Outer Wilds writer has now written for The Outer Worlds, so I'll never get the names right

I'M SORRY, WHICH?

News by Alice O'Connor Former Associate Editor

Published on July 23, 2020

For the past two years, I have confused the name Outer Wilds with The Outer Worlds. I will say one space game's name when I mean the other. I will expand one name into 'The Outer Wilds' and trim the other to 'Outer Worlds'. I will trip and combined the two into 'Outer Woilds'. I hate this. AND NOW, Outer Wilds writer Kelsey Beachum has declared she wrote for the newly-announced The Outer Worlds DLC, Peril On Gorgon. This is too much.

Beachum announced the good/terrible news on Twitter shortly after Obsidian revealed Gorgon during Microsoft's Xbox Games Showcase stream tonight.

I DID IT.

THEY ALL TOLD ME I WAS MAD, BUT I DID IT.

I WROTE FOR BOTH OUTER WILDS AND THE OUTER WORLDS. https://t.co/0EdMqKkeEl
— Kelsey Beachum (@VanKelsing) July 23, 2020

As the kids say, I shan't even.

These names are the bane of my career. I don't blame Outer Wilds devs Mobius Digital, because they were first. It's all the fault of Obsidian Entertainment, who announced--let me check I've got this right--The Outer Worlds years after the other one.

Kelsey herself had previously tried to help people out of this linguistic hole with a mnemonic device, which is now useless:

If you’ve found yourself mixing up Outer Wilds and The Outer Worlds, you might appreciate this handy mnemonic I made up:

“Outer Wilds has an ‘i’ in it, because that’s the game ‘I’ wrote for.”
— Kelsey Beachum (@VanKelsing) October 28, 2019

Earlier this year, after Obsidian hired her, she said "don’t worry, I am working on a clearer mnemonic. Possibly: 'Obsidian's the studio I w*O*rk for, and they made The Outer W*O*rlds'?"

I hate this. I mean, I'm happy for her and her career. And Outer Wilds was our favourite game of 2019. But... all this. I am too delicate for this. From now on, nobody is ever allowed to correct me when I mix up the names, because it is no longer my fault. If this doesn't kill me, Old World and New World will.

Correction: This post originally said "Outer Wilds writer Kelsey Beachum has declared she wrote for the newly-announced The Outer Wilds DLC" and I swear to god that was not intentional. I hate this.

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