Just finished Outer Wilds: things I wish friends had told me when they recommended the game [Spoilers for early stages of the game]

Spoilers for the early stages of the game.

Like many people do, my friends said "I don't want to spoil it by saying too much, but Outer Wilds is an amazing game and you should play it."

So I gave it a go. The tutorial was fine, but after 6 hours of gameplay I was having a bad time:

• To me, the clearest initial objective in space was to find Gabbro, since he also saw a Nomai statue activate, and that's the main plot thread. This dunked me straight in the deep end (literally) as I was soon wrestling with the terrifying, ever-changing landscape of Giant's Deep. The heavy gravity made me feel weirdly claustrophobic and made the gameplay a drag. I was having a horrible time. After a few hours of this, I was dreading picking up the game again.
  • Now, if you've finished the game, you have probably become very relaxed and blasé about Giant's Deep, because you understand how it works and how to deal with it.
  • But to a newbie who doesn't play a lot of 3D video games, especially free-exploration games or games where you can be turned upside down relative to the "floor", this is not interesting and fun - it's unpleasant and frustrating.
• I was constantly crashing the ship and dying.
• I also kept getting nauseated from the dizzying camera twists in space and generally while moving around.

It just wasn't fun to play a game that left me feeling (a) like I'm going to throw up, or (b) bored because I died yet again and I'm waiting for the lengthy death sequence to finish, or for the time spent just trying to get to locations.

By the 7-hour mark I was over it. Since I was about to give up on the game anyway, I decided I might as well install some mods to make it easier (such as increasing the player and ship's health, oxygen, fuel, etc). This made a huge difference in reducing the frustrations of the game. After making these modifications, I actually started to enjoy the game and played through to the end.

Here are the things I wish my friends had told me:

• The spaceflight mechanic in the game takes a while to get used to, especially if you don't play a lot of free-3D-movement video games. Take it slow.
• Don't try to fly off the starting planet straight away. Just practice flying around the world a few times, taking off and landing in various places.
• After that, follow the lead to the moon, not the other planet that's mentioned. You can always go to the other planet later.
• Each planet has its own gimmicks which may take some getting used to. Try to relax, find somewhere safe to stand (or park your spaceship), and just observe the environment around you.
• If you're really struggling, don't give up entirely on the game. Instead, consider a few quality-of-life mods which could greatly improve your experience.

Ultimately, Outer Wilds is an amazing and unique game, and after installing those quality-of-life mods I really enjoyed it. However, broadly recommending the game to everyone you know with no qualifiers or tips may end up giving your friends a bad time.