I just finished playing Outer Wilds, and I can honestly say it was a truly strange experience. At first, I was overwhelmed by the immediate frustration of not being able to save whenever I wanted, and having no clue where to go. It took me a full five hours of gameplay to begin understanding the purpose of what I was doing.
With no hints or guidance on where to explore or what my character could do, the learning curve was incredibly steep. But once I mastered the mechanics, everything unfolded into something deeply poetic. I wouldn’t say I “enjoyed” Outer Wilds in the traditional sense, but experiencing the artistry of such a bold and unconventional title is something I’ll carry with me in my gaming journey.
So what kept me from enjoying those first five hours? I have a theory: gamers have fallen into the trap of subscription service abundance, which heavily promotes big-name exclusives that are increasingly “inclusive” (in many senses). We live in an era where autosave is a given—without it, a game is no longer considered “pleasant.”
We’ve been spoiled. With the evolution of gaming, we’ve forgotten the joys and frustrations of NES/Master System-era platformers, where saving was science fiction and trial and error was the only way forward—often leading to great satisfaction.
Modern gaming, especially AAA titles, is built on comfort principles we can no longer do without. Large development teams lack the courage to be challenging—unless they’re following a well-established trend (like the souls-like genre, which I’ve never personally enjoyed), where difficulty becomes a brand.
And thinking about all this, I realized something that had always been right in front of me—like the clues in Outer Wilds: indie games can give back to the gaming community what has been lost over the years, just because, if you think about it, the most iconic games released up until the early 2000s were, by definition, “indie” creations—born from a few brilliant pioneers who didn’t have to justify massive investments and who didn’t give a crap of your comfort!
The Rise of Scale and Cost in Game Development
Over the past four decades, the video game industry has undergone a radical transformation, clearly visible in the growing size of development teams and production budgets. In the 1980s, it often took just two or three people to create a game. Today, AAA titles involve hundreds—sometimes thousands—of professionals, including developers, artists, designers, testers, and localization experts. At the same time, development costs have skyrocketed from tens of thousands of dollars to over $250 million for a single title.
This evolution has brought greater complexity, but also a growing fear of creative risk: the larger the team, the higher the investment, the harder it is to take chances.
And that’s precisely where indie games become essential again: small teams, modest budgets, and full creative freedom. Indie developers not only survive—they thrive as the only true alternative capable of bringing gaming back to its experimental and daring roots.
The Golden Age of Experimental Icons
If we think back of the golden age of 80s, 90s and 2000s gaming icons, the most celebrated titles of that era were the work of game development rockstars—experimental gems that created and defined entire genres. Sometimes they failed miserably, only to become cult classics. Other times, they ended up shaping the very foundations of modern gaming. Games like Doom and Quake by iD Software, the early Tomb Raider titles, 3D Realms’ Duke Nukem 3D (which pioneered a bizarre yet revolutionary shareware model), Half-Life, and the first Codemasters games were all massive successes by the standards of their time.
And yet, they were born from the minds of small, tight-knit teams with a clear vision and an insatiable hunger for experimentation.
These developers operated in a world that was still a niche—one that didn’t need to be pampered or appeased at all costs. Gameplay could be brutally difficult, characters could be raw and unfiltered, and storytelling didn’t have to tiptoe around potential offense. There were no boundaries—only unexplored horizons. Much like those in Outer Wilds.
