Best Games Like Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds is a phenomenal first-person adventure game that’s won several GOTY awards and is widely celebrated by both players and critics.

It offers a unique blend of puzzle solving, unbridled exploration, and time travel that’s pretty much unmatched by any other indie or AAA title, making it hard to pin down similar games.

Despite this, we’re up for the task of finding the best games like Outer Wilds for PC and console, including space games and single-player titles that fit the bill.

For more gaming recommendations, consider browsing through our other curated lists as well as sounding off in the comments with your top picks for games similar to Outer Wilds!

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If you managed to get through Outer Wilds’ Echoes of the Eye DLC unscathed, a relatively tame adventure horror game like Iron Lung shouldn’t be a problem.

In it, you play as a prisoner with a shot at freedom so long as they can successfully pilot a tiny submarine through an ocean of blood on an alien moon.

Like Outer Wilds, the game sets up several mysteries for the player to uncover; why is there a blood-red ocean? How did we discover it? What is that terrifying sound coming from outside the submarine?

Chasing Static is another short adventure game that includes sci-fi themes and gameplay elements that will feel right at home for Outer Wilds fans.

Complete with retro-inspired PS1 graphics, the game centers on a man named Chris who finds himself seeking refuge in a remote roadside café when the power goes out and strange monsters show up.

There’s no real combat and only minimal horror elements to deal with, as the main focus is investigating mysterious anomalies using special equipment to figure out what’s going on.

Anyone looking for a strange and surreal puzzle adventure game like Outer Wilds should look into Jason Godbey’s game Discolored.

In it, you’re tasked with investigating a roadside diner in the middle of nowhere that the locals say has lost all its color.

To bring it back, players must solve resourceful puzzles while uncovering clues about what exactly caused the colors to vanish in the first place.

Next up, The Forgotten City is a mystery adventure game that, believe it or not, originally started as a Skyrim mod that expanded in scope over time.

In terms of gameplay and story, it shares some similarities with Outer Wilds in that your character is stuck in a time loop and must solve puzzles and mysteries to fix the world.

While there are some light combat and horror elements in The Forgotten City, it’s more concerned with getting the player to think philosophically about topics like law and morality.

If you had fun learning how to pilot a spaceship with detailed controls in Outer Wilds, then you may enjoy navigating an escape pod’s complex systems.

The concept for Tin Can is simple: your spaceship exploded just prior to you managed to escape in a pod that’s now hurtling through space with malfunctioning equipment.

To survive, you’ll have to repair and monitor each station while consulting an onboard manual for guidance as you race against the clock.

Another game that plays up the more technical aspects of space machinery is Hardspace: Shipbreaker, a salvage sim with physics-driven gameplay.

In it, you play as a salvager working for a company contracted to carve and slice apart spaceships to recover valuable materials using cutting-edge tools and equipment.

Each job functions like a puzzle with different hazards and challenges that players must navigate to get the biggest payout at the end.

No Man’s Sky is the perfect Outer Wilds alternative for players looking to venture beyond a single solar system and chart a course for new galaxies.

To this point, it offers space flight navigation and combat, planetary exploration, base-building and vessel customization, and story-driven quests that add to the game’s enigmatic lore.

Furthermore, No Man’s Sky is well-supported with rolling content updates, including the recent Leviathan expansion that introduces roguelike gameplay with a time-looping twist.

Developed by Dutch studio KeokeN Interactive, Deliver Us the Moon is an adventure-puzzle game that scratches a similar itch as Outer Wilds while feeling a lot more cinematic.

Marketed as a sci-fi thriller set in a post-apocalyptic future, it casts you as a lone astronaut sent on a mission to the moon to save humanity after Earth’s natural resources run dry.

The game offers an intriguing mystery that gets slowly unraveled as you explore seemingly-abandoned facilities free from any combat sequences.  

Our next recommendation for games similar to Outer Wilds is Tacoma, an adventure game that comes courtesy of indie studio Fullbright, best known for walking sim titles like Gone Home.

The story takes place far in the future and has you playing as a Retrieval Agent hired to gather sensitive data from an abandoned space station whose crew mysteriously vanished.

Like Outer Wilds, there’s a lot more to Tacoma’s world than meets the eye and you’ll quickly discover your character has been left in the dark regarding certain events and decisions.

If you’re in the mood for more adventure-puzzle games involving space and aliens, then Observation is good for a few hours of entertainment.

Set aboard a seemingly abandoned space station, the game follows sole survivor Dr. Emma Fisher as she enlists the help of the station’s AI assistant S.A.M. to get things back online.

Most of the game is experienced from S.A.M.’s point of view, a detail that ends up playing an important role later in the story as things begin to escalate and truths rise to the surface.

Another solid suggestion for Outer Wilds fans that can stomach some body horror is the critically-acclaimed SOMA from Amnesia creator Frictional Games.

In it, players take on the role of a character named Simon who awakes from a medical procedure to find himself inside PATHOS-II, an underwater research facility on its last legs.

Much like Outer Wilds, the game doesn’t shy away from exploring deep, philosophical topics that will have you questioning what it means to be alive.

Lifeless Planet is an indie puzzle platformer that follows a lone astronaut sent on a trip to another planet rumored to contain sentient life forms.

While the mission is deemed a failure after their ship becomes lost in a crash, it’s not long before strange structures and objects start to appear and guide your character towards something.

By traversing environments and piecing together audio recordings, players will unravel a sci-fi mystery at the center of Lifeless Planet’s story.

What could be more terrifying than the vast emptiness of outer space? An alien ocean inhabited by strange and bizarre marine life.

Revered for its rich lore and open-ended survival gameplay, Subnautica is a great option for fans of Outer Wilds who enjoy exploring strange new worlds.

Several difficulty options minimize the survival mechanics alongside a freedom mode that strips them out entirely and a creative mode where players can build to their heart’s content.

If you love games that have you playing detective and gathering clues to crack a case, then Return of the Obra Dinn is an absolute must-play.

In it, you take on the role of an insurance adjuster given the monumental task of determining how the crew of a mysterious ship met their demise using a special time-traveling pocket watch.

Like Outer Wilds, the game offers an immersive playground to explore as you try to solve puzzles and connect narrative dots using the tools and information at your disposal.

Obduction is another first-person game like Outer Wilds that comes from the same development team behind classic adventure games like Myst.

Players are cast as a silent protagonist on a journey to uncover the ancient ruins of an alien planet where remnants of human civilization have started to appear.

Puzzles provide you with an abundance of cool and uniquely interactive objects that draw inspiration from sci-fi tropes in a manner similar to that of Outer Wilds endings like “Breaking Spacetime.”

If your favorite planet in Outer Wilds is Timber Hearth, you’ll likely enjoy exploring the rustic and naturalistic environments of Campo Santo’s Firewatch.

Billed as a first-person mystery game set in the Wyoming wilderness, it sees you playing as a volunteer fire lookout named Henry over the course of an especially hot and dry summer.

After noticing strange signals from the sight of his lookout tower, Henry sets out to investigate the surrounding forest and stumbles upon secret discoveries that will change his life forever.

Even though it’s not as focused on storytelling as Outer Wilds, Astroneer is still a great choice for players who want to relax and have fun in a lively space sandbox.

Reminiscent of open-world survival games, it features a unique crafting system in which players chain-together stations, power plants, and oxygen cables across a vast alien planet.

Eventually, players will have stockpiled enough resources to build vehicles and spaceships that open up more possibilities including additional habitable planets.

Last but not least, The Witness is a great alternative for those who enjoy solving environmental puzzles such as the ones on display in Outer Wilds.

Set on a breathtakingly beautiful island, the game sees you tackling logic-based puzzles to reveal new passageways, power sources, and tools that bring you one step closer to reaching the island’s peak.

Here, a grand reveal awaits players curious enough to want to know how they ended up on the strange island and the significance behind its many puzzles.