The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
Outer Wilds, like all of it. Falling into the black hole made me actually scream in terror, then shiver for how small being away from the solar system makes you feel. Also the quantum moon, and that ending holy fuck
Ah, a fellow Outer Wilds enjoyer 🍷 What a terrifying, mesmerising, soul wrenching and beautiful game.
Every now and again I load it up to just pilot the ship to the outer edge of the tiny little solar system and watch the stars go out that you have no control over, or sit with someone I haven’t with before and wait with them for the end.
God I love that game
It’s good, Bront