The key thing to the game is it's a metroidvania, but your upgrades are knowledge. If you don't know how to do something, look somewhere else for more information.

Also, don't just land on a planet and wander around. You're wasting your time. Fly around them and look for something interesting and land there. Most of the time it'll lead to you learning something new. If it doesn't, try again next time.

The game starts slow, because you don't know what's going on. It ramps up pretty quickly though. You just need a few points of interest first. Literally just go anywhere and find a structure or something and start exploring. Everything is incredibly intentional. There's almost nothing to gain where it doesn't look like there's something, so go where there's a structure or something that looks intentional.

The thing about outer wilds is that you can explore it in any order you want.

The only thing stopping you from doing certain things is just the knowledge. There's no "you have to beat this boss so that part of the map opens". If you know how to do it, you can do it.

If you find a part challenging, you can go explore another place, it may give you information that would help you in the part you couldn't explore before.