I’ve been hesitant to play it because I heard it’s existentially depressing and I don’t think my mental state is in a good place to deal with that. Otherwise I’d probably give it a go. I loved Return of the Obra Dinn and many people who love one of those games seem to also love the other.
I don’t know, slight spoilers for the general mood, but, outer wilds is that, but it’s more like… wistful, or melancholic, or bittersweet. It’s sad, but it’s a good sad. It’s emotional, and emotions feel good.
I feel like, if I were in a bad place when playing that, I don’t think it would have made it worse. It might have made it more meaningful, and be kinda… nice, in a sense. But I also feel like art like that help me a lot when I am in bad places. It’s kinda like seeing beauty in sadness, right?
But I am not you so, y’know, YMMV
It’s hard because it depends on the type of melancholy. I get what you mean about wistful melancholy and “good sad” if the stories are on the smaller scale. Human tragedy, personal failure, doomed relationships, lost love, that sort of stuff.
I have a harder time dealing with elaborations on an existential level: the ultimate end of all things, the futility of existence, the meaninglessness of life etc. I’m hesitant because I’ve gotten the impression this is the sphere Outer Wilds operates in.
