Endings

This article contains spoilers! Outer Wilds and Echoes of the Eye should be played with minimal spoilers, knowing too much will hinder the experience! Please play the game before reading any of this!

The image of a new Universe seen after the credits of the canon ending

There are several different endings to Outer Wilds. Some of them can only be accomplished by exploring and learning as much as possible about the history of the Solar System, and others are cleverly hidden and must be discovered.

Endings

Eye of the Universe Ending

The Eye of the Universe ending is the intended ending of the game and is achieved by removing the Advanced Warp Core from the Ash Twin Project and transporting it to the Vessel. After inserting the Advanced Warp Core in the housing unit, a console will rise from the floor where the player must input the coordinates retrieved from the Probe Tracking Module. After successfully entering the coordinates and sliding the light orb up, the Vessel will warp to the Eye of the Universe.

Once on the Eye of the Universe, the player will walk from the North to the South pole, passing through a major quantum storm and encountering numerous quantum objects. The player will eventually come to a large crater with a large amount of quantum mass flowing upwards. Jumping into it, the player will fall for a long time and see several quantum anomalies before suddenly being transported to a quantum version of the Observatory. All the notes on the various exhibits have been changed to reflect discoveries the player has made and events that have passed. Once the player reaches the upper level and interacts with the display, they are transported to a forest known as the Ancient Glade.

The player will then have to make a campfire. A quantum version of Esker will appear and they will hint the player to follow the music with the Signalscope to find Riebeck's intrument. Riebeck will appear at the campfire and ask the player to find Feldspar, Gabbro, Chert, Solanum (if she was found on the Quantum Moon) and The Prisoner (if they were found in The Stranger)'s instruments and gather everyone around the fire. After finding all of the travelers, talking with each of them and asking them to play will cause them to start playing their respective instruments. The Prisoner must specifically be invited in order to participate. When all are playing a blue ball will begin expanding above the campfire. After all of them have played for a short time the music will stop, the campfire will extinguish, and the ball will stop growing.

Entering the ball will transport the player to an empty region of space. Immediately afterwards, a new Universe will explode into existence in an event reminiscent of the Big Bang. The explosion will race towards the player before engulfing them in a blinding light. The game then ends with credits with a post-credits cutscene afterwards.

Post-Credits Cutscene

The post-credit cutscene occurs 14.3 Billion years after the events of the ending. The new universe fades in while the camera pans down to a newly forming solar system before showing a surface view of one of the newly formed unidentified planets.

The post-credit cutscene varies slightly depending on what was accomplished during the playthrough.

• If the player found Solanum on the Quantum Moon, when the camera pans down to the planet, a campfire can be seen igniting with insectoid aliens roasting marshmallows in a forest.
• If the player found the Prisoner and invited them to join the campfire, a blue pond surrounded by stones appears in the bottom left of the frame.
• If the player found both Solanum and the Prisoner, a tall, lantern-carrying alien resembling a deep-sea fish appears in the bottom middle of the frame in addition to the campfire and the blue pond.
• If the player lost their probe at any point while on the Eye of the Universe, the probe will fly past the unidentified planet.

Game Over Ending

The Game Over Ending is achieved by dying while the player is not connected with the Ash Twin Project through the Nomai mask.

The most common way to receive this ending is from dying at the start of the game before the player is able to link with the Nomai statue upon leaving the Observatory. Common ways this can occur are: jumping in the campfire, fall/collision damage, walking into the ghost matter field, or jumping into a geyser and drowning. If the player dies before linking with the Nomai statue, the game effectively restarts.

Another way this ending is achieved is by dying after removing the Advanced Warp Core from the Ash Twin Project. The Ash Twin Project is explained to be the reason for the time loop mechanic and disabling the project will prevent the player's memories from being sent back in time 22-minutes upon death. This will cause a "You Are Dead" message to display if the player is killed while the Ash Twin Project is disabled and the player is returned to the main menu. While this death is intended to be permanent, the player can resume their save and continue from their previous loop.

Isolation Ending

The Isolation Ending is caused by removing the Advanced Warp Core from the Ash Twin Project and flying far enough away from the Sun as to not be affected by the supernova. A short time after the Supernova ends, the screen will fade to black, stating the player and their ship will drift through space until the ship’s supplies are depleted. Despite this ending being intended to be permanent, the player can resume their save and continue from their previous loop.

Quantum Moon Ending

The Quantum Moon Ending is caused by removing the Advanced Warp Core from the Ash Twin Project and landing on the Quantum Moon and travelling to its sixth location. After the supernova occurs, the screen will fade to black stating the player has lost track of time and their journey has reached its end, with the player sharing the same fate as Solanum. Despite this ending being intended to be permanent, the player can resume their save and continue from their previous loop.

Breaking Spacetime Ending

The Breaking Spacetime ending is achieved by breaking the fabric of reality.

The most common way this can occur is in the High Energy Lab on Ember Twin. If the player inserts a white hole core and a black hole core into the powered device and fires a probe into the black hole, the probe will exit the white hole shortly before entering the black hole. If one of the cores is removed from the console before the probe enters the black hole but after it has exited the white hole, two probes will exist simultaneously and begin giving an "Error: Duplicate Signal" message. Shortly after, the screen will begin tearing before being engulfed in darkness, stating the player has broken the fabric of Spacetime. The reason of this rupture of Spacetime is because causality has been broken. Indeed, removing one warp core during the right interval causes the Scout exiting the white hole to have no origin anymore, since no Scout entered the corresponding black hole.

Sending a Scout through the black hole in the Ash Twin Project, starting a new loop and not sending again a Scout through the black hole during the loop will also trigger this ending. It is because you've broken causality and so the duplicate Scout sent to the Ash Twin project through the black hole has no origin anymore. (To be confirmed but contrary to the Self Ending, you cannot find the Scout duplicate in the Ash Twin Project even though it's detected by the Scout Launcher)

In all variations of this ending, the traditional credit scroll is played extremely quickly with humorous edits and accompanied by a kazoo-cover of the main theme and the player will be granted the Achievement You've met a terrible fate. Despite this ending being intended to be permanent, the player can resume their save and continue as if they had only just died in the loop where they broke spacetime.

Self Ending

The Self Ending is a variation of the Breaking Spacetime ending, added in Patch 1.0.4. As of this patch, it is possible to jump into the black hole in the core of Ash Twin that opens as the sun goes supernova and cause a paradox. The loop will end and the Protagonist will wake up at their campfire as usual. During this loop, there will be two "You Are Here" markers on the Solar System map, with one of them still inside the Ash Twin Project. There, a copy of the Protagonist can be found, an NPC named Self, near the script wall, having been carried back through time alongside their memories.

After getting over the initial shock of the situation, Self wonders what will happen if their past self (the Protagonist) does not jump through the black hole and close the causal loop that has been created. If the black hole is jumped through, the loop starts over as it did the first time, but with new dialogue from Self (this being a new Self, the Protagonist from the last loop). If the black hole is not jumped through (and the Protagonist dies or ends the loop by any means), then Self cannot exist, because they are in the Ash Twin Project due to the Protagonist jumping in the black hole. Since the cause of Self's existence was removed, a paradox is created where Self has no point of origin, causing the breaking spacetime ending to occur. The save is then reset to the beginning of the loop where the black hole was entered for the first time, undoing the paradox. This ending happens whether or not Self has been met.

Even if the player goes to the Eye of the Universe in the loop after entering the black hole, the Breaking Spacetime ending can still happen. If the sun goes supernova (therefore removing the possibility of the Protagonist jump into the black hole to correct spacetime issue), the "Self" Breaking Spacetime will occur. When reloading the save, the game will load the player onto The Vessel at the Eye of the Universe. To avoid this ending, the player needs to jump into the vortex in the South pole of the Eye and arrive at the museum, initiating the true ending.

Despite this ending being intended to be permanent, the player can resume their save and continue as if they had only just died in the loop where they broke spacetime.

Echoes of the Eye Endings

By finishing the Echoes of the Eye DLC, you can improve the main ending, the Eye of the Universe Ending as mentioned in its section above.

The Stranger Ending

The Stranger Ending is achieved by removing the Advanced Warp Core from the Ash Twin Project, flying to the Stranger, and waiting for the sun to explode once the Stranger moves out of its blast radius. Some time after the supernova occurs, the screen will fade to black, stating the player finds themself alone on an abandoned world, wondering if there's anything edible on the Stranger. Despite this ending being intended to be permanent, the player can resume their save and continue from their previous loop.

Dream Ending

The Dream Ending is achieved by removing the Advanced Warp Core from the Ash Twin Project and dying in front of the dream fire to permanently stay in the dream world. The player must not let their dream artifact's flame snuffed or let themselves killed in dream. The ending will occur a short time after entering the dream. The ending notes; "How much time has passed? They don't even bother to hunt you anymore. Time passes, and passes, until your life before is some half-remembered dream. If only you could wake up." Despite this ending being intended to be permanent, the player can resume their save and continue from their previous loop.

Notes & Trivia

• Upon release, a mistake from the developers caused the text from the Quantum Moon ending to read as just “813”. Until this was fixed in Patch 1.0.2, this ending was commonly referred to as the "813 Ending".
• Until 1.0.4, there was an invisible repulsion that prevented the player from touching the black hole in the Ash Twin Project.
• Once the travelers have finished playing their song, if the player talks to the quantum version of Chert, they will remark that they believe "the rules are about to change" in regards to the upcoming new universe. This appears to be true. During the post-credits cutscene, the planets in the new universe appear to be inside out and each have their own independent sun in their cores. This implies the very basic rules of the universe as the Hearthians knew it, such as life dwelling on the surface of planets which orbit a singular star, have indeed changed.
• The large, blue flea creature that appears in the post-credits scene if you found the Prisoner was an early concept for the The Stranger's inhabitants .