It’s been in my catalogue for a while now, finally got around to spending some time with it. The first Outer Worlds (Spacer’s Choice Edition) was quite impressive, and who doesn’t want a sci-fi RPG satire?

There are 4 important bits to understand about Outer Worlds 2.

1. This game is a direct response to Outer Worlds 1 but not a direct sequel. Mechanically it improves on the first one, and the story uses the same setting with different characters.
2. Obsidian somehow launched Outer Worlds 2, Avowed, and Grounded within 8 months of each other. This proved to be a marketing call, and certainly un-needed stress on the developer.
3. Outer Worlds 2 was launched at a very high price point (beyond AAA), and Microsoft was forced to reduce it after significant blow-back.
4. We won’t be getting Outer Worlds 3 as the game underperformed expectations, which is a consequence of items 2+3.

Setting

It’s hard to fully describe Outer Worlds as most of the game gets by on a set of vibes. Corporate satire vibes more specifically. And let’s be honest about that, satire is a difficult thing to do, where writing needs to be top notch and the audience needs to be in the right state of mind. The first game really did an awesome job of this, frankly dialing it up to 11. You’re essentially led by an insane (?) scientist who’s trying to revive an ark full of people. Clear goals, and the enemy is a bunch of corporate selfish a-holes. Clean.

The sequel, you’re chasing a rogue agent who opened rifts… that don’t seem to do anything other than simply kill you when you get too close. The characters you meet all seem to be ‘normal’ rather than the broken husks you’d expect. There’s lacking a complete set of ‘dumb’ decisions that are made for ideological reasons. NPCs are generally nice, except the obvious villains – there’s a distinct lack of pure corporate greed here, which is odd.

I was hoping for more from the companions. I realize not everyone can be a standout, but was certainly expecting more glaring character flaws to present themselves, certainly in the earlier moments of the game. When you finally get the lot of them going, there are some interesting threads to pull on. Except Niles. Maybe it’s a design choice to have 1 terrible companion in every game, which contrasts the better ones moreso. Mass Effect is a shining example of this.

Outer Worlds 1 felt like you were in a fun house, with a lot of pieces dialed up to 11. Here it plays more like a regular sci-fi game, which is tonally odd.

Mechanics

Skills are your standard fare. Perks are pretty much what you’d expect, with the largest benefits with 1 skill point invested – things like Pick Pocket. Flaws are wild that provide some modest benefit for game altering penalties. Kleptomania forces you to automatically steal everything your cursor touches, but you can sell it for 100% more. Stealing = the town will attack you, so this is likely a bad call. Taking every flaw wouldn’t make the game unplayable, simply hilariously complicated.

Melee feels ok, with attacks having some weight. They don’t do enough damage though, especially in a game with giant mechs and guns everywhere. Not sure why anyone would bring a hammer to a gun fight…

Ranged attacks feel much tighter than the first game, but there isn’t much variety here. It’s not space wizards, that’s for sure. Thankfully, you won’t spend the game reloading all the time, which is a huge improvement. In nearly all cases, this is a massive upgrade from the first game.

Sneak / stealth is better but still bad. It’s really quite simple, sneak attacks do not deal enough damage. You are funnelled through areas with multiple enemies, and if you don’t 1-hit kill, then all stealth breaks down and it’s 10vs1. The concepts are here, just not fully executed.

I like that the skill checks don’t include some mini-game, you either have the requirements or you don’t. This means that there’s a good chunk of content that won’t be available due to your skill selection. Absolutely none of it prevents story progress though, so that’s a smart thing. And as with many of these types of games, you will find many more of these ‘locked skill checks’ in the first few hours than the last. There are just enough points to feel like your character has well, character I guess, without being a master of everything. A rare game that strikes this level of balance.

There is something to be said about the Dumb flaw, and Speech skill. The absolute best writing is behind both of these options, and they are generally exclusive to each other. The downside to this is that Speech is too often relied upon as an ‘I WIN’ option, which makes it significantly overpowered compared to something like Engineering, or Medical. The net effect is a sort of ‘golden path’ that is very obviously the correct one, rather than the multiple options you’d expect.

Expectations

This is the crux of it, right? Outer Worlds 1 had a solid story, with mechanical flaws. Avowed had a simple but effective story and mechanically improved on quite a bit – you could clearly see the Outer Worlds framework in place. I really liked the idea of moves with cooldowns since it changed the pace of battle.

Outer Worlds 2 simply came out too soon after Avowed. The story needed to be stronger. The mechanics more varied. Had it waited another 6 months or more, it would have had time to fully apply the lessons from Avowed and potentially tweaked a few other internal systems. It’s still a good game, just not a AAA-ultra-priced game. It’s greatest flaw is that it doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and unfortunately was a poster for seemingly bad decisions by Microsoft gaming. Or, alternatively, had the game been priced at $40 instead of $80, this would have been an easier sell.

I didn’t expect to see an Outer Worlds 2, and so I’m not disappointed there won’t be a 3. Obsidian learned a lot of lessons here, and it’s still one of my favorite developers. There’s a ton of good here and getting it on sale is a very smart pickup. Now, if I can get more of Pillars of Eternity… then we’re talking!