‘Outer Wilds’ Coming To Online Gaming Platform Steam On June 18

For those who are finding themselves at home for the next few weeks, one silver lining to coronavirus-imposed social distancing seems to be that gaming, in all its different forms, is on the upswing.

On Tuesday morning, fans of PC gaming got a bit of good news when it was announced that the much acclaimed title, Outer Wilds is coming to Steam on June 18, according to the official Steam store page.

Unlike movies and television shows, which have seen several release dates and new seasons get pushed back due to the outbreak, the only thing that could Outer Wilds from launching on time might be the developers deciding the game needs more polish.

One of the more popular indie games of 2019, Outer Wilds has had a very staggered release schedule since it first launched. It hit Xbox One and its Game Pass service, as well as the Epic Games store first, on May 29, 2019.

It then landed on the Sony PlayStation 4 in October of last year. After being released, Outer Wilds received plaudits from some of the most well-known video game critics in the industry. It was named the 2019 Game of the Year by Giant Bomb, Polygon, Eurogamer, and The Guardian among others. It currently carries a score of 85 percent on Metacritic.

For those not familiar with Outer Wilds, the game is an open world mystery about a solar system trapped in an endless time loop. Players take on the role of a new recruit in their planet’s Space Program, they then have to solve various puzzles in order to stop the time loop by solving the enigma at the heart of the story.

While PC gamers have had ample time to play the title on PC — either through Epic Games or the Microsoft shop — there is a subset of the gaming community which prefers their titles to exist on Steam. The online store and launcher — run by video game company Valve — allows for cloud saves and other features, which competing online services have been slow to pick up.

Outer Wilds is developed by Mobius Digital and was published by Annapurna Interactive. The game offers players a first-person perspective as they rocket around their galaxy. It takes on a slightly different feel from other space exploration games because Outer Wilds players even have to figure out how to find their ship as a puzzle-solving tutorial of sorts at the start of the game.