I recently played Before Your Eyes, and a few months before I had played Outer Wilds. Both are games where time plays a central role, but I’ve been struggling to figure out what they actually have to say about time. More specifically, do they have a moral? Some advice? Or are they just laments about the pain that time brings? Both games involve the futility of holding on to dying worlds, both involve the melancholy of moving forward. Yes, moving forward leads to new beauty, but both games recognize and do not judge the desperate sadness of trying to hold on to what you had.
