The Outer Worlds 2 is Obsidian making an attempt to rediscover the role-playing magic that when outlined it as a juggernaut inside the style.
And in numerous methods, this larger, and usually higher sequel accomplishes its targets. In comparison with The Outer Worlds — and certainly, in comparison with many different trendy RPGs — the sport offers participant alternative and consequence in abundance, typically to a formidable extent.
Between constructing your personal character, allying with varied factions, and attending to form the views of your occasion members, The Outer Worlds 2 has loads going for it on a mechanical stage. And by the top of its 50-hour marketing campaign, you may come to understand how key selections start to stack on high of each other.
Everybody’s going to play this recreation a bit in a different way. Talent checks are rampant all through, locking off dialogue choices or object interactions except you have chosen to put money into sure specialisations.
After which your character’s morality is layered over that; you definitely do not must play the hero, resulting in a great deal of moments the place you at the least think about resorting to unfettered violence with a view to fulfill your aims.
Quests all the time really feel like they’re branching, and conversations are all the time throwing curveballs that’ll tempt you into responses that you could have beforehand ignored. What we’re saying is that The Outer Worlds 2 is, at its finest, a very partaking RPG — and most of the time, it’s going to actually make you concentrate on your subsequent transfer.
There’s an issue, nonetheless, and it is one which’s sadly baked into the sequence’ identification.
The Outer Worlds’ sci-fi setting is dystopian, however comically so. Minimize off from Earth, colonies are both dominated over by blatantly evil firms or morally questionable, cult-like organisations. On this recreation’s photo voltaic system of Arcadia, there is a conflict occurring between two such entities.
Each the hyper-capitalist Auntie’s Alternative and the mathematically obsessed The Order have clear flaws when it comes to beliefs and societal construction — and that ought to make them fascinating to discover from a participant perspective. There aren’t any objectively good and dangerous decisions right here.
However The Outer Worlds’ world constructing is so heavy on over-the-top parody that the title’s ironic tone can undermine the emotion that it is making an attempt to convey. This sequel does not essentially wish to be a critical RPG that offers with critical points, nevertheless it’s nonetheless troublesome to really care in regards to the recreation’s factions after they’re all so sardonic.
And this criticism extends to the individuals who inhabit mentioned factions. Outdoors of some key figures, we would battle to call any characters who make a long-lasting impression; so lots of them are simply extensions of their faction’s viewpoint, providing little motive to care about them as people, or the mess that they normally discover themselves in.
Because of this, interacting with the overwhelming majority of characters in The Outer Worlds 2 is only a bit… uninteresting. That is an clever, nicely written, and generally genuinely humorous recreation — as you’d anticipate of Obsidian — however there is a irritating lack of character past the surface-level satire.
Sadly, your occasion members endure the identical destiny. Enjoying as a totally customisable lead recognized merely because the Commander, your high secret mission goes horribly fallacious within the recreation’s prologue, and also you spend the remainder of the journey making an attempt to place issues proper.
As you progress, you may recruit numerous ragtag allies to your system-saving trigger. And we use the phrase ‘can’ for a motive; you do not have to recruit anybody, and it is even attainable to simply utterly miss a possible occasion member based mostly in your actions.
Anyway, these allies — or attainable companions in crime — are disappointingly hit or miss. Some have satisfying quirks however they’re by no means fairly fleshed out sufficient, whereas others fall into the identical lure as many of the recreation’s NPCs. That’s to say, they find yourself being little greater than a one-note mouthpiece for his or her faction’s beliefs.
However to be truthful, occasion member-specific quests do allow you to discover — and in some circumstances alter — the mindset of your companions. Once more, it is the role-playing features that carry this a part of the sport; you is probably not completely endeared to those characters, however having the ability to have a noticeable affect on their growth provides welcome spice to every relationship.
Past the seemingly infinite move of dialogue choices, The Outer Worlds 2 is a a lot larger launch than its predecessor. The sport is constructed round a handful of colonised planets, every of them boasting their very own totally explorable map.
These environments are smaller than your typical open worlds, however they are open. You are largely free to choose a route and wander, and that is a superb factor when there are many aspect quests and hidden secrets and techniques to uncover. Exploration might be one of many sequel’s biggest areas of enchancment; it is good to simply get out and about after having sat by means of god-knows what number of conversations with the locals.
Fight performs a key half on this as nicely, with the Commander and firm having to place down all method of extraterrestrial beasties as they trek from place to position. And that is one other core a part of the expertise that is a lot improved, because of snappier gunplay and a far more full melee weapon system.
Particularly, firearms have a satisfying kick to them now, and enemies of all styles and sizes react higher to the incoming harm. It is not good — there are nonetheless occasions when the motion feels a bit of weightless — however usually talking, Obsidian’s finished nicely to take issues up a notch. There are even some cool boss fights to stay up for.
There’s numerous variation in the way you’re capable of method battles as nicely. The introduction of ‘Devices’, that are unlocked by means of sure quests, basically act as cooldown-based talents. One slows time, one other grants you a harm protect, and there is a nifty machine that permits you to see foes by means of partitions.
They do not revolutionise the gameplay loop, however the Devices lend a contact of character to The Outer Worlds’ model of motion. Couple them with a set of wacky weapons — like acid-firing shotguns and a roulette-powered conflict hammer — and it is apparent that the sport needs you to have fun as you trigger wanton destruction.
It is a disgrace, then, that your allies can nonetheless be such an pointless burden. As was the case within the first recreation, occasion member AI might be braindead, both refusing to enter cowl, or persistently performing suicide runs into the center of enemy territory.
On the traditional issue, your teammates get knocked out quick for those who’re not furiously backing them up. The Outer Worlds 2 likes pitting you in opposition to waves of opponents — particularly throughout important story eventualities — and it may possibly get to some extent the place your companions change into a legal responsibility.
It is not a game-breaking difficulty due to how competent your Commander is — you can begin cobbling collectively some outrageously efficient builds as soon as you are a handful of hours in — nevertheless it’s completely the sort of factor that you simply’d anticipate the developer to tweak through post-launch updates.
For probably the most half, The Outer Worlds 2 appears technically strong, however we did come across numerous annoying UI-related bugs, and a few quests broke on us, forcing us to load up an older save. Minor issues within the grand scheme of issues, however they do add up.
As for graphics, you are taking a look at your customary High quality or Efficiency modes on PS5. The previous’s capped at 30 frames-per-second, which is rarely ideally suited in a recreation with this a lot fight, however the latter’s most popular 60 frames-per-second comes on the expense of lowered environmental element.
Little issues like grass animations are in the reduction of or eliminated when taking part in on Efficiency, and it may be distracting. Pop-in turns into extra widespread as nicely, and so whereas it is the higher graphical possibility, it is not precisely ideally suited.
And talking of visuals, The Outer Worlds 2 is unquestionably higher wanting than the primary recreation, however NPCs nonetheless have that clay-like visage, and the facial animations stay pretty fundamental. There are some good skyboxes to behold right here, and every planet’s bought its personal distinctive look, however up shut, it is all a bit last-gen.
