Should I push through playing a critically acclaimed game when I'm not having fun?

Dear Mother,

I picked up Outer Wilds on Switch 2 and have put three or four hours into it, and legitimately enjoyed all of that time. I've begun to feel invested, wanting to know what happened and will happen in the world the creators made.

And I dread playing it and haven't touched it in a couple weeks.

Somehow, Outer Wilds manages to fall on the wrong line of all of my game preferences. The time mechanic feels stressful, and the puzzles combined with exploration makes it hard for me to know if I'm failing to solve puzzles because I missed discovering something or if I'm just too thick-headed to figure something out. I feel deep in my heart that if I had many hours of uninterrupted time to put into it, I could come out the other end to experience the game as others have, but that happens rarely and the longer it takes for me to get there the more my dread of playing it grows.

I've stopped playing many games that weren't for me. But I think this one is particularly challenging because not only is it held in high esteem by people whose taste I trust, but also because I legitimately like so, so many things about it — which hasn't generally been true of games I've dropped.

So, Mother, how do I either:

1. Push through to get past the challenging bits and find ways to enjoy what's there more and finish this out, or

2. Make peace with this game not being for me, despite all the things that I legitimately admire and enjoy about it?

[Editor's note: This letter has been condensed for brevity.]

Outer Wilds is one of those games that has become a critical darling in video game criticism spaces, and deservedly so. It's on Mothership's own list of games that will change your perspective on life, and we're far from the only ones to describe the game that way. But something to know about Outer Wilds is that it can be very frustrating to play (plus, I had to employ all of my best motion sickness tips while playing it). The mythos that has been built up around the game has not really accounted for how difficult it is to play.