The player takes the role of an unnamed space explorer preparing for their first solo flight. After being involuntarily paired with a statue on their home planet made by the Nomai, an ancient and mysterious race that had once colonized the system, the player discovers they are trapped in a time loop. Every loop resets when the sun goes supernova after 22 minutes, or when the player-character otherwise dies.
The player is encouraged to learn why by exploring and uncovering secrets of a race known as the Nomai, who previously colonized the solar system hundreds of thousands of years ago. Though this clan of Nomai (known as Eskal's clan) died out, many other clans of Nomai populate the rest of the universe. In the first part of the game, the player links with an ancient Nomai statue which ensures that the player retains information discovered in each time loop when it restarts. For example, in order to use the ship, the player must get the launch codes from colleagues at the local observatory. These codes, and the knowledge of them, are the same across subsequent loops, allowing the player to immediately launch the ship without first visiting the observatory.
Source: Wikipedia, "Outer Wilds", available under the CC-BY-SA License.
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