Outer Wilds guide: Gravity Cannon and Southern Observatory walkthrough

After tracking down Riebeck in Outer Wilds, and exploring the Hanging City on Brittle Hollow, it’s finally time to head to the Southern Observatory. There’s no direct route, so we’ll get there by way of the Gravity Cannon.

Below, we’ll walk you through finding and exploring the Gravity Cannon, and then the Southern Observatory. We’ll also point out all the things to learn along the way.

Go to the Gravity Cannon

There are two ways to get to the Gravity Cannon: land your ship on it, or walk there from Crossroads.

From Crossroads

Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive via Polygon

From Crossroads, look for the signpost pointing toward the Gravity Cannon. The path is hard to spot because it’s narrow, but it heads to the left. Take the elevator up to an area of large gaps. Follow the lighted paths, jetpacking across the gaps. On the other side, you’ll reach the base of the Gravity Cannon.

This room is the same place you’ll arrive if you landed your ship up top.

From orbit

Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive via Polygon

The Gravity Cannon is pretty obvious from space — it looks like a skeletal version of London’s Gherkin. Land your ship nearby, and head into the ruined building. Grab the Brittle Hollow projection stone on your way past, and take it downstairs. (You could put it in the projector on this floor, but it won’t show you anything special.)

Place the projection stone in the pedestal, and read the script that pops up.

Exit the room, and go down the stairs. You can’t take this elevator down, so step through the next doorway and look down. Drop to the landing below you, and turn around. Back inside, keep dropping down to the bottom of the building.

At the bottom, you’ll be in the same room as if you’d approached from the Crossroads.

Gravity Cannon

Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive via Polygon

Follow the spiral ramp down to the base of the Gravity Cannon. Check the three piece of script to learn how to use the cannon.

The controls are the U-shaped tube in the center. Move the ball to the right side to recall the shuttle. Move it to the left to launch the shuttle. (It works a lot like your scout launcher.)

That’s really all you can do here now, but it’ll add information to your ship’s log.

Head to the Southern Observatory

From the base of the Gravity Cannon, follow the spiral ramp up until you reach the signpost for the Southern Observatory. We’re going to be a little more detailed here, because the path to the observatory is a little tricky, and more than a little frustrating.

Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive via Polygon

Switch the horizontal transportation beam on (move the switch up) and step inside. Just before the other end of the beam, two other beams branch off. Jetpack down into one of them — they both rejoin in a minute, so just pick one. We found it easiest to look down at our feet to make the timing easier. If you miss these beams, you’ll fall into the black hole and get warped to the White Hole Station.

Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive via Polygon

After the beams branch off, you’ll have to do some more jetpack platforming. Just keep moving the same way until you reach two more beams, shown in the image above. Ride either of those beam along, and jetpack yourself up into the final beam that leads into the ice.

Turn to the right to find some gravity crystals on the wall. Jump across, and then follow the gravity crystal path left and up. At the top of the wall, there are some crystals missing. Look up and jetpack across the gap. Keep following the path until you reach some trees.

Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive via Polygon

Your goal here is at the top of the tree-lined area. Look up to spot the bottom of an elevator beam. Use the various platforms to jetpack up to it, and ride it up.

Southern Observatory

Inside the observatory, turn left and grab the Giant’s Deep projection stone. Slot it into the wall-facing pedestal, and read the script to get a clue about an Orbital Probe Cannon at Giant’s Deep. Check the script between the two model cyclones to learn about the Construction Yard and Orbital Probe Cannon at Giant’s Deep.

Head up the stairs on the right. At the top, the cylinders control the observatory’s solar system model. Check the two walls of script to get more information about the Nomai, the Eye, and the Orbital Probe Cannon.

When you’re done, you can find a locked door on the bottom floor that leads outside. This is the door that stopped Riebeck. Open it to get back to the surface of the planet (depending on how long you’ve been exploring, there might not be much surface left).

What have we learned? // What’s next?

Exploring the Gravity Cannon and the Southern Observatory taught us about the Nomai’s plans for finding the Eye of the Universe. They built a Construction Yard on Giant’s Deep, and used the planet’s cyclones to build an Orbital Probe Cannon. We also now know that there are two kinds of cyclones on Giant’s Deep — the counterclockwise rotating cyclones will pull things down toward the planet’s core.

From here, you can explore the Orbital Probe Cannon at Giant’s Deep, or you can go to the Hourglass Twins to check on the rumors about Escape Pod 2, a quantum shard, the Fossil Fish Cave (and the anglerfish fossil inside), and the High Energy Lab you picked up in the Hanging City.

While the Hourglass Twins are tempting, it’s better to head to the Orbital Probe Cannon at Giant’s Deep first.