2362. The outer colony systems have mysteriously been cut off from Earth. An Earth Directorate investigation team is dispatched to the Arcadia system to investigate possible causes for the disruption to communications, only to face unexpected resistance and betrayal. A single agent is recovered from cryosleep ten years later and learns that the system is threatened by huge dimensional rifts of unknown origin. The agent must help save Arcadia from the rifts and navigate the complex political machinations between three factions and various local concerns.
Released back in 2019, The Outer Worlds was a totally fine roleplaying game. It saw the player explore the Halcyon star system, navigating local factional squabbles and ultimately help rescue (or destroy) the helpless frozen crew of a colony vessel. Though enjoyable, it was somewhat shorter than players have come to expect in the modern era, and perhaps fell short of the more complex writing and characterisation people expect from Obsidian Entertainment, the studio behind knotty RPGs like Alpha Protocol, Pillars of Eternity, Neverwinter Nights II: Mask of the Betrayer, Tyranny and Fallout: New Vegas.
The Outer Worlds was developed relatively quickly and on a low budget, before Obsidian's acquisition by Microsoft. The Outer Worlds 2 has a much larger budget and took twice as long to develop, with a larger scale and scope. There were also creative team changes, with RPG legend Tim Cain (creator of the Fallout franchise and the various classic games at Troika) who co-led the first game retiring but staying on to advise.
The question is here is if they could make something more impressive. Both The Outer Worlds and its effective fantasy successor, Avowed (released earlier this year), were fine RPGs which were enjoyable to play with some solid characters and storylines, but with a limited scope and risked being a bit too forgettable. The answer is, fortunately, yes. The Outer Worlds 2 is a significant improvement over both games and is easily Obsidian's best recent AA-level RPG so far. People hoping that they'd rediscover their writing mojo from New Vegas or Pillars of Eternity may be somewhat disappointed as they don't get back to that level, but definitely of their recent 3D RPGs, this is the strongest.
The game can be played from either first or second person (or flipping between them), with the player creating their character from scratch. They can decide how to approach combat (direct engagement, stealth, engineering to hack robots and turrets etc), puzzle-solving (through engineering skills, hacking or science) and dialogue (through speech, a threatening demeanour etc). It's important in Outer Worlds 2 to pick a lane and stick to it as, unlike its forebear, there's no way to respec once you're in the game itself. However, you can respec once at the end of the prologue mission, which gives you a taste of the game and how you're likely to play it.
The prologue is a nice taster for the game itself, giving you options on how to infiltrate a facility and two different routes; you can't take both, so immediately you have an alternate choice for a replay. The prologue has some obstacles that can be solved by talking to people (talking a nervous bureaucrat into helping you out in return for eliminating some problems from his service record) or just killing everyone in sight.
Once the prologue is resolved, the game sets you down on the planet Eden and you have to get to work investigating the mystery of the rifts. You'll soon find the Arcadia system is divided between three factions: the authoritarian Protectorate, the science-minded Order of the Ascendant and the hyper-capitalistic megacorporation Auntie's Choice. The Protectorate is mostly presented as antagonists and will usually fire on you on sight, but representatives from the other two factions can be more nuanced, and you can deal with them through negotiation or combat. You also gain NPC companions from these factions who will join you on your ship, and navigating the personal relationships between these companions can give you clues on how to handle the wider political relationships between the factions. You can side with one faction over the others or try to negotiate peace between them, which is more difficult but also generates a ton more missions, so that feels like the optimal choice.
The game is set over four planets: Eden, Dorado, Cloister and Praetor, along with several space stations, an asteroid settlement and several spacecraft. The four planets are each surprisingly large, with a sprawling map. You are guided around the map by quests, but you can also just break off to explore (there are various locations on each planet that no quest will take you to, and will generate quests or rewards by striking out on your own). This is the first notable difference from original game, where the maps were smaller and there was less to do outside the scope of the quests, not to mention that the first two planets were reasonable in size but the latter ones were tiny with only a few quests apiece. There is immediately more to do here, spread over a larger area, with more choice in where to go. Exploration is more of an option here than it was in the prior title.
The writing and pacing are also stronger, and the game's intro immediately grabs your attention in a way the first game didn't. There's bigger and more epic set pieces, and more changes to the story based on your choices. Combat is improved, with more variations in approaches to battles. I chose to switch between a high-powered sniper rifle for ranged engagements and an explosive-shell-firing shotgun for close-up encounters, and these got me through most of the game with moderate skill improvements. Combat is chunkier and more satisfying than the first game, with body parts flying and a wider array of loot.
The game also tries something new for an RPG: there are no weight limits or encumbrance, the designers finally giving up since people now expect a "send to camp" or "send to spaceship" button, so why even worry about encumbrance in the first place? Similarly there is no stamina bar, allowing you to run around effectively forever. Removing that limitation has zero negative impact on gameplay, and allows you to focus on having fun.
But the game does imposer limitations elsewhere. Like its forebear, the skill points are dished out somewhat miserly (2 per level, with a 30-level cap) and the game does not reward jacks-of-all-trades. You really need to focus in on 5-6 skills, spreading things out further will just leave you underskilled to really do anything. I ran a Speech, Lockpick and combat-heavy build and that allowed me to get through the game one way, but a Hacking, Engineering and Science-heavy build would give you a different-feeling result. With no respec possible after the prologue, the game does force you to think carefully about your character build, unlike other recent RPGs that basically allow you to respec at will to overcome every problem in the game. Outer Worlds 2 requires more careful thought there.
Your companion characters are fine, being a likeable lot with their own, fairly involved quest chains. Even psychotic killer Aza ends up being a valuable team member, despite her unrelenting preference to just murder everything in sight. None of the companions are going rank amongst Obsidian's best, but they're mostly a step-up from The Outer Worlds'.
If the game has a key weakness it's probably that, after the impressive prologue, the game suddenly feels a bit underwhelming. The first planet is a bit RPG-by-the-numbers and very similar to the first game. Choices are mostly limited in scale and consequence (one Fallout 3 Megaton-ish exception aside) and shooting all the bad guys will get you through the game. Those expecting a better experience than the first Outer Worlds may feel distinctly let down by the opening to this game. But around 10 hours in (about a quarter of the way through the game), the game suddenly bursts into life: the story kicks up a gear and becomes more interesting, the scale of events becomes much larger and the level of your freedom to make choices and the variation in the consequences of those decisions both improve immensely. The game catches fire and doesn't let up to the finale, taking in some impressive level design, combat encounters, exploration and even semi-immersive sim moments along the way.
The Outer Worlds 2 (****) has a slow start but then bursts into life. It's a stronger game than its forebear, with more interesting locations, a better story, more convincing characters and more in-depth worldbuilding. It plays some interesting trade-offs, getting rid of tedious things like encumbrance and fatigue and instead forcing you make harder choices about your character build. It's a longer game than its predecessor, but not so much as to become tedious. It's still not Obsidian at their best, but it's a solid, enjoyable RPG experience even if it's not going to be troubling any best game of the year lists.
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