, it has to be a passion project. And that’s what Outer Wilds is for Alex Beachum, the creative lead who started the PC game as a student project, formed a studio in Los Angeles Mobius Digital, and then teamed up with Annapurna Interactive to bring it home. It’s coming out this year, and I got a good look at the near-finished product.

The Outer Worlds comes from a concept that big publisher like Activision would never approve. It’s like NASA meets camping, Beachum said in an interview with GamesBeat. It’s an open-world mystery in which you explore a solar system trapped in an endless time loop at the end of the universe. I asked Beachum if it was “Firewatch in space,” and he laughed. The art on the planet is styled like a “national park poster.”