Game info: website
Listening: Bandcamp, iTunes/Apple Music, Amazon
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Finished up the Outer Wilds DLC, really good! I honestly might’ve liked it slightly more than the base game; the story and emotional beats didn’t hit quite as hard for me (though they still hit), but I really enjoyed a lot of the [REDACTED] stuff and the more systematic mechanical design. If Outer Wilds is like Myst, like a lot of people compared it to, then Echoes of the Eye felt more like Obduction to me. And that’s a really good place to be, since Obduction kicked ass.
I also liked the music more! The river settlement setting of the DLC is similar to the forest campsite planet you come from in the base game, so instrumentally the music is similar in that banjo and acoustic guitar also feature prominently, along with a whole bunch more sci-fi synth noises of course. The most obvious musical difference, which you’ll notice right away from the first couple of tracks, is that it features more guitar effects, distortion, detuning, and glitching; it’s altogether a much noisier, more corroded soundtrack that feels a bit shoegaze-y sometimes. This musical direction meant it was more fun for me to listen to, but it also has the benefit of fitting the narrative, as the story and tone of Echoes are darker than the base game’s.
You can see this darkness reflected in the music beyond just the sound design. The funniest, most on-the-nose example is that a couple of tracks incorporate a minor key version of the game’s main “Travelers” theme, but generally the soundtrack tends to be a little less melodic than the base game’s, and when there are melodies they tend to be a little less catchy. The ambient tracks also tend to be bassier and a little less warm than the ones in the base game, not necessarily hostile a lot of the time (though outright hostile some of the time) but certainly less inviting as a whole.
The original version of the soundtrack, released in 2021, included two extra songs at the end not actually used in the DLC, “End of the Wild” and “Postlude.” In 2022, composer Andrew Prahlow released an updated version with six more original tracks at the end, which he considered an EP titled The Lost Reels. The concept of the album was “what would it be like if we picked up signals from the Outer Wilds universe in real life?” and the tracks are all longer and more evolving suites than the cues you’ll hear on this soundtrack (though they’re comparable in some ways to some of the suite tracks on the base game’s soundtrack). The titles reference soundtrack titles and quote parts of the soundtracks, though the Lost Reels tracks aren’t really rearrangements per se; they’re really more Outer Wilds tone poems, if you will. They’re interesting, definitely worth checking out.
Recommended tracks:
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“River’s End” is one of those tracks with the minor key alteration (it’s at 0:36)
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“Strange Flames” is similar to “The Uncertainty Principle” from the base game, but with a wall of distortion in the middle to up the stakes
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“The Forbidden Archives” has the huge pad bends I love
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“Secret Ways” is one of the glitchier tracks in the game
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“Lost Signal” seems like it’s going to be another glitch track before taking you straight to Shoegaze City; I really like the chattery synth riff that comes in at 3:03
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